Quote of the day 13th December 2019

"Actually my next plan is to go and have a cup of tea."

(Caroline Flint, Labour MP for the Don Valley 1997 to 2019)

Every election some departing former MP who has just lost their job manages to take their defeat with such dignified grace and humility or come up with some witty response which reminds all but the most sectarian of their opponents, who might otherwise have been tempted to gloat, that even politicians whose political views you don't agree with are human too.

This year it was Caroline Flint whose Don Valley seat, which she had represented for 22 years, had just elected its first ever Conservative MP. She was asked what her plans were now and gave a quintessentially British response.

Comments

Jim said…
A great election result, finally we can get brexit done. Also looking forward to nicer roads. Good to see my old friend Mark jenkinson is now my MP too. I once went to a local election count to show some support for him, though ironically he asked me to wear a UKIP rosette. (To be fair that was pre move focus to immigration days).

Congratulations to the conservative party. It had to happen for brexit and things, though once that is done we will be on dangerous ground, I'm not a fan of any government not having a credible opposition.
12:51 pm
Gary Bullivant said…
Jim,

I echo your congratulations and share your assessment of the main risk we all now face. Too much Brexit and the United Kingdom risks being ripped apart but for the time being a little smugness would be understandable on the government benches.

Sterling work by Ged McGrath in Barrow too by the way but he can stop pretending now it's over, unless he's the secret weapon for Mike Starkie's Cumbria Mayoral Election campaign that is.
3:21 pm
Anonymous said…
Happy days - we all made a killing on the Markets today
6:52 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
Interesting times.

Of course I am pleased by most aspects of the results - the main exception being in Scotland which will need very careful handling.

I think it is a particularly good thing that the decision on Brexit is now clear and at least we have some certainty.

Whatever you think about Boris he's nobody's fool and the fact that he actually made a comment after the results were declared recognising that many of the votes cast for the Conservatives on Thursday were loaned rather than permanently gifted is a healthy sign.

Because no party should think it owns the votes of any section of the electorate.

I have the impression that one of the reasons Labour did so badly in this election is that they did give the appearance of thinking like that.
7:37 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the...
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more