Dévolution — Citations 1/5

"WHA'S LIKE US"? BOOTHBY Robert (Con)

"The average Englishman in the home he calls his castle, slips into his national costume—a shabby "Prior to 1707 the Scottish people were a pack of miserable savages, living in increadible poverty and
raincoat—patented by chemist Charles Macintosh from Glasgow, Scotland. squalor, and playing no part in the development of civilisation. Since 1707, they have been partners
En route to his office he strides along the English lane, surfaced by John Macadam of Ayr, Scotland. in the greatest undertaking the world has ever seen."
He drives an English car fitted with tyres invented by John Boyd Dunlop of Dreghorn, Scotland.
At the office he receives the mail bearing adhesive stamps invented by John Chalmers of Dundee, BROWN Alice, McCRONE David & PATERSON Lindsay
Scotland. "On the one hand Scotland had to be in the Union to realise its true potential as a nation; thus to be a
During the day he uses the telephone invented by Alexander Graham Bell, born in Edinburgh, true nationalist it was necessary to be a unionist. On the other hand, to be a true unionist it was
Scotland. necessary to be a nationalist because in the absence of Scottish nationalist assertion the Union would
At home in the evening his daughter pedals her bicycle invented by Kirkpatrick Macmillan, Blacksmith degenerate into an English takeover. Scotland had to remind England (and itself) repeatedly that it
of Dumfries, Scotland. was a partner in the Union, and that it retained the ultimate right to secede."
He watches the news on T.V., an invention of John Logie Baird of Helensburgh, Scotland and hears an
item about the U.S. Navy, founded by John Paul Jones of Kirkbean, Scotland. BROWN Gordon (British Council, July 2004)
He has by now been reminded too much of Scotland and in desperation he picks up the Bible, only to "Just about every central question about our national future can only be fully answered if we are clear
find that the first man mentioned in the good book is a Scot ~ King James VI ~ who authorised its about what we value about being British and what gives us a sense of direction as a country. The core
translation. values of Britishness we do not love our country simply because we occupy a plot of land or hold a UK
Nowhere can an Englishman turn to escape the ingenuity of the Scots. passport but also because that place is home and because that represent values and qualities—and
He could take to drink but the Scots make the best in the world. bonds of sentiment and familiarity—we hold dear. The UK has always been a country of different
He could take a rifle and end it all but the breech~loading rifle was invented by Captain Patrick nations and thus of plural identities—a Welshman can be Welsh and British just as a Cornishman or
Ferguson of Pitfours, Scotland. woman is Cornish, English and British—and may be Muslim, Pakistani, or Afro-Caribbean, Cornish,
If he escaped death, he could find himself on an operating table injected with penicillin, discovered English and British."
by Alexander Fleming of Darvel, Scotland, and given an anaesthetic, discovered by Sir James Young
Simpson of Bathgate, Scotland. BURNS Robert
Out of the anaesthetic he would find no comfort in learning that he was as safe as the Bank of "Fareweel to aw our Scottish fame,
England, founded by William Paterson of Dumfries, Scotland. Fareweel our ancient glory!
Perhaps his only remaining hope would be to get a transfusion of guid Scottish blood which would Fareweel ev'n to the Scottish anem,
entitle him to ask." Sae famed in martial story!
Now Sark rins over Solway sands,
ACHESON Dean And Tweed rins to the ocean,
"Britain has lost an Empire, but not yet found a role". To mark where England's province stands -
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!
BAGEHOT Walter What force or guile could not subdue
"The characteristic danger of great nations, like the Romans or the English, which have a long history Thro' many warlike ages
of continuous creation, is that they may at last fail from not comprehending the great institutions Is wrought now by a coward few
they have created." For hireling traitor's wages.
