James Callaghan Quotes

32 Sourced Quotes

I sum up the prospects for 1967 in three short sentences. We are back on course. The ship is picking up speed. The economy is moving. Every seaman knows the command at such a moment: 'steady as she goes'.

James Callaghan
A leader must have the courage to act against an expert's advice.

James Callaghan
A leader has to appear consistent. That doesn't mean he has to be consistent.

James Callaghan
Well, that's a judgment that you are making. I promise you that if you look at it from outside, and perhaps you're taking rather a parochial view at the moment, I don't think that other people in the world would share the view that there is mounting chaos.

James Callaghan
It's never a misfortune to become Prime Minister. It's always the greatest thing in your life. It's absolute heaven—I enjoyed every moment of it until those last few months of the 'Winter of Discontent'.

James Callaghan
Well, it works, doesn't it? So I think that's the answer, even if it is on the back of an envelope and doesn't have a written constitution with every comma and every semi-colon in place. Because sometimes they can make for difficulties that common sense can overcome.

James Callaghan
The Soviet Union's propaganda clearly wishes to use public opinion in this country to get the West to reduce its own arms while doing nothing themselves. In this way they would gain nuclear superiority. This is simply not on.

James Callaghan
There are times, perhaps once every thirty years, when there is a sea-change in politics. It then does not matter what you say or what you do. There is a shift in what the public wants and what it approves of. I suspect there is now such a sea-change and it is for Mrs. Thatcher.

James Callaghan
Of the popularity of Mrs thatcher:
The further you got from Britain, the more admired you found she was.

James Callaghan
Now that the House of Commons has declared itself, we shall take our case to the country.

James Callaghan
You cannot now, if you ever could, spend your way out of a recession.

James Callaghan
Now, now, little lady, you don't want to believe all those things you read in the newspaper about crisis and upheavals, and the end of civilization as we know it. Dearie me, not at all.

James Callaghan
We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists, and in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step.

James Callaghan
Meantime I say to both sides of industry, 'Please don't support us with general expressions of good will and kind words, and then undermine us through unjustified wage increases or price increases. Either back us or sack us.'

James Callaghan
It is quite clear from what has been said and written that, time after time after time, there has been a conspiracy between the Conservative Front Bench in this House and the inbuilt Conservative majority in the House of Lords to defeat legislation that has passed through the House of Commons... I warn the House of Lords of the consequences... it is our strong view that the House of Lords should recall that its role is not that of a wrecking chamber, but of a revising chamber. In recent weeks, it has been wrecking legislation passed by this House.

James Callaghan
Never let me hear anyone say again that a Socialist State cannot provide outlets for those with initiative. The rewards given to ability in the U.S.S.R. at all levels are far greater than those given to the employed in capitalist Britain. I have seen it and it works.

James Callaghan
You never reach the promised land. You can march towards it.

James Callaghan
Those who advocate devaluation are calling for a reduction in the wage levels and the real wage standards of every member of the working class.

James Callaghan
If we were to fail, I do not think another Government could succeed. The result would be a National Government situation and I fear it would lead to totalitarianism of the Right or Left.

James Callaghan
We say that what Britain needs is a new social contract. That is what this document [Labour's Programme for Britain] is about.

James Callaghan
Millions of people in Britain must have been very surprised to hear that the language of Chaucer, of Shakespeare and of Milton must in future be regarded as an undesirable American import from which we have to protect ourselves if we are to build a new Europe. We can agree that the French own the supreme prose literature in Europe. But if we are to prove — if we have to prove — our Europeanism by accepting that French is the dominant language in the Community, then my answer is quite clear, and I will say it in French in order to prevent any misunderstanding: Non, merci beaucoup.

James Callaghan
We can truly say that once the Leader of the Opposition had discovered what the Liberals and the SNP were going to do, she found the courage of their convictions. So, this evening, the Conservative Party, who want the Act repealed and oppose even devolution, will march through the Lobby with the SNP, who want independence for Scotland, and with the Liberals, who want to keep the Act. What a massive display of unsullied principle! The minority parties have walked into a trap. If they win, there will be a general election. I am told that the current joke going round the House is that it is the first time in recorded history that turkeys have been known to vote for an early Christmas.

James Callaghan
I have not the slightest doubt that the economic measures and the Socialist measures which one will find in the countries of Eastern Europe, will become increasingly powerful against the unco-ordinated, planless society in which the West is living at present.

James Callaghan
I had known it was going to be a 'winter of discontent'.

James Callaghan
A lie can be halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on.

James Callaghan