John Anderson Quotes

In the end, rational policy is always good.

The good thing about execution issues are that they are within our control.

Short-term thinking is the greatest enemy of good government.

Good organization does not necessarily mean it will produce good policy. But bad organization will almost never produce good policy.

There is something wrong with the way in which we make our decisions. The Government listen too much to the pollsters and the party managers. The trouble is that they are not even very good at politics, and they are entering too much into policy decisions. As a result, there is too much short-termism, too much reacting to events, and not enough shaping of events. We give the impression of being in office but not in power. Far too many important decisions are made for 36 hours' publicity.

There is an old maxim which states that good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from poor judgment. I think something similar can be said of government policy, to wit: Good policy comes from experience, and experience comes from poor policy.

Good ideas are the backbone of good government.

Governments should want and even crave the best possible scientific advice. With reliable knowledge come better decisions, fewer mistakes and more results achieved for each pound spent.

The good ideas will survive.

We really think it is a good thing for scientists to spend a little bit of their time either in the community or in schools or helping to train high school teachers.

The good thing about working alone is I get a lot done and I can experiment more. The bad thing is I miss out on the gregarious, social way that most musicians work.

You elected government officials to make decisions and it's about time they started making good ones.

Good politics starts with empathy, proceeds to analysis, then sets out values and establishes the vision, before getting to the nitty-gritty of policy solutions.

I think that a president needs to have a variety of views presented. But also, there has to be a team effort, because otherwise, I think it creates a dissonance and difficulty.

I know how to take good ideas and turn them into sensible law at great odds.

I'm not in the business of changing policies. I hope to inform, not form, decisions.

I happened to have the privilege of serving in Congress. It will be 16 years at the end of this term. And I think I made a difference here on important issues.

Necessity never made a good bargain.

Any committee is only as good as the most knowledgeable, determined and vigorous person on it. There must be somebody who provides the flame.

The influence of a science adviser is only as good as ears open to that science advice.

I was an intelligence officer, not a policy-maker.

Good analysis is very useful when you want to convert a political decision into an investment. It can also go the other way and drive policy.

We hope that there will be better policy-making and hope to see projects implemented. We have lots of information that can be used for the implementation of projects.

There is little or no point being chair of the Labour Party and being ignored when engaging with Labour ministers when you're trying to articulate something that affects ordinary people in society.

Forget the consultants, the pundits and the pollsters; good policy is good politics.