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...one should not doubt that there is in Britain a great body of moderate, rather uncommitted opinion, and that unless substantial sections of such o… - Roy Jenkins
" "...one should not doubt that there is in Britain a great body of moderate, rather uncommitted opinion, and that unless substantial sections of such opinion can feel happy in supporting one or other of the major parties the result will be an intolerable strain upon the traditional pattern of politics. ... The stalemate will not be broken unless and until we can move over to the Labour Party a sizable part of this potentially progressive, but non-extreme opinion. I do not think that has happened yet.
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About Roy Jenkins
Roy Harris Jenkins, Baron Jenkins of Hillhead OM PC (11 November 1920 – 5 January 2003) was a British politician who served as the sixth president of the European Commission from 1977 to 1981, having previously been one of the primary proponents of British entry into the European Economic Community. At various times a Member of Parliament (MP) for the Labour Party, Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the Liberal Democrats, he was Chancellor of the Exchequer and Home Secretary under the Wilson and Callaghan Governments. He initially identified as a democratic socialist, and later as a social democrat and centrist. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, he pursued a tight fiscal policy to control the inflation of the pound sterling. As Home Secretary, he was responsible for abolishing capital punishment and decriminalizing abortion, homosexuality, and divorce. He ran in the 1976 Labour Party leadership election to become Prime Minister, but was defeated by James Callaghan and briefly retired from British politics to serve as President of the European Commission. He returned to Britain to help found the Social Democratic Party, which formed an alliance with the Liberal Party under David Steel and was intended as a centrist alternative to the Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher and the Labour Party under Michael Foot. However, he resigned as Party Leader after the SDP-Liberal Alliance failed to outpoll the Labour Party in the 1983 general election.
Also Known As
Birth Name:
Roy Harris Jenkins
Alternative Names:
Baron Jenkins of Hillhead
•
Lord Jenkins of Hillhead
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Additional quotes by Roy Jenkins
It is not much good talking about fundamental and irreversible changes in our society and being content with a 38 per cent Labour voting intention. ... Democracy means that you need a substantially stronger moral position than this to govern effectively at all, let alone effecting a peaceful social revolution. The programme we put forward must be capable of being carried out in what may well be difficult economic circumstances.
We have to persuade men and women who are themselves reasonably well off that they have a duty to forgo some of the advantages they would otherwise enjoy for the sake of others who are much poorer. We have to persuade car workers in my constituency that they have an obligation to low-paid workers in the public sector. We have to persuade the British people as a whole that they have an obligation to Africans and Asians whom they have never seen. Our only hope is to appeal to the latent idealism of all men and women of good will, irrespective of their income brackets, irrespective of their class origins. In place of the politics of envy, we must put the politics of compassion; in place of the politics of cupidity, the politics of justice; in place of the politics of opportunism, the politics of principle. Only so can we hope to succeed. Only so will success be worth having.
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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.
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