Edward Heath Quotes

Sir Edward Richard George Heath, , often known as Ted Heath, was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1975. He was a strong supporter of the European Communities , and after winning the decisive vote in the House of Commons by 336 to 244, he led the negotiations that culminated in Britain's entry into the EC on 1 January 1973. It was, says biographer John Campbell, "Heath's finest hour". Although he planned to be an innovator as Prime Minister, his government foundered on economic difficulties, including high inflation and major strikes. He became an embittered opponent of Margaret Thatcher, who supplanted him as party leader in 1975.

Heath's lower middle-class origins were quite unusual for a Conservative Party leader. He was a leader in student politics at Oxford University, and rose to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Second World War. He worked briefly in the Civil Service, but resigned in order to stand for Parliament, and was elected for Bexley in the 1950 general election. He was the Chief Whip from 1955 to 1959. Having entered the Cabinet as Minister of Labour in 1959, he was promoted to Lord Privy Seal and later became President of the Board of Trade. Heath was elected leader of the Conservative Party in 1965; he retained that position despite losing the 1966 general election.

Heath became Prime Minister after winning the 1970 general election. In 1971 he oversaw the decimalisation of British coinage, and in 1972 he reformed Britain's system of local government, reducing the number of local authorities and creating a number of new metropolitan counties. Possibly most significantly, he took Britain into the European Economic Community in 1973. Heath's premiership also oversaw the height of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, with the suspension of the Stormont Parliament and the imposition of direct British rule. Unofficial talks with Provisional Irish Republican Army delegates were unsuccessful, as was the Sunningdale Agreement of 1973, which led the MPs of the Ulster Unionist Party to withdraw from the Conservative whip.

Heath also tried to curb the trade unions with the Industrial Relations Act 1971, and hoped to deregulate the economy and make a transfer from direct to indirect taxation. Rising unemployment in 1972 led him to reflate the economy; he attempted to control the resulting high inflation by a prices and incomes policy. Two miners' strikes, in 1972 and at the start of 1974, damaged the government; the latter caused the implementation of the Three-Day Week to conserve energy. Heath eventually called an election for February 1974 to obtain a mandate to face down the miners' wage demands, but this instead resulted in a hung parliament in which the Labour Party, despite gaining fewer votes, had four more seats than the Conservatives. Heath resigned as Prime Minister after trying in vain to form a coalition with the Liberal Party. Despite losing a second general election in October that year, he vowed to continue as leader of his party. In February 1975, Margaret Thatcher challenged and defeated him to win the leadership.

Returning to the backbenches, Heath became an active critic of Thatcher's leadership. He remained a backbench MP until retiring at the 2001 election, serving as the Father of the House for his last nine years in Parliament. Outside politics, Heath was a world-class yachtsman and a talented musician. He died in 2005. He was one of only four British prime ministers never to have married.

From 2015 to 2017, Wiltshire Police conducted an investigation of Heath for the sexual abuse of children.

✵ 9. July 1916 – 17. July 2005
Edward Heath photo
Edward Heath: 60   quotes 0   likes

Famous Edward Heath Quotes

“If there are any who believe that immigrants to this country, most of whom have already become British citizens, could be forcibly deported because they are coloured people…then that I must repudiate, absolutely and completely.”

Speech to Conservative Party Conference (12 October 1968), quoted in John Campbell, Edward Heath (London: Jonathan Cape, 1993), p. 245.
Leader of the Opposition

“This would, at a stroke, reduce the rise in prices, increase production and reduce unemployment.”

Statement (16 June 1970), quoted in The Times (17 June 1970), p. 4. This would be quoted back at Heath repeatedly during his premiership.
Leader of the Opposition

“We will have to embark on a change so radical, a revolution so quiet and yet so total, that it will go far beyond the programme for a parliament.”

Speech to Conservative Party Conference (10 October 1970), quoted in John Campbell, Edward Heath (London: Jonathan Cape, 1993), p. 311.
Prime Minister

Edward Heath Quotes about people

“We have had eight years of consistent and persistent attacks on those four years in government - and on me, personally, but that does not matter - by people who were collectively responsible for those four years.”

