Barbara Castle

If you've got unemployment, low pay, that was just too bad. But that was the system. That was the sort of economy and philosophy against which I was fighting in the 1930s. ”

What we set out to do was to ensure that this system of fair shares and the planning and controls continued after the war, and when we won, that's what we did. ”

I remember people who'd had a lot of hardship during the war. They'd thought we'd won. ”

Those were the ideals that drove us to nationalization of the health service. ”

Britain in the 1970s was undoubtedly an economic mess because of the oil price explosion. ”

I remember a big meeting with the hosiery trade in Harold's ministerial room. ”

Another example of that was that even during the economic problems of the 1945 government, we managed to carry out other aspects of our policy and other ideals. Through the establishment of national parks, for instance. ”

It is true that they paid much more attention to the trade unions because the trade unions were after all speaking for the rights and conditions of working men and women in their employment. ”

It might have been offset for us if the revenue from our own oil and natural gas that was just developing had been available to the Labor Government, but the oil revenues were just coming in when Labor fell in '79. ”

It was very much a cry for democratic control at that time. Above all, breaking the accomplished power of a few people to rule the lives of everybody else. ”