Gordon Brown

Politician

1951-02-20

Quotes by Gordon Brown

• Why is playing football in Europe considered the pinnacle of our game, yet in other spheres of life, that same phrase - 'being in Europe' - is dismissed with suspicion?

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• Britain should be the world's number one center for genetic and stem cell research, building on our world leading regulatory regime in the area.

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• The motto of the old order in the City of London was, 'My word is my bond,' but the financial crisis revealed a culture quite alien to that heritage. The stewards of people's money were revealed to have been speculators with it.

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• A woman said to me, 'You're better than your successor.' She then said she's lived under 10 prime ministers, and each was worse than the last. That put me in my place.

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• I'm a great supporter of the European Union. I didn't support entry to the Euro, not because I'm against it in principle but because I didn't think it was economically right for Britain. But that doesn't make me any less pro-European.

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• Our common realm is not and cannot be stripped of values - I absolutely reject the idea that religion should somehow be tolerated but not encouraged in public life.

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• The best way of realising our high ideals is to show that we have an alternative in government that is credible, that is radical, and is electable - is neither a pale imitation of what the Tories offer nor is it the route to being a party of permanent protest rather than a party of government.

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• It is thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism, people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war are part of Europe's history and not Europe's present.

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• Globalisation feels like a runaway train, out of control.

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• Almost certainly, my ancestors had travelled by sea from Sweden to England in search of prosperity, and the evidence suggests they left Sweden around the ninth or 10th centuries.

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• What is happened in the years since the Second World War is not a temporary truce. It is not simply a ceasefire. Instead of battling with weapons and armaments, people battle only with arguments and ideas.

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• The British economy of the future must be built not on the shifting sands of boom and bust, but on the bedrock of prudent and wise economic management for the long term. It is only these firm foundations that we can raise Britain's underlying economic performance.

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• I have to say that if our global alliances are going to be alliances with Hezbollah and Hamas and Hugo Chavez's Venezuela and Vladimir Putin's Russia, there is absolutely no chance of building a world-wide alliance that can deal with poverty and inequality and climate change and financial instability, and we've got to face up to that fact.

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• In a global marketplace with its increased insecurities and - indeed often - volatility and instability, national economic stability is at a premium, the precondition for all we can achieve, and no nation can secure the high levels of sustainable investment it needs without both monetary and fiscal stability together.

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• If our economies are to flourish, if global poverty is to be banished, and if the wellbeing of the world's people enhanced - not just in this generation but in succeeding generations - we must make sure we take care of the natural environment and resources on which our economic activity depends.

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• I once wrote a book on courage and what made people courageous. I found it was a strength of belief matched by a strength of willpower.

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