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James Callaghan

62 quotes

• “For too long, perhaps ever since the war, we postponed facing up to fundamental choices and fundamental changes in our society and in our economy. This is what I mean when I say we have been living on borrowed time. For too long this country – all of us, yes this Conference too – has been ready to settle for borrowing money abroad to maintain our standards of life, instead of grappling with the fundamental problems of British industry. Governments of both parties have failed to ignite the fires of industrial growth in the ways that countries with very different political and economic philosophies have done.”

  James Callaghan (1912–2005) first seen 1976 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Blackpool (28 September 1976), quoted in James Callaghan, Time and Chance (Collins, 1987), p. 425

• “The cosy world we were told would go on for ever, where full employment would be guaranteed by a stroke of the Chancellor's pen, cutting taxes, deficit spending – that cosy world is gone. Yesterday, delegates pointed to the first sorry fruits: a high rate of unemployment. ... When we reject unemployment as an economic instrument — as we do — and when we reject also superficial remedies, as socialists must, then we must ask ourselves unflinchingly what is the cause of high unemployment. Quite simply and unequivocally, it is caused by paying ourselves more than the value of what we produce. There are no scapegoats. This is true in a mixed economy under a Labour Government as it is under capitalism or under communism. It is an absolute fact of life which no Government, be it left or right, can alter.”

  James Callaghan (1912–2005) first seen 1976 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Blackpool (28 September 1976), quoted in Labour Party Annual Conference Report 1976, p. 188 and James Callaghan, Time and Chance (Collins, 1987), p. 426

• “We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists, and in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step. Higher inflation followed by higher unemployment. We have just escaped from the highest rate of inflation this country has known; we have not yet escaped from the consequences: high unemployment. That is the history of the last twenty years.”

  James Callaghan (1912–2005) first seen 1976 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Blackpool (28 September 1976), quoted in Labour Party Annual Conference Report 1976, p. 188 and James Callaghan, Time and Chance (Collins, 1987), p. 426. This part of his speech …

• “Now we must get back to fundamentals. First, overcoming unemployment now unambiguously depends on our labour costs being at least comparable with those of our major competitors. Second, we can only become competitive by having the right kind of investment at the right kind of level, and by significantly improving the productivity of both labour and capital. Third, we will fail – and I say this to those who have been pressing about public expenditure, to which I will come back – if we think we can buy our way out by printing what Denis Healey calls ‘confetti money’ to pay ourselves more than we produce.”

  James Callaghan (1912–2005) first seen 1976 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Blackpool (28 September 1976), quoted in James Callaghan, Time and Chance (Collins, 1987), p. 427

• “I have been concerned to find out that many of our best trained students who have completed the higher levels of education at university or polytechnic have no desire to join industry. Their preferences are to stay in academic life or to find their way into the civil service. There seems to be a need for more technological bias in science teaching that will lead towards practical applications in industry rather than towards academic studies. Or, to take other examples, why is it that such a high proportion of girls abandon science before leaving school? ... Why is it that 30,000 vacancies for students in science and engineering in our universities and polytechnics were not taken up last year while the humanities courses were full?”

  James Callaghan (1912–2005) first seen 1976 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech to Ruskin College, Oxford University (18 October 1976)

• “[T]here is the unease felt by parent and others about the new informal methods of teaching which seem to produce excellent results when they are in well-qualified hands but are much more dubious when they are not. They seem to be best accepted where strong parent-teacher links exist. There is little wrong with the range and diversity of our courses. But is there sufficient thoroughness and depth in those required in after life to make a living? These are proper subjects for discussion and debate. And it should be a rational debate based on the facts. My remarks are not a clarion call to Black Paper prejudices. We all know those who claim to defend standards but who in reality are simply seeking to defend old privileges and inequalities.”

  James Callaghan (1912–2005) first seen 1976 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech to Ruskin College, Oxford University (18 October 1976)

• “The goals of our education, from nursery school through to adult education, are clear enough. They are to equip children to the best of their ability for a lively, constructive, place in society, and also to fit them to do a job of work. Not one or the other but both. ... There is no virtue in producing socially well-adjusted members of society who are unemployed because they do not have the skills. Nor at the other extreme must they be technically efficient robots. Both of the basic purposes of education require the same essential tools. These are basic literacy, basic numeracy, the understanding of how to live and work together, respect for others, respect for the individual. This means requiring certain basic knowledge, and skills and reasoning ability. It means developing lively inquiring minds and an appetite for further knowledge that will last a lifetime. It means mitigating as far as possible the disadvantages that may be suffered through poor home conditions or physical or mental handicap. Are we aiming in the right direction in these matters?”

