The next Labour Government can be content with nothing less than the elimination of poverty as a social problem. ... The Labour movement was created … - Roy Jenkins
""
The next Labour Government can be content with nothing less than the elimination of poverty as a social problem. ... The Labour movement was created to fight against a wealthy minority on behalf of a poor majority. Now it has a more complex and demanding task. It has to enlist the majority in a struggle on behalf of a poor minority, who on grounds of age or health or family circumstances or disgracefully low pay are unable to help themselves. No one has a right to expect a fair deal for himself unless he is prepared to work for one for others too.
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.
Suez was a totally unsuccessful attempt to achieve unreasonable and undesirable objectives by methods which were at once reckless and immoral; and the consequences, as was well deserved, were humiliating and disastrous.
I think that British politics, as at present constituted do make it difficult for people who are essentially men of the centre—I am a man of the left centre, but I've never pretended to be terribly far away from the centre of British politics. ... The gladiatorial nature of the House of Commons, with two sides lined up against each other, puts a premium on disagreement rather than upon agreement. This is inclined on both sides to give a greater strength to the wings rather than to the centre. ... there are appalling economic problems facing this country at the present time...I don't think it's terribly useful, terribly relevant or terribly convincing just to engage in an endless game of tu quoque. You've got to think of something better than 'It's your fault',—'No, it's not, it's your fault'. There's a sterility in this which is a danger to the country.
Go Premium
Support Quotewise while enjoying an ad-free experience and premium features.
Were we to leave [the EEC], the worst damage would be done to ourselves. But not only damage. Western unity, at a time of great international danger, is under greater strain than at any time since it was put together in the aftermath of the war a generation ago. Were we to start to disengage, the whole delicate but precious structure might begin to fall apart.