The English steel we could disdain,
BEVAN Aneurin, Speech opposing the creation of the 'Welsh Day Debate' in Parliament, October Secure in valour's station;
1944 But English gold has been our bane -
"Wales has a special place, a special individuality, a special culture and special claims, and I do not Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!
think that this is the place where any of them can properly be considered. There may be an argument O, would, or I had seen the day
- I think there is an argument - for considering devolution of government, but there is no need for a That Treason thus could sell us,
special day in Parliament and this Debate has demonstrated it completely." My auld grey head had lien in clay
Wi' Bruce and loyal Wallace!
BILLIG Michael I'll mak this declaration: -
"The problem starts when one expects to find 'identity' within the body or mind of the individual. This 'We're bought and sold for English gold' -
is to look in the wrong place for the operation of identity. To have a national identity is to have a way Such a parcel of rogues in a nation."
of talking about nationhood. Only if people believe that they have national identities, will such
homelands, and the world of national homelands, be reproduced. Nor is national identity to be Conservative Party Manifesto, "The Best Future for Britain", 1992
explored by taking a scale from the psychological library of tests and administering it to a suitable "The United Kingdom is far greater than the sum of its parts. Over many centuries its nations have
populations. National identities are forms of social life, rather than internal psychological states; as worked, and frequently fought, side by side. Together, we have made a unique mark on history.
such, they are ideological creations, caught up in the historical processes of nationhood." Together, we hold a special place in international affairs. To break up the Union now, would diminish
our influence for good in the world, just at the time when it is most needed".
BLAIR Tony
 "I believe Mrs. Thatcher's emphasis on enterprise was right." COOK Robin (Foreign Secretary), 2001
 "I don't think there's any part of the UK where the Labour Party means more, or has worked hader "Let us put to bed the scare stories about devolution leading to the "Death of Britain". Devolution has
than in Wales." (Labour Party Conference, 1999) been a success for Scotland and for Wales, but it has also been a success for Britain. The votes for
 "Sovereignty remains with me as an English MP and that is the way it will stay." (9 Sep. 1996) devolution in the referendums were not votes for separatation. They were votes to remain in the
 "I had to do it." (Blair justifying his monumental mistake (?) over devolution according to one of his United Kingdom with a new constitutional settlement. By recognising the United Kingdom's diversity,
special advisors) devolution has guaranteed its future."
Dévolution — Citations
CRAIG Cairns, 2002
"Scotland's version of the Union [that forms Great Britain] becomes the model of the future of all
nations [rather than the 'deformation' which it was presented as being earlier in the century].
Scotland, once the failed nation of Europe, becomes now the template from which other nations can
learn how to develop a non-threatening conception of nationalism? [one that is tolerant both of
internal plurality and of a flexible submersion of its sovereignty in larger forms of social organisation
that have positive benefits for its citizens]."
CRAIG Cairns
"What happened in Scotland in the 1960s and 1970s, and what laid the foundations for the enormous
creative achievements of the 1980s, was the liberation of the voice. The Scottish voice declared its
independence and sustained it in a way that the brief fad for regional accents initiated by the Beatles
failed to do in England."
CROSLAND T. W. H., 1902
"England is virtually run by the Scotch."
CROWTHER Lord
"The difference I see is that the Scots want to do things, the Welsh want to be."
DALYELL Tam
 "The whole devolution caper has been primarily an exercise in party politics. The legislation was
hastily cobbled together to meet the electoral threat posed by the Scottish National Party."
 "If the United Kingdom is to remain in being, then there can be no question but that the Scottish
constituencies must continue to be represented at Westminster. Yet once the [Scottish] Assembly had
come into being, and was legislating for those areas that had not been reserved to the United
Kingdom Government, the position of the seventy-one Scottish Westminster MPs would become
awkward and invidious. Their credibility—like those of their counterparts in the Assembly—would be
deeply suspect, simply because there would be so many areas of concern to their electors on which
they could not pronounce."
DAVIES Glyn (Con), Western Mail, 11 June 2001
"Our attitude towards the National Assembly is the key to convincing the Welsh people that we are
totally committed to 'sticking up for Wales'. Whether we like it or not, the National Assembly is here
to stay and the Conservative Party's commitment to it is the measure by which our commitment to
Wales will be judged. Our strategy for Wales may include a Welsh political leader and may involve
more autonomy for the Welsh Conservative Party, but at the heart of any strategy must lie a 100%
commitment to an effective Assembly."