  James Callaghan (1912–2005) first seen 1976 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech to Ruskin College, Oxford University (18 October 1976)

• “We are opposed to racialism, we are opposed to discrimination. The Labour Party will do all in its power to ensure that all our citizens, irrespective of race or creed, enjoy equality of opportunity and equality of protection under the law. On this we cannot compromise. Inflation and unemployment have always been exploited by extremists. Groups who can be easily identified have always been vulnerable at such times. The Jews in the 1930s have been replaced by the black people in the 1970s. But history tells us that the persecution of the minority is only the first step. That is followed by attacks on trade unions, on the press, on free speech and so on to democracy itself. Let no one be in any doubt about the true nature of those who wrap their poisonous doctrines in our national flag.”

  James Callaghan (1912–2005) first seen 1977 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Brighton (4 October 1977), quoted in The Times (5 October 1977), p. 6

• “The commentators have fixed the month for me, they have chosen the date and the day. But I advise them: "Don't count your chickens before they are hatched." Remember what happened to Marie Lloyd. She fixed the day and the date, and she told us what happened. As far as I remember it went like this: 'There was I, waiting at the church–' (laughter). Perhaps you recall how it went on. 'All at once he sent me round a note. Here's the very note. This is what he wrote: "Can't get away to marry you today, my wife won't let me."' Now let me just make clear that I have promised nobody that I shall be at the altar in October? Nobody at all.”

  James Callaghan (1912–2005) first seen 1978 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech to the Trades Unions Congress (5 September 1978), quoted in "Mr Callaghan renews plea for 5% pay guideline", The Times (6 September 1978), p. 4

• “We can truly say that once the Leader of the Opposition had discovered what the Liberals and the SNP were going to do, she found the courage of their convictions. So, this evening, the Conservative Party, who want the Act repealed and oppose even devolution, will march through the Lobby with the SNP, who want independence for Scotland, and with the Liberals, who want to keep the Act. What a massive display of unsullied principle! The minority parties have walked into a trap. If they win, there will be a general election. I am told that the current joke going round the House is that it is the first time in recorded history that turkeys have been known to vote for an early Christmas.”

  James Callaghan (1912–2005) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (28 March 1979). In the No confidence debate which brought his government down on 28 March 1979, Callaghan poked fun at the opposition parties and drew attention to their low showing in op…

• “David Rose (ITN reporter): Industrial relations and picketing. What about the TUC putting its house in order? James Callaghan: The media's always trying to find what's wrong with something .. Let's try and make it work. Rose: What if the unions can't control their own militants? So there are no circumstances where you would legislate? Callaghan: I didn't say anything of that sort at all. I'm not going to take the interview any further. Look here. We've been having five minutes on industrial relations. You said you would do prices. I'm just not going to do this .. that programme is not to go. This interview with you is only doing industrial relations. I'm not doing the interview with you on that basis. I'm not going to do it. Don't argue with me. I'm not going to do it.”

  James Callaghan (1912–2005) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Interview (2 May 1979), quoted in Michael Pilsworth, "Balanced Broadcasting", in David Butler and Dennis Kavanagh, The British General Election of 1979 (Macmillan, 1980), pp. 207-208.

• “Many of you younger delegates are experiencing for the first time and seeing for the first time what we grew up with in the Thirties, what brought us into the Labour Movement and what, inciden­tally, will mean that we shall die in the Labour Movement and will never leave the Labour Movement. (Applause) However bad a socialist I may be in the eyes of a great many of our col­leagues, I know why I and many others of my generation were bound to be in the Labour Party. We were determined that the Thirties should not be seen in our lifetime. And...as I see the conditions being repeated once again, the policies being followed once more that we thought we had destroyed forever as the result of the 1930s, I cannot but feel a deep indignation and anger that this generation should be required to go through the things that our generation went through. And I am determined to fight it as hard as I can. (Applause)”

  James Callaghan (1912–2005) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Blackpool (30 September 1980), quoted in Report of the ... Annual Conference of the Labour Party (1980), p. 63