#britain

I remember being in China and realising how irrelevant not even Britain is, but also Europe. We're just another remote country that hardly impinges on some places at all. ↗

— Clive Anderson

#another #being #britain #china #country

At the beginning of the twentieth century, every single leading Muslim intellectual was in love with the west, and wanted their countries to look just like Britain and France. ↗

— Karen Armstrong

#britain #century #countries #every #france

But I am an optimist about Britain; and the difference between an optimist and a pessimist is not that the optimist believes the world is wonderful and the pessimist believes it's beset by challenges; the difference is the pessimist believes we will be defeated by them; the optimist thinks the challenges can be overcome. ↗

— Tony Blair

#am #believes #beset #between #britain

We, therefore, here in Britain stand shoulder to shoulder with our American friends in this hour of tragedy, and we, like them, will not rest until this evil is driven from our world. ↗

— Tony Blair

#american #britain #driven #evil #friends

I rate Morrissey as one of the best lyricists in Britain. For me, he's up there with Bryan Ferry. ↗

— David Bowie

#britain #bryan #ferry #i #me

The thing about politicians in Britain is that they are out there, you can lobby them, get close to them, there are loads of ways you can protest against them, and booing is a pretty weak way of doing it. ↗

— Alastair Campbell

#against #booing #britain #close #doing

By the end of the 1970s Britain was in a mess. ↗

— Kenneth Baker

#end #mess

I don't think there are really enough meetings in Britain for our athletes to compete properly, and because of this a lot of the talent we have has been stunted. ↗

— Linford Christie

#because #been #britain #compete #enough

Today, bilateral relations with Britain are excellent, with cooperation in many areas and both countries continuing to work on strengthening these ties. ↗

— Hassanal Bolkiah

#bilateral #both #britain #continuing #cooperation

But a progressive policy needs more than just a bigger break with the economic and moral assumptions of the past 30 years. It needs a return to the conviction that economic growth and the affluence it brings is a means and not an end. The end is what it does to the lives, life-chances and hopes of people. Look at London. Of course it matters to all of us that London's economy flourishes. But the test of the enormous wealth generated in patches of the capital is not that it contributed 20%-30% to Britain's GDP but how it affects the lives of the millions who live and work there. What kind of lives are available to them? Can they afford to live there? If they can't, it is not compensation that London is also a paradise for the ultra-rich. Can they get decently paid jobs or jobs at all? If they can't, don't brag about all those Michelin-starred restaurants and their self-dramatising chefs. Or schooling for children? Inadequate schools are not offset by the fact that London universities could field a football team of Nobel prize winners. ↗

— Eric J. Hobsbawm

#capitalism #economics #education #london #morality