DAVIES Ron, 1999
"Devolution: A process not an event."
Declaration of Arbroath
"For as long as a hundred of us are left, we will yield in no least way to English dominion. We fight not
for glory nor for wealth nor honours; but only and alone we fight for freedom, which no good man
surrenders but with his life."
DEWAR Donald, Speech of First Minister, Opening of Scottish parliament, 1 July 1999
"This is about more than our politics and our laws. This is about who we are, how we carry ourselves.
There is a new voice in the land, the voice of a democratic Parliament. A voice to shape Scotland as
surely as the echoes from our past: the shout of the welder in the din of the great Clyde shipyards;
the speak of the Mearns, with its soul in the land; the discourse of the Enlightenment, when
Edinburgh and Glasgow were a light held to the intellectual life of Europe; the wild cry of the great
pipes; and back to the distant cries of the battles of Bruce and Wallace."
DICEY A.V.
"The sovereignty of Parliament is (from a legal point of view) the dominant characteristic of our
political institutions. Parliament means, in the mouth of a lawyer, the King, the House of Lords, and
the House of Commons; these three bodies, acting together, may aptly be described as the "King in
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Parliament", and constitute Parliament. The principle of Parliamentary sovereignty means neither
more nor less than this, namely, that Parliament thus defined has, under the English constitution, the
right to make or unmake any law whatever; and, further, that no person or body is recognised by the
law of England as having a right to override or set aside the legislation of Parliament. The one
fundamental dogma of English constitutional law is the absolute legislative sovereignty or despotism
of the King in Parliament."
EVANS Gwynfor
"Ironically, one of the reasons Wales has found it difficult to obtain decentralisation is that the Welsh
themselves are too decentralist to unite."
FAIRBAIRN Sir Nicholas, (Con. MP), 1992
"Look at the food—oatcakes, haggis, broth—it's all peasant food. This was a peasant country before
the Union".
FLETCHER of SALTOUN Andrew
 "I knew a very wise man so much of Sir Christopher's sentiment, that he believed if a man were
permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation".
 On Scotland after the Union: "It is only fit for the slaves who sold it."
GEORGIOU Myria
'Identity construction always relies on representations. Representations begin in the use of common
language, in signs and symbols that allow us to build up shared understandings and common codes
for interpreting the world […] Representations begin with language -the primary medium- but they
extend into all other sorts of communication practices, including what is commonly called the media:
the press, television, radio, the Internet. Media become important as systems of representation, but
also as socially relevant cultural reference—in their political economy, their content, their symbolic
relevance for particular social groups'.
GUEDALLA Philip
"An Englishman is a man who lives on an island in the North Sea governed by Scotsmen".
HAIN Peter (SoS for Wales), Address to National Assembly, 2003
"The Assembly Cabinet has made it clear that you will not follow the same path as the Government
intends pursuing in England by, for example, the creation of foundation hospitals. Why should this be
a problem? It is devolution in action. That is why we campaigned so hard to win the referendum: to
enable the people of Wales to meet the different needs and values of our nation in different ways
from England."
HARVIE Christopher, BBC Scotland, 1987
"After the election results were out, the term 'bloody English' was onn the lips in Scotland, and I
found myself falling into this, probably to the concern of my English friends. Thatcher seemed to be
hated so intensely north of the border because she personified every quality we had always disliked
in the the English; snobbery, bossiness, selfishness and, by our lights, stupidity. And the English
seem to have applauded her precisely for these. I sensed an ill-temper and irritation which went
beyond politics. Thatcher just does not represent me or my country. If the English want her, well and
good. But to use her own words, she is not one of us."
HEATH Edward
"Nationalism is the biggest single factor in our politics today."
HOLTHAM G. and BARRETT E.
"To many Welsh Labour politicians, political reform remains an irrelevance to the material concerns of
their working-class electorate."
