Michael Ashcroft Quotes

The national unity government is a necessity in this country and I am happy to serve it. We have negotiated for months to create a government, but Belgium also went for a year without one.

If you want to be a government in a minority Parliament, you have to work with other people.

England does not love coalitions.

Getting one bill passed is close to impossible. Ask any kid who has spent a summer in Washington, or better yet a semester, and can't understand how people tolerate its menu of constant frustration. Imagine mastering it.

The British Government and the Irish Government have accepted very clearly the Mitchell Report.

But make no mistake, the President will find in our new majority the voice of the American people as they've expressed it tonight: standing on principle, checking Washington's power and leading the drive for a smaller, less costly, and more accountable government.

Stephen Harper, who's the prime minister of Canada, he is saying that this - we have to give him a majority government, otherwise there will be a Separatist coalition. And he says it every minute.

I'm optimistic because I'm pragmatic: Neither of the two sides, the military government nor the Islamic front, is capable of winning. If they continue to fight, they will both bleed to death.

And under our system, much like you see in the U.K., of course, a party working with another party can form a coalition and govern the country.

Although my seat is a contest between Labour and the Lib Dems, it could well make the difference between a Labour and a Tory government at the next election. In terms of international development, this choice is a very clear one.

In 1995 the whole political situation was very complicated. I was the first deputy prime minister, and at the same time I had very low influence in the government.

If there's one thing I'm not going to apologise for as the leader of the Liberal Democrats in government after 60 or 70 years of being out of government, it's that you just cannot avoid but deal with the world the way it is.

We've got a first class leader at the moment. David Cameron is dealing with the issues that he was left by the last government very well indeed.

Gilles Duceppe avoids making campaign promises altogether so he can emphasize that his Bloc Quebecois has only one objective: to prevent Harper from forming a majority government.

A majority of all defectors who voted Labour in 2010 but for a different party in 2015 said Ed Miliband had helped push them to another party. For those switching to the Tories, the second biggest reason was the fear that a Labour government would spend and borrow too much.

A minority government can't govern without support from other parties.

It is in the country's best interest that Tony Blair rather than Michael Howard should form the next government.

I would be open about the fact that, clearly, politicians should be able to speak to each other. David Cameron doesn't seem to accept this, but if the British people have voted then of course you have to try and provide good stable government.

Parties that win elections should form the government, not parties that lose elections.

When my party won the elections convincingly on February 18th, 2008, we immediately reached out to other parties to form broad-based coalitions of national unity in the National Assembly and in the four provincial assemblies.

The British government says that for Sinn Fein to be involved in talks the guns must be left at the door.

The president said that he would unite this country, that he was a uniter, not a divider. Have you ever seen America more divided? Have you ever seen Washington more divided?

It is conceivable that a party might gain the majority in parliament and claims the government for itself.

I've never seen Washington as divided as we are right now.

One of the really positive things about minority government is that there is the necessity to broker policy positions. What happens is you get a hybrid of what a single party might do. And I don't think that is a bad thing.