I think that some people over here imagine that the Socialists are out to destroy freedom, freedom of the individual, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the freedom of the Press. They are wrong; the Labour Party is in the tradition of freedom-loving movements which have always existed in our country, but freedom has to be striven for in every generation, and those who threaten it are not always the same. Sometimes the battle of freedom has had to be fought against kings, sometimes against religious tyranny, sometimes against the power of the owners of the land, sometimes against the overwhelming strength of the moneyed interests. We in the Labour Party declare that we are in line with those who fought for Magna Carta and habeas corpus, with the Pilgrim Fathers, and with the signatories of the Declaration of Independence.
Clement AttleeRelated topics
battle corpus country declaration fight freedom generation imagine independence individual land line overwhelming party people pilgrim power press religion religious speech strength strive think tradition tyranny wrong labour habeas interests kingsRelated quotes
There is a process of slow modification and development mainly in directions which I view with misgiving. "Tory democracy," the favourite idea on that side, is no more like the Conservative party in which I was bred, than it is like Liberalism. In fact less. It is demagogism ... applied in the worst way, to put down the pacific, law-respecting, economic elements which ennobled the old Conservatism, living upon the fomentation of angry passions, and still in secret as obstinately attached as ever to the evil principle of class interests. The Liberalism of to-day is better ... yet far from being good. Its pet idea is what they called construction, - that is to say, taking into the hands of the State the business of the individual man. Both the one and the other have much to estrange me, and have had for many, many years.
William Ewart Gladstone
If this apprehension of the facts be correct, and the documentary evidence would appear to verify it, then certain conclusions are bound to follow. A spring will cease to flow if its source be dried up; a tree will wither if its roots be destroyed. In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but of spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man - these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in the religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world. Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We can not continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause.
Calvin Coolidge
If, on the other hand, the Conservative party invites the electorate to link national independence in its mind with Bennery and all things 'left' and to discern in membership of the Community a bulwark against the dangers of socialism, the implications are still more disreputable; for this is nothing other than saying that one would rather live under the tutelage of foreigners than incur the risk of one's fellow countrymen being free to make up their own minds. That would be to stamp the Conservative party as a class party with a vengeance, a slur the more damaging because there were in fact, at the time of the original debates, Conservatives inside and outside Parliament who did advocate membership on precisely that ground-blood brothers, no doubt, of those who in an earlier generation viewed the rise of Hitler with equanimity or approval as a safeguard against Communism.
Enoch Powell
We of the Labour Party reject policies and measures which failed the nation then and will fail the nation now. We want to lay the foundations of a new and better Britain worthy of our great people. That is why we propose in the interests of the whole nation that the community should become the master of its economic progress and prosperity, instead of leaving control in private hands to be used primarily for the private advantage of a few. In short, we are standing for the common weal. But we need political power to enable us to give practical effect in Parliament to our great forward-looking policies. The nation has now the chance to give Labour the necessary power to do the job, and I appeal to the electors in the constituency which you are contesting to make certain of electing you to the new House of Commons.
Clement Attlee
The State must help to promote and encourage production. ... There must be none of that shrinking from national organization, national production, and national assistance. Germany never made that mistake. Take the most important of national industries, agriculture. Agriculture in the past has been overlooked in this country. It has been neglected, with the result that we have been dependent very largely on lands across the seas for our food. We have realized during the war the perils of this position. ... It is in the highest interests of the community that the land in this country should be cultivated to its fullest capacity, and I doubt whether there is a civilized country in the whole world where agriculture has received less attention at the hands of the State. ... The cultivation of the land is the basis of national strength and prosperity.
David Lloyd George
