George Osborne Quotes

A politician wants to come off as a happy warrior. To be contemplative seems almost effete, fancy – dispiriting somehow to much of your audience. He [Barack Obama] is not afraid to be this way at all.

David Cameron has a different style to Gordon Brown.

The Democrats just don't have a foreign policy that they're willing to defend, that they're willing to use to take down the president's. We're dealing with the power of suggestion here.

Imagine a State occasion where the Queen is wearing trainers with her tiara because she thinks it will make people like her better, more folksy. It's unthinkable. But that's patently the thought process Gordon Brown (or his spin doctor) went through before the Prime Minister appeared on the world stage in Beijing without his suit and tie.

Our adversaries - our Democratic adversaries - like to be able to portray the Republican Party as a bunch of wingnuts - narrow based, always have some agenda that's not attractive to the public... That's easier for them, and more fun, than dealing with their own problems. And I think their problems are significant.

As politicians, we're very, very much trained to say something and stick with it.

At these big set-piece events like the leaders' debates, that exterior of calm and serenity is nothing compared to what's going on inside most of the time.

Republicans want to use Obamacare in the 2014 elections against Democrats who voted for it. They want to see it fail, even at the expense of people's health.

If you look at what these politicians do when they speak, most of the time they are trying to convey a tone... if I make all these points and move my hands this way, I can get re-elected. When in reality, they aren't saying anything.

Each of the participants [in a Presidential Debate] has a major objective and a minor one, in addition, of course, to appearing presidential. The major one is to get his messages across even if the questions don’t ask for them. The minor one is to avoid seeming unresponsive. That is why you will see the debaters answer some of the questions quickly, leaving time for what the candidate wants to talk about.

Highly popular and unpopular Presidents do not engage in policy pandering.

Is that a politician’s ‘No’?

Politics abhors a rhetorical vacuum. If the president is not clear on his … strategy, foreign policy critics and political opponents will be happy to define it for him, using less than flattering language.

There is not alternative to speechwriters. You can’t run for president and write your own speeches.

Political speeches are a particularly low form of rhetoric.

What makes Trump’s behavior seem pathological is that he is the president rather than your neighbor or colleague or negotiating partner. He speaks to audiences of millions rather than to audiences of one or two, and is immediately checked by the press. No president or leader of a developed country has ever acted like him. Most politicians speak from mental (or real) transcripts, which have been carefully vetted so that they offend no one and reveal nothing. Normal presidents lie but only when they expect to be believed because the facts are hidden from the public.

Gordon Brown is a character from a tragic opera, twisted by ambition and a Presbyterian sense of fateful destiny. He has waited 13 years, mostly in Tony Blair's shadow, for this poisoned chalice and has a pessimist's luck.

You know who's messianic? Netanyahu, because he talks that way. And that's a very risky position.

I think there were times when, if circumstances had developed, I might have been tempted into politics. I am a fan of Tony Blair. I think Gordon Brown is a fine man, but I think he's headed for one hell of a bloody struggle.

Obama has proved to be particularly adept at using the media to disseminate his administration's messages, but he is a masterful orator. Bill Clinton, too.

Employing a low-key, Midwestern charisma, Mike Pence proved he knows how to win over an audience.

I know that sometimes politics creates situations in which people want to say particular things for political reasons.

One does not have to agree with his views to be intrigued by the possibilities opened up by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's emergence as communicator/harangue-master in chief.

I'm not going to run to the left of Mitch McConnell; I'm not going to run to the right of Mitch McConnell. I am going to run right over the top of Mitch McConnell.

To reduce repossessions caused by unemployment, Gordon Brown needs to look at cutting the rate of corporation tax for small companies to 20 per cent and the main rate to 25 per cent, while reducing the rate of employers' national insurance by 1% for the smallest companies.