In the course of a few weeks the one policy with which the Prime Minister was uniquely and personally associated, the contribution to policy of which… - John Smith

The Scots are a more moral people [than the English].

We ought, therefore, in the battle of ideas which is at the centre of the political struggle, to be confident in the strength of our intellectual case. But I believe we must also argue for our cause on the basis of its moral foundation. It is a sense of revulsion at injustice and poverty and denied opportunity, whether at home or abroad, which impels people to work for a better world, to become, as in our case, democratic socialists.

The fundamental flaw in the individualism of the classical writers, and their modern counterparts in today's Conservative Party, is, I believe, their assumption that human beings conduct their lives on the basis of self-interested decisions taken in radical isolation from others. This thesis grotesquely ignores the intrinsically social nature of human beings and fails to recognize the capabilities that all people have to act in response to commitments and beliefs that clearly transcend any narrow calculation of personal advantage.