Interviewed in 1982 about Margaret Thatcher's attitude towards him and his government.[citation needed]
Post-Prime Ministerial

“Progress in these policies can only be brought about if a considerable degree of consensus exists within our country. I have heard some doubt expressed as to what consensus means…Consensus means deliberately setting out to achieve the widest possible measure of agreement about our national policies, in this particular case about our economic activities, in the pursuit of a better standard of living for our people and a happier and more prosperous country. If there be any doubt about the desirability of working towards such a consensus let us recognize that every successful industrialized country in the modern world has been working on such a basis.”

Speech to the Federation of Conservative Students in Manchester (6 October 1981), quoted in The Times (7 October 1981), p. 6. Margaret Thatcher had read Heath's advance text and responded http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104712 by saying that "To me consensus seems to be—the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no-one believes, but to which no-one objects".
Post-Prime Ministerial

Edward Heath Quotes about homeland

“This was a secret meeting on a secret tour which nobody is supposed to know about. It means that there are men, and perhaps women, in this country walking around with eggs in their pockets, just on the off-chance of seeing the Prime Minister.”

Remarks to the press after Harold Wilson was hit by eggs thrown by demonstrators on two successive days (1 June 1970), quoted in Edward Heath, The Course of My Life (Hodder and Stoughton, 1998), p. 305.
Leader of the Opposition

“I regard Mr Benn as a menace to the country. He was guilty of sabotage last year when he rejected an offer of Community help with the readjustment necessary due to steel plant closures in Wales.”

Interview with Newcastle's Metro Radio (2 June 1975), quoted in The Times (3 June 1975), p. 4
Post-Prime Ministerial

Edward Heath: Trending quotes

“For all Mr. Gorbachev's policies, is he prepared to see the break-up of the Soviet empire? I do not think so for one moment.”

Speech in the House of Commons (14 July 1989) http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1989/jul/14/foreign-affairs
Post-Prime Ministerial

“I have always had a hidden wish, a frustrated desire, to run a hotel.”

Speech at the Hotel Exhibition, Olympia, 1969.[citation needed]
Leader of the Opposition

Edward Heath Quotes

“They have made a grave mistake choosing that woman.”

On Margaret Thatcher's election to the leadership of the Tory Party, 1975.[citation needed]
Post-Prime Ministerial

“I was interested in being present for its first, and I trust only, performance.”

After hearing a new choral work at Gloucester Cathedral, 1975.[citation needed]
Post-Prime Ministerial

“We shall have a harder Christmas than we have known since the war.”

ibid. Reported in Time magazine (24 December 1973). It was spoken on television. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj9OlIiHFo4
Prime Minister

“I think Churchill would be appalled at the Thatcher government.”

1989.[citation needed]
Post-Prime Ministerial

“It is the unpleasant and unacceptable face of capitalism, but one should not suggest that the whole of British industry consists of practices of this kind.”

Speech in the House of Commons (15 May 1973) http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1973/may/15/cbi-and-tuc-talks
Prime Minister

“It is bad because it is a negation of democracy … Worst of all is the imposition by parliamentary diktat of a change of responsible party in London government. There cannot be any justification for that. It immediately lays the Conservative Party open to the charge of the greatest gerrymandering in the last 150 years of British history.”

Speech in the House of Commons (11 April 1984) http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1984/apr/11/local-government-interim-provisions-bill opposing the 'paving Bill' preparing for abolition of the Greater London Council, 1984.
Post-Prime Ministerial

“He is not mad in the least. He's a very astute person, a clever person.”

On Saddam Hussein, undated.[citation needed]
Post-Prime Ministerial

“Whatever the lady does is wrong. I do not know of a single right decision taken by her.”

1989.[citation needed]
Post-Prime Ministerial

“You'll lose.”

His full response supposedly made to Margaret Thatcher when she informed him she would be standing against him for the Conservative leadership in 1975. Attributed to him in his Daily Telegraph obituary http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1494246/Sir-Edward-Heath.html (18 July 2005), although disputed by Heath's autobiography.
Disputed

“One lonely voice still shouting labour!”

During the 1970 election campaign.
Leader of the Opposition

“This is the new imperialism, and I am against the new imperialism. It is not our job to go throwing our forces around the world and saying 'This is an evil man and so on.”