House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution, HL Paper 28, Dec. 2002
"The problems arising over Westminster legislation cause us to doubt whether the form executive
devolution has taken in Wales is sustainable in the long term. [Underlying the difficulties] is the
reliance of the Welsh arrangements on mutually sympathetic administrations in London and Cardiff.
Dévolution — Citations
We find it hard to see how such arrangements could work satisfactorily if there were major policy
differences between the two governments."
JENKINS Roy (Home Secretary)
"The fundamental trouble was that the Labour Party leadership, I think this was true of Wilson, I think
it was true of Callaghan, I think it was to some substantial extent true of Willie Ross, saw the need for
some declaration to avoid losing by-elections to the Nationalists, and not to produce a good
constitutional settlement for Scotland and the UK. Any question of separation would be very
damaging for the Labour Party because, while it might give Labour a very powerful position in
Scotland, if you do not have Scottish members of parliament playing their full part in Westminster
then the Labour Party could pretty much say goodbye to any hope of a majority ever in the UK."
JENKINS Simon, "The Guardian", 2006
"I would not lose any sleep if the Scots voted to repeal the 1707 Act. It would do Scotland nothing but
good to learn that public money does not grow on English trees."
JOHNSTON Tom (Scottish Secretary, 1929-30)
"For many years past, I have become uneasy lest we should get political power without first having an
adequate economy to administer. What purport would there be in getting a Scots Parliament in
Edinburgh if it has to administer an emigration system, a glorified Poor Law and a graveyard."
JONES R. Merfyn
"The Welsh are in the process of being defined not in terms of shared occupational experience or
common religious experience or the survival of an ancient European language or for contributing to
the Welsh radical tradition, but rather by reference to the institutions that they inhabit, influence or
react to. This new identity may lack the ethical and political imperatives that characterized Welsh life
for two centuries but it increasingly appears to be the only identity available".
JOSEPH Keith, on Margaret Thatcher
"She was not so much a woman of ideas, as of beliefs."
KIPLING R.
"For Allah created the English mad—the maddest of all mankind!"
Labour party deposition to Kilbrandon Commission, 1970
"The Scottish Labour Party would actually prefer a Tory UK Government to a Labour controlled
Scottish Parliament."
LORD Peter
"It has often been alleged that a national consciousness heavily conditioned by the needs of
differentiation from a dominant neighbour is a characteristic Welsh weakness. As a result of political
and economic decline of that neighbour, a complementary growth in our own self-confidence and a
wider change in perceptions of nationality, it is the hope of many at the beginning of the twenty first
century that this essentially colonized state of mind may at last be transcended."
MacLEAN John, Election address, 1922
"Scottish separation is part of England's imperial disintegration."
MacMILLAN Harold
 On the Conservative party under Thatcher: "A great national party has become reduced to a
suburban rump."
 As PM, Speech at Bedford, 1957: "Most of our people have never had it so good. Go around the
country, go to the industrial towns, go to the farms and you will see a state of prosperity such as we
have never had in my lifetime - nor indeed ever in the history of this country."
MAJOR John
 Speech to the Conservative Group for Europe, 22 April 1993: "Fifty years from now, Britain will still
be the country of long shadows on county (cricket) grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs,
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dog lovers and—as George Orwell said—old maids bicycling to Holy Communion through the
morning mist."
 "Labour says that devolution would promote the Union and give the Scots and Welsh more say over
their own affairs. Whether it truly believes this I cannot say. I do know that devolution is more likely
to break up the Union than promote it and that, in so far as it may offer the Scots and Welsh
marginally more say over their own affairs in a few areas, this advantage is swamped by the
disadvantages the advocates of devolution seek to hide."
 1997: "Devolution would also have a devastating effect on business. The extra tier of government
would delay decisions and burden firms—it would create uncertainty and hence cut investment and
cost jobs. As Scotland and Wales became uncompetitive, they would become once again the
unemployment blackspots that Conservative Governments removed over the past 18 years. So
devolution would hurt business. It would hurt people. It would take power away from individuals and
mean higher taxes for Scots. It would eventually lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom."
