John McDonnell Quotes

British politics is more nuanced. Part of the problem with New Labour is that they are a moving target.

I vote Labour and can't begin to acknowledge anything good that comes from a Tory.

The two old parties … fight only for office. Observe how utterly both parties in this respect lack program and new leadership.

Bigger Than His Party.

There are very good people in the Labour Party who I would like to see in leadership.

Jeremy Corbin is a little too liberal for me.

I believe Jeremy Corbyn getting his hands on power is a risk we cannot afford to take.

For all its faults, it is partisanship - based on core principles- that clarifies our debates, that prevents one party from straying too far from the mainstream and that constantly refreshes our politics with new ideas and new leaders.

Those who are leftists, once in power, are not different from other parties.

The Democratic Party is not the party of reform.

The Tea Party is almost solely grassroots-based; business interests have almost no grassroots organization. The Republican Party has for too long been run on behalf of business interests who favor candidates the grassroots hate; the minute that those candidates begin to flag, only loyal Tea Partiers stand behind them.

In a way I'm almost more rueful about the notion of having a non-ideological Labour party than I am about the personality of Tony Blair.

When New Labour came to power, we got a Right-wing Conservative government. I came to realise that voting Labour wasn't in Scotland's interests any more. Any doubt I had about that was cast aside for ever when I saw Gordon Brown cosying up to Margaret Thatcher in Downing Street.

The choice between a Labour government and a Tory one is sharpening minds.

I was a Labour Party man but I found myself to the left of the Labour party in Nelson, militant as that was. I came to London and in a few months I was a Trotskyist.

While loyalists and defectors overall said John Smith did a better job of standing up for Labour's values, they put Blair ahead on representing the whole country, appealing beyond traditional Labour voters and offering strong, competent leadership; switchers to the Tories gave him a clear lead in all categories.

Political parties don't work when people just announce what they are doing and expect everyone else to follow.

2016 is going to be a fight. A fight between conservatism and a Democrat Party that is undermining the very character of our nation.

While 2013 will not see a major national election, we can be sure that most Republicans will obstruct and some Democrats will appease.

For decades Republicans have made policy with a higher purpose in mind: to solidify the GOP base or to damage the institutions and movements aligned with the other side.

I think if you look all across the country, the so-called Blue Dogs are all gone to kennel. There are no more Blue Dogs, they're called Republicans. People would rather elect consistently conservative Republicans than Blue Dogs, who are only conservative when it's convenient.

The problem for the Left, however, is that the moment it stops painting the Right as vile, it has to argue the issues.

There are lots of bad Republicans, there are no good Democrats.

The fight is always the same within the Democratic Party, isn't it? The more things change, the more they stay the same.

We're seeing quite a lot of people who really would like a return to class-based politics.