So, what I say to people is that politics has got to be about principle and values above all. Of course, there are times when you have to make accommodations.

Chris Patten

Categorized in : People Principles Accommodations

In a democracy everybody has a right to be represented, including... by Chris Patten

In a democracy everybody has a right to be represented, including the jerks.

jerk democracy freedom

Hong Kong's people will get what they want, despite China's objections. Freedom invariably wins in the end.

winning want people

Hong Kong represents the kind of Asia with which both West and East are comfortable... It offers, in that sense, a vision for the future of Asia.

asia east vision

We have our own system, ... and journalists in our system are not put in prison for embarrassing the government by revealing things the government might not wish to have revealed. The important thing is that our system, under which journalists can write without fear or favor, should continue.

government wish writing

Anyone who supposed that when Margaret Thatcher left Number Ten she was going to take a Trappist vow did not know that formidable politician.

vow politician numbers

Green politics at its worst amounts to a sort of Zen fascism; less extreme, it denounces growth and seeks to stop the world so that we can all get off.

green growth world

It behaves more like a tribe than a democratic institution...responding to custom rather than reason and using its own liturgy and language for the conduct of its domestic affairs.

tribes affair language

I don't think that capitalism should be unbridled, if by "unbridl... by Chris Patten

I don't think that capitalism should be unbridled, if by "unbridled" you mean unregulated.

should mean thinking

It is almost always wrong that the time isn't ripe to decide something. That is always said of difficult problems.

difficult problem said

Those of us who had a perfectly happy childhood should be able to sue for deprivation of literary royalties.

royalty childhood able

It is a sort of great Victorian truth that actually, trying to do the right thing is pretty good for you and pretty good for business as well, by and large.

victorian wells trying

I think that if politics is just about getting your backside on important seats, then it's a pretty worthless endeavor.

endeavor important thinking

We're not trying to recreate Yugoslavia by Chris Patten

We're not trying to recreate Yugoslavia

yugoslavia recreation trying

All parts of the society need to feel that the police service is their police service, and that does not happen unless all parts of society are represented in the police

police doe needs

It'd make a wonderful change to have the leader of a pluralist democracy who acted on that, who told people just how tough things are going to be, just what's going to have to be done - and, maybe, ran all the risks on the side of honesty, rather than spinning stories and trying to win the headlines every day.

honesty winning people

In democracy everyone has the right to be represented, even the j... by Chris Patten

In democracy everyone has the right to be represented, even the jerks.

jerk democracy freedom

Of course, there were huge disagreements in the arguments of military intervention, .. There is no point at the moment on focusing on those disagreements.

argument moments military

Undoubtedly, at the moment, the major cause of CO2 emission is wh... by Chris Patten

Undoubtedly, at the moment, the major cause of CO2 emission is what happens in developed countries.

causes moments country

It is curious that atheists have proved to be so intolerant of th... by Chris Patten

It is curious that atheists have proved to be so intolerant of those who have a faith.

curious atheist

There is a sort of exotic preposterousness about a lot of elections, the way arguments are made even cruder.

exotic voting way