MARR Andrew, "The Observer", 2007
"[The Campaign for a Scottish Assembly] was built up by amateurs from scratch, until it changed the
whole game of British politics."
MARSHALL Arthur
"I am a great admirer of Mrs Thatcher. She's one of the most splendid head-mistresses there has ever
been".
MELDING David AM (Con), 2001
 "The Welsh Conservative Party must undergo its own disestablishment so that it can rebut all
accusations of being an 'English' party."
 "Time and again on the campaign trail I was told that the Conservatives are an 'English' party."
MITCHELL Austin, on Margaret Thatcher
"She is democratic enough to talk down to anyone."
MORGAN Kevin and MUNGHAM Geoff
"The Union Jack signals tow very clear things: that Britain is not a single nation and that Wales is
conspicuous by its absence."
MORGAN Rhodri
 "The Tories' relationship with Wales is based on trust and understanding. We don't trust them and
they don't understand us."
 As First Minister, "The Guardian", 15 Nov. 2002: "We are neither going down the foundation
hospital route nor the top-up fees route. We are still for universal provision rather than a variation of
provision. That is what devolution is all about."
NAIRN Tom
 1992: "Scotland is not a colonized culture, but a 'self'-colonized one. The Scots were not
conquered, or forcibly assimilated. They conquered and have partially assimilated themselves, for
what has seemed in the past—over a remarkably long period of time—quite good reasons and
opportunities, chances it appeared unreasonable for a small and marginal nation to refuse. But at the
same time they have always resented doing so. And over the last twenty years they have begun to
resent it more and more, and tended more and more to dream of its destruction."
 "As far as I'm concerned, Scotland will be reborn the day the last minister is strangled with the last
copy of the Sunday Post."
NASH Ogden
"To be an Englishman is to belong to the most exclusive club there is."
ORWELL George
"The English people are not good haters, their memory is very short, their patriotism is largely
unconscious, they have no love of military glory and not much admiration for great men, they have
the virtues and the vices of an old-fashioned people. To twentieth-century political theories they
Dévolution — Citations
oppose not another theory of their own, but a moral quality which must be vaguely described as
decency."
OSMOND John
"Unlike Scotland, Wales did not have the benefit of a Constitutional Convention to hammer out cross-
party agreement before the onset of democratic devolution. Instead, the National Assembly was the
best compromise that Ron Davies, as Shadow Secretary of State, could push through the Welsh
Labour Party ahead of the 1997 general election. Left to his own devices he would have produced a
Scottish-style Parliament. As it was, he was forced to appease devolution-sceptics within his own
party and settle for a minimalist Assembly based on a local government model".
Plaid Cymru Election Manifesto, "The Best for Wales", 1997
"Our principles do not arise from a history of imperialist exploitation of other nations, nor from any
Welsh tradition of conquest and domination of other peoples. Rather our civic nationalism is rooted in
a deep respect for the rights of peoples to self-determination, in a love of our heritage and
environment, and in a profound appreciation of the fragile planet on which we live. Our self-
governing Wales will be an open, democratic, just and equal society, drawing upon our radical and
socialist traditions. The citizenship of such a nation will be open, extended to all either born or living
in Wales. Plaid Cymru will therefore always be in the vanguard of the fight against racism, oppression,
injustice and discrimination wherever it may occur."
POWELL Enoch
"Power devolved is power retained".
RAWNSLEY Andrew, 1997
"Devolution, one of the government's largest claims to be radical and modernising, had caused
months of grief. When the Prime Minister discussed what to do with his advisers, hanging in the air
was the thought that it had been a monumental mistake. Blair would shrug and say: 'I had to do it.
