#politics

I understand the damage the expenses crisis has done to Parliament, and the paramount importance of restoring trust in our politics. ↗

— George Osborne

#damage #done #expenses #i #importance

The gun is not out of Irish politics. ↗

— Ian Paisley

#irish #out #politics

The lesson of the last year is this: foreign policy can't be managed through the politics of personality, and our President would do well to take note of an observation John F. Kennedy made once he was in office - that all of the world's problems aren't his predecessor's fault. ↗

— Sarah Palin

#foreign #foreign policy #his #john #kennedy

I've been worked over by the English press because there's an assumption that my politics are identical with my wife's, and for that matter that my wife's politics are identical with her politics of 20 years ago. ↗

— Stephen Rea

#assumption #because #been #english #her

If there is a smoke, there is a fire, the saying goes, That is quite true, but one should find what the fire is, and who lit it. ↗

— Tariq Ramadan

#politics #islam

I was taken to a villa to meet Sabri al-Banna, known as 'Abu Nidal' ('father of struggle'), who was at the time emerging as one of Yasser Arafat's main enemies. The meeting began inauspiciously when Abu Nidal asked me if I would like to be trained in one of his camps. No thanks, I explained. From this awkward beginning there was a further decline. I was then asked if I knew Said Hammami, the envoy of the PLO in London. I did in fact know him. He was a brave and decent man, who in a series of articles in the London Times had floated the first-ever trial balloon for a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine. 'Well tell him he is a traitor,' barked my host. 'And tell him we have only one way with those who betray us.' The rest of the interview passed as so many Middle Eastern interviews do: too many small cups of coffee served with too much fuss; too many unemployed heavies standing about with nothing to do and nobody to do it with; too much ugly furniture, too many too-bright electric lights; and much too much faux bonhomie. The only political fact I could winnow, from Abu Nidal's vainglorious claims to control X number of 'fighters' in Y number of countries, was that he admired the People's Republic of China for not recognizing the State of Israel. I forget how I got out of his office. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#arafat #china #interviews #iraq #israel

What better way for a ruling class to claim and hold power than to pose as the defenders of the nation. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#conflict #government #history #politics #power

In a perfect world what poor countries at the lowest rungs of economic development need is not a multi-party democracy, but in fact a decisive benevolent dictator to push through the reforms required to get the economy moving ↗

— Dambisa Moyo

#africa

The fact that, in the United States, there are people serving ten-year prison terms for growing marijuana plants in their backyards while Wall Street racketeers, who have defrauded millions of people and destroyed the global economy, walk free is a kind of bizarre hypocrisy that boggles my mind. ↗

— Mark Haskell Smith

#government #hypocrisy #politics #politics-of-the-united-states #truth

In argument, truth always prevails finally; in politics, falsehood always. ↗

— Walter Savage Landor

#argument #falsehood #finally #politics #prevails