Top 15 Margaret Beckett Quotes

But I’m under no illusions whatsoever that there will be a big screaming queue outside Keir’s door if we win.

It’s this having your own facts. I’ve always believed in evidence-based policymaking, but if the evidence isn’t acceptable no matter how strong it is, that’s uncharted waters. Quite frightening waters.

I never expected that I would ever in my life think: ‘I wonder if there’s somewhere better to live.’ I have thought it once or twice in the last couple of years, which to me is extraordinary.

What people overlook is the impact – not in the sense of: ‘You’ve rejected what we said, how dare you?’ but having to join the euro, having to be in Schengen, not having all the concessions that we had won through successive governments.

I think probably we could have done more to help people to understand what was happening, and why, and that that would have laid a bit of foundation. Whereas support for what was being done was being taken for granted

He said: ‘There’s a simple rule of thumb: if you can’t stop the story, especially if it’s untrue, then the chances are that there’s somebody on your side briefing it.’ And I pretty soon discovered that there was – one of my most admired colleagues

must be my greatest achievement, because so many people who had nothing to do with it tell me it was their greatest achievement

I always resented the people who wrote in and said to new, young women MPs: ‘You ought to be campaigning on X or Y because that’s what a woman politician should do

you had a discussion in shadow cabinet, John would always genuinely want to hear everybody’s point of view. Tony and Gordon not so much, especially if someone was long-winded and not pertinent

I thought that he ought to be able to see that he wasn’t suitable, he wasn’t up to the job. He wasn’t rude, but it had no effect.

I was positive that the Labour party had much too much sense to elect him

Every winter that I remember in my childhood, he was gravely ill and seemed to be nearly dying.

Just because you get married doesn’t mean you don’t need to work.

I was an engineering apprentice when there were 20 of us [women] out of 2,000 – and I was the only woman on my course for a part of it. You would just get used to how bitchy men are.

He said to me: ‘You don’t do intimidation, do you, Margaret?’ And I hadn’t thought about it – haven’t thought about it since, really – but I sort of knew what he meant.