British politician (born 1955)
Philip Hammond, Baron Hammond of Runnymede PC MP (born 4 December 1955) is a British politician and life peer who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2016 to 2019, Foreign Secretary from 2014 to 2016, and Defence Secretary from 2011 to 2014. A member of the Conservative Party, he was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Runnymede and Weybridge from 1997 to 2019. He retired from Parliament in the 2019 general election, after the Conservative Party withdrew the whip from him for voting against Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government on a bill extending the Brexit withdrawal date.
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But what has struck me most looking at my own constituency in-box as well as the thousands of emails that I’m receiving from the general public here is that it isn’t just the Muslim community that’s reacting to this. It’s a broad swathe of British public opinion that feels deeply disturbed by what it is seeing on its television screens coming out of Gaza.
I think my position on the same-sex marriage thing probably sums up the kind of conservative that I am. I’m a small c conservative as well as a big C Conservative, and that means that I prefer my change to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary, and you know I got myself quite comfortable with the institution of civil partnership, but I was then quite shocked by the urge to move on so quickly to the next stage, but I dare say in time I will become quite comfortable with the institution of same-sex marriage, and I suspect I speak for a large number of Conservatives when I say it isn’t so much the substance of the change as the process and things being evolutionary and gradually taking root rather than through tumultuous change which is disturbing to the settled instinct.
I believe that we have to negotiate a better solution that works better for Britain if we are going to stay in and play a part in the European Union in the future, but let me be absolutely clear: I think it is defeatist to sort of say we want to leave the European Union. We should say no, this is a club that we are members of, and before we talk about leaving it, first of all we're going to try and change the rules and change the way it works and change the objectives that it has in order to make it something that works for Britain.
Nobody is suggesting that the NHS doesn't have to reform, nobody is suggesting that it doesn't have to become more efficient, that productivity growth doesn't have to become positive … The only difference is that in health, because of the demographic pressure, the savings will all – and more – have to be reinvested in delivering more healthcare.