Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
My ambition is to learn to play the trombone. My wife pulls my leg about it. I'll find time, my neighbours might not appreciate it but I'm going to try.
If the government is injecting public money, it should also take the right to oversee board appointments, executive pay, and future business operations.
There are some lines in the sand you just do not cross. Undermining basic civil liberties by locking people up for long periods without charge is one of them.
We want to be absolutely clear to the people what we are about. No backroom deals whatsoever and we're not going to be held back by any other political parties.
The worry in Labour circles is that, when pressed, Gordon Brown instinctively moved to cut the benefits of the poor rather than upset businesses and the wealthy.
If corporations and rich people who made fortunes out of us during the boom are not paying their fair share then reform the tax system and close down the tax havens.
Conservatives claim they are 'one nation' Tories when they have actually been a government for the 1% who have undermined our economic interests through their greed.
We need an NHS with fewer managers, fewer contractors and more power (rather than choice) to patients - with the input of the real experts: healthcare professionals.
I have a political philosophy by which I judge political events. It's called socialism, which at its core is about achieving equality, justice and peace through democracy.
When I was a GLC councillor, we won and held London as Labour was imploding nationally - running popular campaigns against the Thatcher Government and fighting on our own agenda.
In 1985, as a community activist and GLC councillor, I organised the first ever public meeting to explain the threat of a third runway at Heathrow airport for my local community.
When you talk to people about their practical life, for example when they're at work, like the rail industry, the RMT members know better than anyone else how to run their industry.
If we are to depression-proof our economy we may need to pay more attention to the radical ideas and policies of those who witnessed the misery inflicted on so many during the 1930s.
From nuclear waste to Northern Rock and Metronet, risk is never transferred to the private sector - the state will always be forced to step in where there is a clear public interest.
I would like Leveson Part Two. I think Leveson was a good exercise. That is why the Tories blocked it, because it was beginning to develop more accountability within the media itself.
To be effective in tackling poverty wages, a living wage has to be mandatory and basic trade union rights should be restored so workers can protect themselves from exploitative employers.
If bitter party name-calling turns people off then smear politics just destroys all credibility in the aims of politicians, the role of political parties and the political process itself.
The interests of big corporations have so permeated government that its major decisions are indistinguishable from the boardroom demands of the leading companies in each commercial sector.
If we need more demand in the economy then protect people in work and raise the incomes of those on low incomes who need to spend, such as the low paid, pensioners and families with children.
It was inevitable and understandable that the election of Jeremy Corbyn would be a massive culture shock for some sections of the party, especially some members of the parliamentary Labour party.
I do not want to be associated with those that are willing to support undermining the basic human rights that socialists have fought and sacrificed themselves to secure and protect over generations.
When I left school I went onto the shop floor, working 12-hour shifts in a TV factory. My workmates were sharp, skilled and all capable of enjoying higher education - but they didn't have that opportunity.
When governments fail us, what else can people do except take to direct action? When corporate power can so dominate government policy-making that whole communities are placed at risk, where else can people turn?
Governments usually end not with a bang but with a whimper, as the Conservatives learned in the 1990s. Support and authority erodes over time until there is a final collapse of support and pivotal electoral shift.
I think that I was the first MP to call for the nationalisation of Northern Rock, although that is hardly surprising because I have been calling for the nationalisation of the financial sector for 30 years or more.
It may sound corny in a cynical age but literally generations of our people have given much of their lives to establishing and cherishing the Labour party because they believed what the party told them when they joined.
The spread of information technology and the long-term decline in the cost of computing power have created opportunities that simply did not exist before. Airbnb, for example, could not have existed before the Internet.
I made the case for public ownership in 'Another World is Possible' - a manifesto for 21st-century socialism - as it is the most rational approach for managing resources in the long-term interest of the entire community.
I sneaked into an Everton match once. I'm a Liverpool supporter, but Liverpool were away, Liverpool reserves weren't playing, there wasn't even a youth match, so I took my son into an Everton match. God help me. It wasn't me.
Since John Smith's death and the Blair/Brown takeover in 1994, party members have watched the way in which an elite leadership group has formed in the Labour party, cutting itself off from the party's traditions, values and norms of behaviour.
New Labour has systematically alienated section after section of our natural supporters - teachers, health workers, students, pensioners, public service workers, trade unionists and people committed to the environment, civil liberties and peace.
Many argue that graduates earn a 'premium' because of their education, and should have to pay their way. I agree, and that's why I've always advocated a progressive taxation system - so if people do receive large salaries, they pay more income tax.
The New Labour political elite has long conspired to secure a so-called 'smooth transition' for Blair's successor. This would amount to little more than the imposition of a leader on the party and our supporters without any real democratic participation.
Out of the suffering of the 1930s, Britain built a civilising society, based in large part on the important lesson that unemployment is rarely the fault of individual malingering but the structural consequence of governments allowing the free market to rule our lives.
I saw the Blair-Mandelson regime as a coup, and I think it was a well-funded coup as well - resources obviously came from big private-sector backers. But all through that period the bulk of the rank and file party were what the party has always been, a socialist party.
People realise that if Labour is to fulfil its founding goal of transforming our economic and political system into a more equal, free and truly democratic society, which provides security and life-changing opportunities to the British people, then there is no going back.
Leaders play an important role, but it is the Labour party's supporters and potential supporters who should take the lead in discussing and determining the sense of purpose and direction of the party if we are to return to being a social movement aiming to transform our society.
Nationally, unrestrained Heathrow expansion has prevented the balanced development of regional airports and their economies and the planning of an integrated transport system maximising more environmentally friendly modes of transport such as rail linked more effectively to Europe.
The decision over Heathrow expansion exemplifies the style of policy-making that starts with capitulation to a powerful self-interested lobby, blatantly fixes a public consultation and then drives through a policy that destroys any vestiges of green credentials the government had left.
There'll be creative business leaders but actually, when it comes down to it, they can't do anything unless they're part of a collective. Unless they've got that wealth creator, that engineer and that work person, that skilled person at the bench to fulfil that idea... they're nothing.
Our supporters just want a Labour government. They want a Labour government that does what Labour governments are expected to do. They expect a Labour government to provide them, their families and their communities with the support and security they need, especially in difficult times.
The illegal 2003 invasion had little to do with liberating Iraqis from Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. Instead, the real freedoms and benefits were destined to go to corporations like Halliburton and others that stood to gain from the privatisation of the formerly state-owned Iraqi economy.
When you're in the depths of a recession, that isn't the time when people want to challenge the system, they're too busy trying to survive. It's when they're told we're coming out of a recession, growth is returning, and they're not seeing the benefits of it, or they're not seeing them quick enough.
Politicians have patronised and talked down to us all when it comes to our economy, but ordinary working people have to manage on incomes significantly lower than the likes of George Osborne and his friends in the City. They could teach the bankers and many commentators a thing or two about managing a budget responsibly.
Heathrow is in my constituency and I have been at both the Terminal 4 and Terminal 5 planning inquiries. At these inquiries my community has been assured by the inquiry inspectors, BAA and government ministers that each development would be the last piece of expansion of the airport because of its ever-increasing noise and air pollution.