Edward Heath quotes
The historic role of the Conservative Party is to use the leverage of its political and diplomatic skills to create a fresh balance between the different elements within the state at those times when, for one reason or another, their imbalance threatens to disrupt the orderly development of society.
Edward Heath
The time has come to speak out. Britain is now locked in a vicious spiralling interest rates...The net result of completing the vicious circle is that prices have increased, the rate of inflation has gone up, the money supply has increased, unemployment has gone up, the rate of bankruptcies has increased, the industrial base has been further eroded, the Government's borrowing requirement has increased and as a result there is more pressure to raise interest rates yet again, to be followed inevitably by the same vicious circle. It is this that must be broken.
Edward Heath
No one can deny that today the major cause of the inflation from which we are suffering is the excessive wage demands... It is the responsibility of an employer, direct or indirect...if they go their own way and accede to irresponsible wage demands which damage their own firms and create a loss of jobs for those who work in them, then the Government are certainly not going to step in and rescue them from the consequences of their own actions.
Edward Heath
We may be a small island. We're not a small people... For the last six years the Government of this country...have let us be treated as second rate. They even plan for us to stay second rate. Because that's what Labour policies mean... Now I don't intend to stand by and see this happen... Do you want a better tomorrow? ... That's what I will work for with all my strength and with all my heart. I give you my word and I will keep my word.
Edward Heath
Robin Day: But how low does your personal rating, among your own supporters, have to go before you consider yourself a liability to the party you lead?
Edward Heath: Well, popularity isn't everything. In fact it isn't the most important thing. What matters is doing what you believe to be right, and that's what I've always tried to do and I shall go on doing. The question doesn't arise.
Edward Heath
The miners' leaders have said more than once that they are confronting the Government, not the National Coal Board. I believe they may not yet have fully understood the implications of this approach. For it is just not the government-it is the expressed will of the elected representatives of the people in Parliament. That is the main difference between the dispute in 1972 and the dispute in 1973 and I believe that it will prove decisive. For the authority of the elected Parliament is the cornerstone of our democracy, and is recognized as such by the overwhelming majority of people in this country.
Edward Heath
Government, management and unions...have now...jointly embarked for the first time in Britain, on the path of working out together how to create and share the nation's wealth for the benefit of all the people. It is an offer to employers and unions to share fully with the Government the benefits and the obligations involved in running the national economy.
Edward Heath
