£692 billion: now there are seven big budgets which make up more than three-quarters of all government spending ... Transport, Law & Order, Defence, Debt Interest, Education, Health, Social Security. ibid.
Politicians find it very hard to cut back on spending on the elderly ... Politicians are much more scared of their grannies. ibid.
But now he’s in government David Cameron has in the last few weeks approved the closure of A&E and maternity units not just at King George’s but at another London hospital. ibid.
Then there are all those extra little things that are nice to have: like money for culture or the arts. ibid.
Arts spending for the whole of England is $447 million. ibid.
Welcome to the fire control centre for the north-east of England ... The technology didn’t work; the building behind me is empty at a cost to you of $97,000 a month for the next 24 years. And there are eight others like it around the country. ibid.
They keep spending money they haven’t really got ... Today’s deficit is a whopper. ibid.
What looked like a downturn became a crash. ibid.
By the time of the last General Election Britain had the biggest deficit since the war: £160 billion. ibid.
Why if you live in some parts of Britain do you get more spent on you than other parts? ibid.
Infrastructure may be important but it doesn’t have a vote. ibid.
There’s nothing that politicians fear more than telling us our taxes are going up. ibid.
We put pressure on the Chancellor to spend more and more, and then we’re incredibly resistant to more tax to pay for it. Nick Robinson, Your Money and How They Spend It II
Taxes are for the very rich effectively voluntary. ibid.
We’re living way beyond our means. ibid.
By the end of the seventies a new Tory government came to office promising lower income tax for all. The basic rate was cut to 30%, the top rate to 60%. ibid.
Gordon Brown had scrapped the lower level of income tax – the 10p band. ibid.
Tax and national insurance – they pay for exactly the same things. ibid.
We never seem to think we’re getting a bargain. ibid.
Takeaways used to be tax-free until back in 1984 the then Tory government decided to extend VAT to cover them. ibid.
A symbiosis of interest between the politicians and the big financiers. Michael Meacher
The hierarchy of everything in my life has always bothered me. I’m bothered by power. People, whoever they might be, whether it’s the government, or the policeman in the uniform, or the man on the door – they still irk me a bit. From school, from the first nun that belted me – people used to think of the nice sweet little ladies ... they used to knock the fuck out of you, in the most cruel way that they could. They’d find bits of your body that were vulnerable to intense pain – grabbing you by the ear, or by the nose, and lift you, and say, ‘Don’t cry!’ It’s very hard not to cry. I mean, not from emotion, but pain. The priests were the same. And I sit and watch politicians with great cynicism, total cynicism. Dave Allen
‘The top 1% that control 90% of the wealth have two major political parties doing their bidding for them. And the other 99% have no political party on the ballot representing them.’ Michael Moore, cited Orwell Rolls in His Grave, 2003
In our age there is no such thing as keeping out of politics. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia. George Orwell
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. George Orwell, Shooting an Elephant
Political language – and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists – is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. George Orwell, Politics and the English Language
Political chaos is connected with the decay of language ... one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end. George Orwell
'We know what to do with someone caught misappropriating funds, but when confronted with evidence of a systematic attempt to undermine the political system itself, we recoil in a general failure of imagination and nerve.’ Gary Sick, author The October Surprise
Good evening, the sudden death of Labour Leader John Smith [1938-1994] from a massive heart attack stunned Westminster and the nation today. ITV News at Ten report
An honest politician has no goodies to toss around. This limits his effectiveness profoundly, because political power in India is dispersed throughout a multi-tiered federal structure; a local official who has not been paid off can sometimes stop a billion-dollar project. Aravid Adiga
When I was growing up in the south Indian city of Madras, there were only two political parties that mattered; one was run by a former matinee idol, and the other was run by his former screenwriter. Aravind Adiga
Indians mock their corrupt politicians relentlessly, but they regard their honest politicians with silent suspicion. The first thing they do when they hear of a supposedly ‘clean’ politician is to grin. It is a cliché that honest politicians in India tend to have dishonest sons, who collect money from people seeking an audience with Dad. Aravind Adiga
The Great Socialist was as corrupt as ever. The fighting between the Naxal terrorists and the landlords were getting bloodier. Small people like us were getting caught in between. There were private armies on each side, going around to shoot and torture people suspected of sympathising with the other. Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger p84
If you continue to play the game and vote for Conservatives, Lib Dems and Labour, this country is going to continue to slide to slavery. Brian Gerrish, lecture British Constitution Group 2009, ‘The State of the Nation’
He had grown up in a country run by politicians who sent the pilots to man the bombers to kill the babies to make the world safer for children to grow up in. Ursula K Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven, 1971
Politics are now nothing more than means of rising in the world. Samuel Johnson
Most schemes of political improvement are very laughable things. Samuel Johnson
You don’t mind dying for Queen and country, but you certainly don’t want to die for politicians. Julian Thompson
The final aim of politics is war. Adolf Hitler
The task of politics must be to overcome these divisions for a greater good. Adolf Hitler
A week is a long time in politics. Harold Wilson
Did you ever
notice that when
a politician
does get an idea
he usually
gets it all wrong. Don Marquis, Archys Life of Mehitabel, 1933
When you have political violence – the youth fighting against the youth for the politicians – then I really feel sick. See, I find none of them really do anything good for the people. It’s divide and rule. Bob Marley
There is an invisible hand in politics that operates to the opposite direction to the invisible hand in the market. In politics, individuals who seek to promote only the public good are led by an invisible hand to promote special interests that it was no part of their intention to promote. Milton Friedman
It is just a political maxim, that every man must be supposed a knave. David Hume, Treatise Upon Human Nature, 1739
Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable. J K Galbraith, speech 2nd March 1962