British Quotes

Poetry is the work of poets, not of peoples or communities; artistic creation can never be anything but the production of an individual mind.

My London constituency in Hackney has one of the highest levels of gun crime in the country. But the problem is no longer confined to inner city areas. Gun crime has spread to communities all over Britain.

My forebears refused to cut the sugar cane for plantation owners, and I am recognisably a product of that background.

My father was a manual worker.

My family were from Jamaica.

It's very lonely bringing up a child on your own.

In politics, the people I most despise are those who have no values.

In Parliament we debate on and we decide the laws that are going to govern the country.

I'm not the only Labour MP who sent their child to public school but I'm the only one who's questioned about it.

I'm a West Indian mum and West Indian mums will go to the wall for their children.

I was a postman one Christmas and I developed a morbid fear of dogs.

I wanted my marriage to work, but it didn't.

I want to write a best-selling book.

I spend a lot of time visiting local organisations.

I knew what could happen to my son if he was sent to the wrong school and got in with the wrong crowd.

I believe every abortion is a tragedy.

Gun crime is a major cause of fear and distress throughout the UK. The problem is deeply entrenched in a wide range of social and cultural factors and therefore not an isolated issue.

Finally, there's a sense in which I look at this Westminster village and London intelligentsia as an outsider.

Because when you watch U.S. television, all the presenters and reporters, they're all out of central casting.

Abortion is an issue of conscience for the Labour party.

Outsiders often have an insight that an insider doesn't quite have.

I'm not thick-skinned at all, and of course I'm hurt by people attacking me as a person.

I don't think you can have pain and soul-searching doing the right thing for your child.

Families are struggling against a tide of junk information on junk food.

Mental health is often missing from public health debates even though it's critical to wellbeing.

You can't defend the indefensible - anything you say sounds self-serving and hypocritical.