That these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.
— Richard Henry Lee
Controversy British Politics quotations
No medieval monarch in the whole of British history ever had such power as every modern British Prime Minister has in his or her hands. Nor does any American President have power approaching this
Basically, I have no place in organized politics.
By coming to the British Parliament, I've allowed the people to sacrifice me at the top and let go the more effective job I should be doing at the bottom.
British diplomats, constantly exposed to American political-ethical rhetoric, find their professional skills tested to the limits by the need to keep a straight face. For illustrations of what I mean, study the photographs of the expressions worn by Mr Douglas Hurd at any international conference involving all the Western allies.
The minds of youth are perpetually led to the history of Greece and Rime or to Great Britain; Boys are constantly repeating the declamations of Demosthenes and Cicero, or debates upon some political question in the British Parliament.
The reason the first three Star Wars movies were so terrific, and the second three sucked so bad, is actually very simple. The first three were about rebels, shooting guns and driving fast, and speaking with American accents. The second three were about politicians, discussing treaties and holding court, and speaking with British accents.
King Louis Philippe once said to me that he attributed the great success of the British nation in political life to their talking politics after dinner.
It is that the Mail constantly dares to stand up to the liberal-left consensus that dominates so many areas of British life and instead represents the views of the ordinary people who are our readers and who don't have a voice in today's political landscape and are too often ignored by today's ruling elite.
Two famous happy warriors - Reagan and his political soulmate, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher - knew they were fighting their own ideological and external wars. But they did so with the sunny dispositions and positive outlooks of those who knew they were on the right side of history.
Americans also seem to believe that the monarchy is a kind of mediaeval hangover, encumbered by premodern notions of decorum; the reality is that the British monarchy, for good or ill, is a modern political institution - perhaps the first modern political institution.
The great theme of modern British history is the fate of freedom.
The 18th century inherits, after the Civil War, this very peculiar political animal. It's not a democracy, but it's not a tyranny. It's not like the rest of the world, the rest of Europe. There is a parliament, laws have to be made, elections are made.
There is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hopes soon to be swept away. The British people can face peril or misfortune with fortitude and buoyancy, but they bitterly resent being deceived or finding that those responsible for their affairs are themselves dwelling in a fool's paradise.
Early British pop was helped tremendously by the writing of Bob Dylan who had proved you could write about political and quite controversial subjects. Certainly what we did followed on from what was happening with the angry young men in the theatre.
World War II had been such a tremendous success story for this country that the political and military leadership began to assume that they would prevail simply because of who they were. We were like the British at the turn of the 19th century.
I think this is what we must not lose sight of, present a confident, positive and optimistic platform for our country's future in which this Party appeals to the centre ground of British politics.
And what is the reaction of the British politcal class? Well the Lib Dems, still think that the Euro is a success! I don't quiet think where Cleggy gets this from, I don't know. Prehaps he is cosidering an alternative career, as a stand up comedian, once he's out of politics.
At the next election he'll offer the British public an alternative that provides weight and substance and seriousness in a political debate that is, frankly, increasingly obsessed with modishness and flim-flam.
British politics is more nuanced. Part of the problem with New Labour is that they are a moving target.
"Bolshoi Babylon" is the work of filmmakers Mark Franchetti and Nicholas Read.
Franchetti has been a Moscow-based journalist for 18 years. He won a British Press Award for his coverage of the 2002 Moscow theater siege in which 130 hostages were killed. He's covered Russian politics and the war in Ukraine.
There's a tradition in British intellectual life of mocking any non-political force that gets involved in politics, especially within the sphere of the arts and the theatre.
We now have political chaos. We've got parties in Ireland saying they want to merge with Northern Ireland. You've got parties in Scotland saying you want to leave the U.K. You've got the Spanish government saying it would like to take ownership of Gibraltar, which is a British overseas territory... So just the politics of this is a mess.
The British leadership has acknowledged that it only became possible to end the violence in North Ireland when it stopped thinking of the [Irish Republican Army] as "a terrorist organization" and began treating it as a political actor with genuine grievances that deserved to be addressed.
It's important for people not to hold a high opinion of politicians, and one of the strengths of the British is that they don't on the whole... The danger begins when people start admiring politicians.
Take all your dukes and marquesses and earls and viscounts, pack them into one chamber, call it the House of Lords to satisfy their pride and then strip it of all political power. It's a solution so perfectly elegant and preposterous that only the British could have managed it.
Loyal and substansial Catholic service on the battlefield undermined one of the most longstanding objections to emancipation: namely, that since Catholics owed religious allegiance to a foreign authority in the person of the Pope, their political and patriotic allegiance must necessarily be suspect.
I think deep down, this planet yearns for the days of the British Empire again.
They long once more to be treated that badly, that politely. We did far worse things than you can possibly dream of, but we did it with that certainly gentlemanly swagger... Dreadfully sorry, but we seem to have crushed your entire continent's infrastructure. Allow me to make it up to you by offering you a job 4,000 miles away. No, no, I insist.
I'm highly political. I spend an awful lot of time in the U.S. trying to influence decision-makers. But I don't feel in tune with British politics.
The British Government very naturally would like to see in India the form of democratic constitutions it knows best and thinks best, under which the Government of the country is entrusted to one or other political party in accordance with the turn of elections.
What Abraham Lincoln had to face was a culturally and politically cohesive bloc of states comprising half the country, refusing to discuss even the limitation of slavery; while he had only the most feeble means of enforcement. The British and the French could do their emancipating at a distance; Lincoln had armed resistance almost literally at his doorstep.
I had no intention of returning into the British political debate, really at all, even though I've obviously got very strong views on it, until Brexit happened, because I think Brexit is a destiny-changing decision for my country.
Okay, so here's my question: When did civility become incompatible with protest? Why do some people consider civility an antonym - anathema, even - to political action and dissent? Because, and I'm raising my voice, it's not. Have we forgotten how Mahatma Gandhi used nonviolent civil disobedience to free India from British rule and inspire civil rights movements worldwide?
Nigel Farage, even if you don`t follow British politics, he`s a British politician but you may recognize him from his frequent visits to the United States, for example, his time at Trump Tower. You may recognize him from his time on the campaign trail with Donald Trump.
How stagnant and tepid the whole British political scene is now is just beyond belief.
The British inclined more towards the feudal mentality, the feudal structures rather than the more radical progressive elements who would re-shape society and institute pretty egalitarian systems of governance with opportunity for even disadvantaged people and so I found that decolonisation was not just the end of political struggle in Nigeria.
The British people rejected politics as usual and government as usual.
They want and need a new approach to running this country.