1980s Politics Quotes

People have had certain assumptions in the past about Conservative governments, partly because of some of the things that happened in the 1980s, and partly because of the tone of some of the debate in the 1980s that appeared to say public spending on the arts was something you might want to progressively reduce.

Fighting poverty is nothing new for the Conservative Party, but during the 1980s the emphasis placed on individualism and prosperity was sometimes seen to crowd out social issues like helping the most vulnerable in society.

I remember, growing up, you didn't wear an England shirt. The English flag was very much - and still is, to some extent - associated with the far-right movements of the 1980s that I grew up around.

It was here in Edinburgh that in the 1980s I joined with many others to protest against Margaret Thatcher as she arrived to address the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

It was weird to be in a movie that's very clearly a period piece like Killing Reagan, but that's about a time that's within my own memory. That's really weird. And conscious memory, not just vague.

Those who remember Washington's cold war culture in the 1980s will recall the shocked reactions to Reagan's intervention. People interested in foreign policy were astonished when in 1985 he met alone at Geneva - alone, not a single strategic thinker at his elbow! - with the Soviet Communist master Gorbachev.

I became a Conservative in the late 1980s because I could see that the Conservative party had transformed Britain's economy and our standing in the world compared to Labour in the 1980s.

I'd love to play Neil Kinnock. Because of my ginger hair, I thought that was a possibility. He's a hero and a villain in most people's eyes, but I'd like to do that, I think I'd be right for it.

It took Jimmy Carter to give us Ronald Reagan.