The poll in Wales was set a week later in the hope that Scottish zeal for devolution might rub off on
the more sceptical Welsh. The Cardiff assembly, with neither the tax nor the legislative powers
enjoyed by the Scots, risked being too much for those who saw it as an expensive job-creation
scheme for yet more blathering politicians. The Welsh Office spent nearly £1m promoting the
assembly, while the No campaign was an amateur, virtually penniless outfit. Despite the imbalance of
forces, Blair discovered that there were limits to what could be achieved even by an extremely
popular Prime Minister in the early flush of his honeymoon. The referendum in Wales was won by the
wafer margin of 0.6% on a turn-out of less than half of the potential electorate. The voters shared
Blair's own lack of enthusiasm. Those close to the Prime Minister were convinced that, rather than
giving life to the assembly by such a tentative margin, he would rather that the Welsh had throttled it
at birth."
ROBERTSON George (Labour MP for Hamilton) announces "Labour's U-turn", 27 June 1996
"The UK Parliament of course remains sovereign, but the essence of devolution is that for the better
government of our country, certain powers are passed on to an elected Scottish Parliament. That is
what devolution means - that all Westminster MPs decide that they should exercise some of their
powers relating to Scottish affairs by devolving them to a parliament set up by them for that purpose.
And it follows from that that the devolution legislation will explicitly recognise the fact of
Parliamentary sovereignty."
ROBINSON Mary (former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights)
"Every society maintains an invisible life where attitudes and assumptions are formed. Every society is
hostage to this unseen place where fear conquers reason and old attitudes remain entrenched. It is
here that chance phrases and small asides are made, which say so little and reveal so much. If we are
to go forward, we have to look at attitudes and the language which expresses attitudes."
RODDICK Winston QC (Counsel General to the National Assembly), written evidence to the
'Richard Commission' on the Assembly's powers, Dec. 2002
"The legislature and the executive have been living apart for more than three years. They remain
married but only legally. So far apart have they grown, they have taken different names and different
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identities. If they were human beings the law would permit them to divorce and thereby formalise the
separation."
Scottish Constitutional Convention, "Scotland's Parliament, Scotland's Right", 30 November
1995
"The Convention is adamant that the powers of Scotland's Parliament, once established, should not
be altered without the consent of the Scottish Parliament representing the people of Scotland. The
main method by which that will be achieved will be by the moral and political rooting of the
institution in the lives of the Scottish and indeed the British people. The popularity and the
contribution of the Parliament, along with its purpose and its relevance, will ensure its existence
more than any constitutional or legal mechanism. The parliament will be established by an Act of the
Westminster Parliament. The Scottish Constitutional Commission, who studied this matter
exhaustively on our behalf, concluded that in theory under Britain's unwritten constitution such an
Act can be repealed or amended without restriction. The Convention however is firmly of the view
that through widespread recognition of the parliament's legitimate authority, both within Scotland
and internationally, such a course of action is both practically and politically impossible. No
Westminster government would be willing to pay the political price of neutralising or destroying a
parliament so firmly rooted in, and supported by, the people of Scotland. Therefore we will build our
parliament on the strongest of all foundations, namely the settled will of the Scottish people
themselves."
Scottish Constitutional Convention's "Claim of Right", 30 Mar. 1989
"We, gathered as the Scottish Constitutional Convention, do hereby acknowledge the sovereign right
of the Scottish people to determine the form of Government best suited to their needs, and do hereby
declare and pledge that in all our actions and deliberations their interests shall be paramount.
We further declare and pledge that our actions and deliberations shall be directed to the following
ends:
To agree a scheme for an Assembly or Parliament for Scotland;
To mobilise Scottish opinion and ensure the approval of the Scottish people for that scheme; and
To assert the right of the Scottish people to secrure implementation of that scheme."
SEWELL Lord, Smith Institute Paper, 2007
"It is the asymmetry of the present pattern of devolution that brings English grievances into sharper
focus. The West Lothian question would not have arisen with quite the same force if devolution had
rolled out across England."
SMITH Ian Duncan (leader of Con), "Daily Telegraph", 9 Oct. 2002: response to Tory support for the
Maastricht Treaty in 1992
"There is no point in having a future if I don't have a country."
