Jimmy Reid 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.

Once upon a time, I thought that politics was the name we gave to our higher instincts. That was before Margaret Thatcher, who came to power when I was 11 years old.

Barry Goldwater made conservatism so unattractive I wouldn't have voted for it myself.

I didn’t leave the Democratic Party. The party left me.

I sometimes think that I didn't leave the Republican Party, as much as it left me.

The Conservative Party has abandoned conservatives.

People don't trust party leaders.

Gordon Brown is and always will be committed to the interests of big business, so there's no way I want to be involved in the Labour Party again.

People are sick of the false choice between the established political parties who take voters for granted.

Nigel Farage, the leader of the U.K. Independence Party, is a true populist; Senator Bernie Sanders, the former U.S. presidential candidate who campaigned for Hillary Clinton after losing his battle for the Democratic Party's nomination, is not.

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

Election Day 2010 saw the culmination of years of aggravation and resentment toward a federal government that became disconnected and disdainful of the values and priorities of Americans.

Then you get to the last half of the 20th century, Americans are getting very skeptical about their leaders and their institutions, and another place that is affected is parties and conventions.

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.

Lest conservatives be too proud, it's worth recalling that conservatism's rise was decisively enabled by liberalism's weakness.

I always hated Tony Blair, from the beginning.

Today in India there are all sections of people, as the BJP realized when the poor voted them out.

The fact that the Conservatives are losing voters to UKIP while struggling to attract those who voted for other parties in 2010 suggests they have still not successfully shown what a Conservative government is for. This needs to be done on a broad front in a way that encompasses the economy and public services.

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.

The left has lost touch with popular opinion, thereby making it possible for the right to present itself as the party of common sense.

Half a century ago, Ronald Reagan, the man whose relentless optimism inspired me to enter politics, famously said that he didn't leave the Democratic Party; the party left him. I can certainly relate. I didn't leave the Republican Party; it left me.

People don't like politicians.

When I first met Tony Blair in 1996, he was open and idealistic, keen to bring a breath of fresh air to government. But something happened - was it just the arrogance of power? - that narrowed Labour's vision from purposeful reform and investment, to peevish and petulant pragmatism.

If the Republican Party continues to ignore its conservative base, then the Party is headed to oblivion.