William Hague Quotes

William Hague presents sharp, witty commentary on politics and leadership quirks.

24 quotes

1. I was the driver's mate, delivering the bottles and beer around South Yorkshire. We used to have a pint at every stop - well the driver's mate did, not the driver, thankfully - and we used to have about 10 stops in a day. You worked so hard you didn't feel you'd drunk 10 pints by four o'clock, you used to sweat so much. But then you had to lift all the empties off the lorry. It's probably horrifying but we used to do that then go home for tea and then go out in the evening to the pub.

2. 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.

3. I thank the Prime Minister for his remarks about me. Debating with him at the Dispatch Box has been exciting, fascinating, fun, an enormous challenge and, from my point of view, wholly unproductive in every sense. I am told that in my time at the Dispatch Box I have asked the Prime Minister 1,118 direct questions, but no one has counted the direct answers-it may not take long.

4. For the first time in history at Question Time, all three parties are represented by a stand-in for the real leader.

5. 'Nothing is more absurd than a Prime Minister who has committed us in principle to joining the Euro saying last week that he was against it. He talks about his five tests; we know what they are: 'Does Peter want it? Will Gordon let me? Will the French like it? Will Robin notice? Can I get away with it?'

6. To Harriet Harman. 'Before turning to domestic issues, I was going to be nice to the right hon. and learned Lady. She has had a difficult week. She had to explain yesterday that she dresses in accordance with wherever she is going: she wears a helmet on a building site, she wears Indian clothes in the parts of her constituency with a large representation of Indian people, so when she goes to a Cabinet meeting, she presumably dresses as a clown. As I said, I was going to be nice to her before her previous response.'

7. To make matters worse, they have elected a foetus as the party leader. I bet a lot of them wish they had not voted against abortion now!

8. 'if I were looking for advice on what to wear or what not to wear, the very last person I would look to is the man in the baseball cap.' **Harriet Harman, 02 April 2008, House of Commons, Prime Minister's Questions

9. There is no budget for travel for a Shadow Foreign Secretary.

10. When we said that no more areas of power should go to the EU we were right. And now thanks to the European Union Act 2011, by law that cannot happen without a referendum. And we are just as right that the EU has more power in our national life than it should, and I believe as strongly as I ever have that when the right moment comes this party should set out to reduce it.

11. You do have to do business with and to try to influence people you don't agree with, or find disagreeable, so it's important to stress that balance.

12. Not all politicians are bonkers, but most of them are.

13. I don't think a wise thing at this moment is for Israel to launch a military attack on Iran.

14. When you reduce taxes on higher earners it's vital to be reducing them on lower earning people as well so the nation shares in the approach.

15. A generation of children has been betrayed.

16. It is the mission of the next Conservative Government to build the Responsible Society.

17. Britain does not normally these days play a huge part in peacekeeping.

18. Syria should not belong to one family, to one coterie, or to one party. It belongs to all the people of Syria equally, in all their religious and ethnic diversity.

19. The total economy of Latin America is bigger than China.

20. I gave up lots of things I love doing: writing, and business, and playing the piano and so on.

21. Remember the No campaign is Conservative people, Labour people, people of no party.

22. I have found that I get a better reaction from people once I am less bothered about their reaction.

23. Someone once claimed I was not really a Yorkshireman!

24. I don't think my principles change. I think the way in which you apply those principles to modern society changes.