Remarks on the Gulf War on ITV, On the Record (3 February 1991), quoted in The Times (4 February 1991), p. 5.
Post-Prime Ministerial

“Rejoice! Rejoice!”

On hearing the news of Margaret Thatcher's resignation (22 November 1990), quoted in John Campbell, Edward Heath (London: Jonathan Cape, 1993), p. 787. When asked later if it was true that he had issued such a joyful declaration on his rival's political demise, he said no. He hadn't said rejoice twice, he had said it three times.
Post-Prime Ministerial

“Monetarism is dead and the alien doctrines of Friedman and Hayek remain only to be buried.”

Speech in the House of Commons (15 March 1982) http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1982/mar/15/budget-resolutions-and-economic-situation
Post-Prime Ministerial

“To return to the question of strategy…The Falkland Islands are unlikely to cause a major explosion.”

Speech in the House of Commons (7 July 1981) http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1981/jul/07/defence-programme
Post-Prime Ministerial

“It was the most enthralling episode in my life”

Interviewed in 1984 about taking Britain into Europe.[citation needed]
Post-Prime Ministerial

“Peter Sissons: The single currency, a United States of Europe, was all that in your mind when you took Britain in?
Edward Heath: Of course, yes.”

On BBC's Question Time (1 November 1990), quoted in Peter Sissons, When One Door Closes (Biteback, 2012).
Post-Prime Ministerial

“I don't think that modesty is the outstanding characteristic of contemporary politics, do you?”

Comment in the Commons, December, 1988.
Post-Prime Ministerial

“You mustn't expect prime ministers to enjoy themselves. If they do, they mustn't show it – the population would be horrified.”

Interview, November, 1976.[citation needed]
Post-Prime Ministerial

“Please don't applaud. It may irritate your neighbour.”

Receiving a mixed reaction to his speech at the Conservative Party conference, Blackpool (14 October 1981), quoted in John Campbell, Edward Heath (London: Jonathan Cape, 1993), p. 731.
Post-Prime Ministerial

“A tragedy for the party. He's got no ideas, no experience and no hope.”

On William Hague's election to the leadership of the Conservative Party, 1997.[citation needed]
Post-Prime Ministerial

“Our problem at the moment is a problem of success.”

Six weeks before the three-day week, November 1973.[citation needed]
Prime Minister

“The incredible sulk.”

Anonymous nickname referring to his complaints about Margaret Thatcher.
About

“Action, not words.”

Title of 1966 Conservative election manifesto (publication GE 1).
Leader of the Opposition

“Benn, Shore and Foot were like the three witches in Macbeth.”

... In some darkened room of Transport House, on the very left of the building, they are busy boiling their own witches' brew. A dash of distortion here, an element of exaggeration there, all of course to be taken with a pinch of salt. And as they brew their myths, they delight in creating hubble, bubble, toil and trouble. ... [Benn] is probably the biggest bureaucrat and the wildest spendthrift that this country has ever known. But let us recognize the facts. Benn, Shore and Foot are using the Europe issue to brew up toil and trouble inside the Labour Party for their own ends. ...If there was a "No" vote in the referendum, we would find ourselves pulling out of Europe straight into the welcoming arms of the wild men of Labour's left.
Speech to the Conservative Group for Europe in Central Hall, Westminster (19 April 1975), quoted in The Times (21 April 1975), p. 4
Post-Prime Ministerial

“Everyone who is already here must be treated as equal before the law.”

Interview with London Weekend Television's Man in the News (18 January 1970), quoted in The Times (19 January 1970), p. 1
Leader of the Opposition

Similar authors

Winston S. Churchill photo
Winston S. Churchill 601
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Golda Meir photo
Golda Meir 38
former prime minister of Israel
Indíra Gándhí photo
Indíra Gándhí 35
Indian politician and Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin photo
Vladimir Putin 110
President of Russia, former Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher photo
Margaret Thatcher 348
British stateswoman and politician
Jawaharlal Nehru photo
Jawaharlal Nehru 110
Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister …
John Maynard Keynes photo
John Maynard Keynes 122
British economist
Franklin D. Roosevelt photo
Franklin D. Roosevelt 190
32nd President of the United States
Václav Klaus photo
Václav Klaus 3
2nd President of the Czech Republic
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn photo
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 120
Russian writer