Quotes about "Politics & Government"

That's the thing about a book: You're in the public life for a little bit, and then you sort of go away for a little while - several years, in my case - and then you come out again, hopefully. ”

I grew up in a family full of strong women. A great aunt on my mother's side had been a matron on a hospital ship in World War II, and one on my father's side had served in the Women's Royal Naval Service. ”

Something very worrying has been going on at Scotland Yard. We now know that in dealing with the phone-hacking affair at the 'News of the World,' they cut short their original inquiry; suppressed evidence; misled the public and the press; concealed information and broke the law. Why? ”

The British political system and the whole clapped out Westminster architecture, and the language that we use about politics, it's completely unsustainable. You either decide to be part of that transition to do something different. Or you cling to old certainties. ”

Grown-up politicians talk to each other across party lines. Over the last few weeks I have had lengthy conversations with Ed Miliband, David Miliband, with Tony Blair, with Peter Mandelson... talking about Europe, talking about political reform. ”

The choices politicians make must be based on values - not an arbitrary, axe-wielding approach to public spending or a dismal exchange between Gordon Brown and David Cameron about percentages that sounds like an argument between different book-keepers. ”

One thing I have frankly decided is that when it comes to political reform we have two conservative parties in British politics. Both the Labour and Conservative parties have constantly and repeatedly failed to honour promises they have made about reforming, cleaning, modernising our clapped-out system. ”

You have a political and media elite who have an idiom by which they describe politics. It's highly, highly polarised. It's right, left, red, blue, up, down, victorious, crushed. ”

If I have a talent, it's already been exploited! I've shown everything I can do to the public. ”

I had never read in public, never given an interview. I was doing it all and trying to produce the next book and raise three young kids and had another child on the way. ”