STRAW Jack (Leader of the House of Commons), 28 Sep. 2006
"The United Kingdom—Great Britain and Northern Ireland—is a union which works to the equal
benefit of all four nations of the union. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Historically,
England called the shots to achieve a union because the union was seen as a way, among others
things, of amplifying England's power worldwide. And the reverse would certainly be true. A broken-
up United Kingdom would not be in the interests of Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, but
especially not England. Our voting power in the European Union would diminish. We'd slip down in
the world league GDP tables. Our case for staying in the G8 would diminish and there could easily be
an assault on our permanent seat in the UN Security Council."
SWINNEY John (SNP leader)
"It's time we took control of our own finances and put an end to the nonsense of Barnett."
TAYLOR A. J. P.
"Nothing is inevitable until it happens."
TAYLOR Matthew (Downing Street advisor)
"Ever since the referenda in 1997 made devolution to Scotland and Wales a reality the Labour Party
has studiously avoided the central question it raises: should a political party devolve as much
Dévolution — Citations
autonomy to its members in Scotland and Wales as Westminster has done to the Scottish and Welsh
people?"
THATCHER Margaret
 "Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the
problems of running a country."
 Election campaign, 1979: "At some point in this century, which it is difficult now to distinguish
precisely, too many Western policy-makers began to talk and act as if it were 'the system' rather than
individuals—or even luck—which was the cause of poverty. We fell into the trap of considering
poverty as a 'problem' created by economic policy which the redistribution of wealth and income
could 'solve' by various ingenious methods. We kept on returning to the idea that poverty was a cause
rather than a result of various kinds of irresponsible or deviant behaviour".
 "Class is a communist concept. It groups people in bundles, and sets them against one another".
 "The Times", 9 Feb.1984: "I came to office with one deliberate intent. To change Britain from a
dependent to a self-reliant society—from a give-it-to-me to a do-it-yourself nation; to a get-up-
and-go instead of a sit-back-and-wait-for-it Britain."
 "I don't mind how much my Ministers talk, as long as they do what I say."
 On receiving a school prize, aged nine: "I wasn't lucky. I deserved it."
 "I'm extraordinarily patient provided I get my own way in the end."
 Scottish Conservative Party Conference, 13 May 1988: "I'm sometimes told that the Scots don't like
Thatcherism. Well, I find that hard to believe—because the Scots invented Thatcherism, long before I
was thought of."
 "I've got a woman's ability to stick to a job and get on with it when everyone else walks off and
leaves it."
 Speech, 1975: "Nothing is more obstinate than a fashionable consensus."
 1979: "Public expenditure is at the heart of Britain's present economic difficulties."
 "There is no such thing as society. There are only individual men and women, and there are
families."
 "To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have only
one thing to say, you turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning."
 Speech at Conservative Party Conference, 1980: "Tory values are in tune with everything that is
finest in the Scottish character. Scottish values are Tory values."
 "Well now, look, let us try and start with a few figures as far as we know them, and I am the first to
admit it is not easy to get clear figures from the Home Office about immigration, but there was a
committee which looked at it and said that if we went on as we are then by the end of the century
there would be four million people of the new Commonwealth or Pakistan here. Now, that is an awful
lot and I think it means that people are really rather afraid that this country might be rather swamped
by people with a different culture and, you know, the British character has done so much for
democracy, for law and done so much throughout the world that if there is any fear that it might be
swamped people are going to react and be rather hostile to those coming in".
 Granada TV Interview, 27 Jan. 1978 (Quoting St Francis of Assisi, Downing Street, 4 May 1979):
"Where there is discord may we bring harmony.Where there is error may we bring truth.Where there is
doubt may we bring certainty.Where there is despair may we bring hope."
 "What lessons are to be learnt from the last thirty years? First, the pursuit of equality is a mirage.
Far more desirable and more practicable than the pursuit of equality is the pursuit of equality of
opportunity. Opportunity means nothing unless it includes the right to be unequal—and the freedom
to be different. Let our children grow tall—and some grow taller than others, if they have it in them to
do so".
