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Michael Foot: Zitate auf Englisch

“No rising hope on the political scene who offered his services to Labour when I happened to be its leader can be dismissed as an opportunist.”

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Michael Foot

On Tony Blair, 1995
1990s

“[There are] judges who stretch the law…to suit reactionary attitudes.”

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Michael Foot

On ITV's People and Politics (9 May 1974)
1970s

“The right hon. Member for Heseltine—[Laughter. ]—well, that is what he is; he sticks to that principle more than he does to Henley.”

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Michael Foot

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1991/mar/26/community-charges-general-reduction-bill in the House of Commons (26 March 1991), referring to Michael Heseltine. MPs are referred to in the House by the constituency they represent rather than by their name, so Mr Heseltine would be "Rt. Hon. Member for Henley". Whether by accident or intent, Foot mixed this up in a way which clearly amused other MPs.
1990s

“Is the Labour Party to remain a democratic party in which the right of free criticism and free debate is not merely tolerated but encouraged? Or are the rank and file of the party to be bludgeoned or cowed into an uncritical subservience towards the leadership?”

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Michael Foot

Tribune, 1954.
1950s

“Think of it! A second Chamber selected by the Whips. A seraglio of eunuchs.”

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Michael Foot

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1969/feb/03/parliament-no-2-bill in the House of Commons (3 February 1969)
1960s

“We are paramountly concerned, like, I am sure, the bulk of the House—I am sure that the country is also concerned—about what we can do to protect those who rightly and naturally look to us for protection. So far, they have been betrayed. The responsibility for the betrayal rests with the Government. The Government must now prove by deeds—they will never be able to do it by words—that they are not responsible for the betrayal and cannot be faced with that charge. That is the charge, I believe, that lies against them. Even though the position and the circumstances of the people who live in the Falkland Islands are uppermost in our minds—it would be outrageous if that were not the case—there is the longer-term interest to ensure that foul and brutal aggression does not succeed in our world. If it does, there will be a danger not merely to the Falkland Islands, but to people all over this dangerous planet.”

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Michael Foot

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1982/apr/03/falkland-islands in the House of Commons (3 April 1982) after Argentina's invasion of the Falkland Islands.
1980s

“Men of power have not time to read; yet men who do not read are unfit for power”

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Michael Foot

On Benjamin Disraeli, in his own book, 'Debts of Honour
1980s

“It is all the more necessary that we should prevent an extension of the powers of the European Assembly, however it may be elected. I have been opposed to the extension of those powers, and I remain so. … We must preserve every precious part of the power that we retain in the House.”

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Michael Foot

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1986/jun/26/extended-meaning-of-the-treaties-and-the#S6CV0100P0_19860626_HOC_324 in the House of Commons (26 June 1986) against the Single European Act
1980s

“I am asking this movement to exert itself as it has never done before, to show the qualities which we have, the socialist imagination that exists in our movement, the readiness to reforge the alliance, stronger than ever, between the government and the trade unions, and above all to show the supreme quality in politics, the red flame of socialist courage.”

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Michael Foot

Quelle: Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Blackpool (29 September 1975), quoted in Kenneth O. Morgan, Michael Foot (Harper Perennial, 2008), p. 319

“In the Labour movement they said they would have no truck with coalition, but if Britain stayed in the EEC then for decades to come they would be enmeshed in various forms of coalition government than ever before. That was the most important issue of all. If in Britain the people did not like a government they could vote it out of office, but they had no similar recourse in the case of the institutions of the EEC, which had supreme powers and which were undemocratic.”

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Michael Foot

Speech to the Labour Party conference on Britain's membership of the EEC (26 April 1975), quoted in The Times (28 April 1975), p. 4
1970s

“The issue of sovereignty…was always intertwined with the issue of democracy. Many of us held that it was not only unwise but wanton for British MPs to surrender a part of our democracy to institutions which were so grotesquely undemocratic.”

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Michael Foot

Letter to The Times (4 January 1973), p. 13, regarding Britain's membership of the EEC
1970s

“I have respect for the history of this House. There is nothing reprehensible in people recalling that some of the liberties of the people of this country enshrined in this House go back not merely to the conflicts of the seventeenth century, which will certainly apply to many of the matters with which we have to deal—the power over taxation which resides, or is still to reside, in this House—but to the controversies which prevailed in the House of Commons during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. If people say to me that all these are remote, old-fashioned ideas, I reply that they are as up-to-date as the ideas that brought the Labour Party into being.”

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Michael Foot

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1972/feb/17/european-communities-bill#column_741 in the House of Commons (17 February 1972)
1970s

“Like it or not, one of the most spectacular events of our age is the comparative success of the Communist economic systems. … Do you seriously imagine that there is no challenge from the Communist States on this level? And who do you think will win the contest if we stumble on as we are—the Communist States, which are not afraid of full production, or the Western States, which have still never achieved for any considerable period full production and full employment without inflation? Yes, who will win—the Communist States, who are turning out trained technicians at an unexampled pace, or the Western powers, who contentedly spend more on advertising than education?”

