Yquotes.com

 

In response to the plummeting popularity of the Administration itself, revealed at Newbury and in the shire county elections, we have the Prime Minister's botched reshuffle. If we were to offer that tale of events to the BBC light entertainment department as a script for a programme, I think that the producers of "Yes, Minister" would have turned it down as hopelessly over the top. It might have even been too much for "Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'em". The tragedy for us all is that it is really happening—it is fact, not fiction. The man with the non-Midas touch is in charge. It is no wonder that we live in a country where the Grand National does not start and hotels fall into the sea.
--
Hansard, House of Commons, 6th series, vol. 226, col. 292.
--
House of Commons speech, June 9, 1993. That year's Grand National horse race had been declared void after a start-line mishap. The Holbeck Hall Hotel in Scarborough began to fall into the sea on June 3, 1993 due to coastal erosion.

 

John Smith (Labour Party leader)

» John Smith (Labour Party leader) - all quotes »

Similar quotes

 

"It does not say much about the credibility of the Prime Minister for him to be saying publicly that the Christian churches support the bill after these deliberate acts of deception." (In response to Mataca's claim that Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase had misled a delegation of church leaders as to the true contents of the government's Reconciliation and Unity Bill, which Mataca and Ganilau both oppose).

 

Ratu Epeli Ganilau

 

In the Prime Minister, we have a man who has forfeited the right to be believed or to be trusted. In more than 20 years in politics, he has betrayed every cause he believed in, contradicted every statement he has made, broken every promise he has given and breached every agreement that he has entered into. In 1982, the Prime Minister said that we would negotiate a withdrawal from the EEC. In 1994, he said: "Under my leadership, I will never allow this country to be isolated." In 1996, he said that he had made it clear that if it is in Britain's interest to be isolated then we will be isolated.There is a lifetime of U-turns, errors and sell-outs. All those hon. Members who sit behind the Prime Minister and wonder whether they stand for anything any longer, or whether they defend any point of principle, know who has led them to that sorry state. In one of his frequent meetings with the former leader of the Liberal party, whom he so much preferred to meeting his own Cabinet, the Prime Minister told us as it is. He said that he had taken from his party everything they thought they believed in and had stripped them of their core beliefs and that what kept them together was power.

 

William Hague

 

"We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq," Ma'ariv quoted the former prime minister as saying. He reportedly added that these events "swung American public opinion in our favor."

 

Benjamin Netanyahu

 

Being popular can become narcotic. We can come to crave it and to need the frequent "fixes" brought by the world’s praise and caresses of recognition. A turned head bows much less easily.
Popularity is dangerous especially because it focuses us on ourselves rather than keeping us attentive to the needs of others. We become preoccupied with self and with being noticed, letting those in real need "pass by" us, and we "notice them not" (Morm. 8:39). It is a sad fact, therefore, that popularity gets in the way of our keeping both of the two great commandments!" (See Matt. 22:36–40.)

 

Neal A. Maxwell

 

To a journalist who asked: "Prime Minister, can we go back to Ruatoria for a moment?": "Certainly, goodbye."

 

David Lange