 Western Mail, 30 Aug. 2005, about the 'Alderney' Question: "Why should this British island just
three miles long have more lawmaking powers than Wales? Alderney, third biggest of Channel
Islands, has only 2,400 residents. Yet it has its own Parliament able to pass its own laws. The
Republic of Ireland is wholly independent, the Scottish Parliament and Northern Ireland Assembly—
when it is sitting—can both make their own laws in devolved areas, while the Isle of Man and the
Channel Islands enjoy autonomy. Only our National Assembly remains wholly subservient to the UK
Parliament when it comes to lawmaking."
 The Times, 1967: "The Welsh language is the curse of Wales. Its prevalence, and the ignorance of
English have excluded, and even now exclude the Welsh people from the civilisation of their English
neighbours. An Eisteddfod is one of the most mischievous and selfish pieces of sentimentalism which
could possibly be perpetuated. It is simply a foolish interference with the natural progress of
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civilisation and prosperity. If it is desirable that the Welsh should talk English, it is monstrous folly to
encourage them in a loving fondness for their old language. Not only the energy and power, but the
intelligence and music of Europe have come mainly from Teutonic sources, and this glorification of
everything Celtic, if it were not pedantry, would be sheer ignorance. The sooner all Welsh specialities
disappear from the face of the earth the better".
 Comment made on several occasions about her economic policy, hence her nickname, "Tina":
"There is no alternative."
WALKER Greg (Conservative candidate in Cardiff Central), 2001
"There is still a widespread misconception among the electorate that the Conservatives are somehow
'un-Welsh'. We know this is not just from overwhelming anecdotal evidence but also from objective
statistical analysis derived from the comprehensive British Election Survey up to and including the
2001 election. We also know that this misconception deters a very large number of Welsh voters from
voting Conservative, even after taking into account social and economic factors. The average midle
income, middle class voter in Wales is significantly less likely to vote Conservative than an English
voter in the same socio-economic position. This electoral dead weight cannot be allowed to persist."
WALPOLE Horace
"[The Scots are] the most accomplished nation in Europe; the nation to which, if any country is
endowed with a superior partition of sense, I should be inclined to give the preference".
WELSH Invine, Renton, "Trainspotting", 1993
"Ah hate cunts like that. Cunts that are intae baseball-batting every fucker that's different, pakis,
poofs, n what huv ye. Fucking failures in a country of failures. It's nae good blaming it oan the English
for colonising us. Ah don't hate the English. They're just wankers. We are colonised by wankers. We
can't even pick a decent, vibrant, healthy culture to be colonised by. No. We're ruled by effete
arseholes. What does that make us? The most wretched, servile, miserable, pathetic trash that was
ever shat intae creation."
WILLIAMS Chris
"The case for a measure of democratic control over Welsh life by the people of Wales was energized
not retarded by the political, industrial and economic traumas of the Thatcherite years."
WILLIAMS Gwyn Alf
 "The problem of identity has been desperate from the beginning (for the Welsh). In recent centuries
we have progressively lost our grip on our own past. Our history has been a history to induce
schizophrenia and to enforce loss of memory. We have no historical autonomy. We live in the
interstices of other people's history".
 "Wales has always been now. The Welsh as a people have lived by making and remaking themselves
in generation after generation, usually against the odds, usually within a British context. Wales is an
artefact which which the Welsh produce. If they want to. It requires an act of choice".
 "When Was Wales?"
WILLIAMS Raymond
"The painful recognition of real dislocations, discontinuities, problematic identities has led not only to
division and confusion but to new and higher forms of consciousness".
WRIGHT Canon Kenyon, Speech at first meeting of Constitutional Convention, 30 Mar. 1989
"What if that other voice we all know so well (Mrs Thatcher) responds by saying, 'We say No, and we
are the State'? Well we say Yes—and we are the People."
ZIMMERN Sir Alfred
"The Wales of today is not a unity. There is not one Wales; there are three. There is Welsh Wales; there
is industrial or, as I sometimes think of it, American Wales; and there is upper class or English Wales.
These three represent different types and different traditions."