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Michael Foot

'Up The Garden', The Spectator (22 January 1960), pp. 8–9
1960s

“THE ARMAMENTS RACE IN EUROPE MUST BE STOPPED NOW. … I am not in favour of going to war in order to defend the Foreign Investments of British financiers, or the protective tariffs of British industrialists. … I am a young man. I appeal to the Youth of the Monmouth Division to consider what the world offers to our generation. WAR and POVERTY are the twin dangers which threaten our chances of a decent, happy life in the World. All over Europe youth is being recruited into the ranks of Fascism. Fascism represents the last attempt of those who control economic power to maintain their supremacy. … I WANT TO SEE A GOVERNMENT IN THIS COUNTRY WHICH WILL SERVE THE INTERESTS OF THE DESERVING MANY, AND NOT THOSE OF THE WEALTHY FEW.”

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Michael Foot

Quelle: Election address (c. November 1935), quoted in Mervyn Jones, Michael Foot (Victor Gollancz, 1994), p. 43

“I am a Liberal, first of all, because of the unfaltering resistance which liberalism is pledged to offer to those twin dangers of fascism and war.”

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Michael Foot

'Why I am a Liberal', News Chronicle (4 April 1934), quoted in Kenneth O. Morgan, Michael Foot (Harper Perennial, 2008), p. 30
1930s

“Socialism with its ideal of the national control of consumption and production, its substitution of national barter for the processes of foreign trade, is by no means an international force. … It looks inwards rather than outwards and sets up a national economy, which every true protectionist should envy. Russia is a powerful national state and has indulged in nationalist policies. … Even a Socialist state cannot provide against war unless a world authority has been formed.”

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Michael Foot

Article in Young Oxford and War (1934), quoted in Mervyn Jones, Michael Foot (Victor Gollancz, 1994), p. 31
1930s

“I first joined the Labour party in Liverpool because of what I saw of the poverty, the unemployment, and the endless infamies committed on the inhabitants of the back-streets of that city. I am horrified that the threat of unemployment and economic misery is now being deployed against the same kind of people once again.”

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Michael Foot

Quelle: Press conference after his election as Labour leader (10 November 1980), quoted in Simon Hoggart and David Leigh, Michael Foot: A Portrait (1981), p. 57 and The Guardian (11 November 1980), p. 1

“I am bitterly opposed to any form of legislation, particularly legislation introduced by a Labour Government, which involves an element of colour bar. It is an appalling thing to have happened. I want to see us returning as swiftly as possible to a situation where we wipe away this stain on the reputation of the Labour movement.”

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Michael Foot

Quelle: Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1965/nov/23/schedule-acts-continued-till-end-of#column_370 in the House of Commons (23 November 1965)

“It is a justifiable proposition that every wave of immigration we have had into this country has benefited this country.”

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Michael Foot

Quelle: Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1965/nov/23/schedule-acts-continued-till-end-of#column_365 in the House of Commons (23 November 1965)

“American capitalism is arrogant, self-confident, merciless and convinced of its capacity to dictate the destinies of the world.”

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Michael Foot

Quelle: Article in The Daily Herald (14 December 1945), quoted in Mervyn Jones, Michael Foot (1994), p. 141

“Even the victor in a just cause is susceptible to the passions which war arouses. Every inhuman feeling is at once exacerbated. Truth, decency, morality, justice are the first casualties in any war. The accumulated effect makes a just settlement impossible. ... The pacifist treasures justice, liberty; but he believes that they can only be lastingly secured by peaceable means and that the use of force will only contaminate them. ... Armaments themselves provide an independent cause of war owing to the suspicion and fear which they breed. ... Unilateral disarmament offers the only way to escape once the policy of collateral disarmament has failed.”

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Michael Foot

Quelle: Article in Young Oxford and War (1934), quoted in Mervyn Jones, Michael Foot (1994), p. 30

“I know a fascist when I see one.”

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Michael Foot

Remark to Tam Dalyell at a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party after he had criticised Foot's speech in the Falklands debate, quoted in Kenneth O. Morgan, Michael Foot (2007), p. 412
1980s

“If only my hon. Friend would conduct the novel experiment of listening with his ears instead of his voice, a whole new world would open to him.”

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Michael Foot

Speech https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1979-11-26/debates/294bd8ba-7ace-4fab-9f9c-12be13ccb2ad/CommonsChamber#contribution-6ae9a2db-2e77-4e8d-8630-d90f5f7d8d0e in the House of Commons (26 November 1979)
1970s

“We are in for fierce and angry times in this country.”

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Michael Foot

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1970/dec/03/coal-industry-bill#column_1506 in the House of Commons on the Coal Industry Bill (3 December 1970)
1970s