Roy Jenkins Quotes

14 Sourced Quotes

Many of the early nationalisation measures were right. They have remained part of the social fabric. I favour measures of that type.

Roy Jenkins
A great lighthouse which stands there, flashing out beams of light, indifferent to the waves which beat against him.
Of Edward Heath

Roy Jenkins
I therefore believe that the politics of the left and centre of this country are frozen in an out-of-date mould which is bad for the political and economic health of Britain and increasingly inhibiting for those who live within the mould. Can it be broken?

Roy Jenkins
The permissive society has been allowed to become a dirty phrase. A better phrase is the civilized society.

Roy Jenkins
There is nobody in politics I can remember and no case I can think of in history where a man combined such a powerful political personality with so little intelligence.
Of James Callaghan

Roy Jenkins
A social democratic party without deep roots in the working class movement would quickly fade into an unrepresentative intellectual sect

Roy Jenkins
The great disadvantage of our present electoral system is that it freezes the pattern of politics, and holds together the incompatible because everyone assumes that if a party splits it will be electorally slaughtered

Roy Jenkins
It would be a mistake to think... that by what we are doing tonight we are giving a vote of confidence or congratulation to homosexuality. Those who suffer from this disability carry a great weight of loneliness, guilt and shame. The crucial question, which we are nearly at the end of answering decisively, is, should we add to those disadvantages the full rigour of the criminal law? By its overwhelming decisions, the House has given a fairly clear answer, and I hope that the Bill will now make rapid progress towards the Statute Book. It will be an important and civilising Measure.

Roy Jenkins
The record does not provide much sustenance for the view that limpet-like Prime Ministers can be easily disposed of by their parties.

Roy Jenkins
A First Minister whose self-righteous stubbornness has not been equalled, save briefly by Neville Chamberlain, since Lord North.
Of Margaret Thatcher

Roy Jenkins
There are only two coherent British attitudes to Europe. One is to participate fully... and to endeavour to exercise as much influence and gain as much benefit as possible from the inside. The other is to recognise that Britain's history, national psychology and political culture may be such that we can never be other than a foot-dragging and constantly complaining member; and that it would be better, and certainly would produce less friction, to accept this and to move towards an orderly, and if possible, reasonably amicable withdrawal.

Roy Jenkins
I do not think you can push public expenditure significantly above 60 per cent and maintain the values of a plural society with adequate freedom of choice. We are here close to one of the frontiers of social democracy

Roy Jenkins
Nearly all Prime Ministers are dissatisfied with their successors, perhaps even more so if they come from their own party.

Roy Jenkins
Each successive Labour Government has been the most rapacious, doctrinaire and unpatriotic conspiracy to be seen this side of the Iron Curtain.

Roy Jenkins