James Callaghan Quotes (37 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

James Callaghan: 37 quotes 0 likes

Famous James Callaghan Quotes

“James Callaghan: …I am not pro, nor am I anti…
Robin Day: What are you doing on this programme?
Callaghan: I'm here because you asked me.
Day: You're here to advise people to vote 'Yes' aren't you?
Callaghan: …I am here, and the Prime Minister has taken the same line; it is our job to advise the British people on what we think is the right result. Now there are a lot of other people who've always been emotionally committed to the Market. A lot of other people have been always totally opposed to the Market. I don't think the Prime Minister or myself have ever been in either category and that is not our position today. I'm trying to present the facts as I see them and why we have come down in favour of – now Britain is in, we should stay in.”

James Callaghan

On Robin Day's phone-in (27 May 1975), quoted in David Butler and Uwe Kitzinger, The 1975 Referendum (Macmillan, 1976), p. 176.
Foreign Secretary

“A lie can be halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on.”

James Callaghan

Though widely quoted from his speech in the House of Commons, (1 November 1976) published in Hansard, House of Commons, 5th series, vol. 918, col. 976.; this is actually a very old paraphrase of a statement of the 19th century minister Charles Spurgeon: "A lie travels round the world while truth is putting on her boots." Even in the paraphrased form Callaghan used, it was in widely familiar, many years prior to his use of it, and is evidenced to have been published in that form at least as early as 1939.
Misattributed

“A leader must have the courage to act against an expert's advice.”

James Callaghan

The Harvard Business Review (1 November 1986)
Post-Prime Ministerial

“Well, that's a judgment that you are making. I promise you that if you look at it from outside, and perhaps you're taking rather a parochial view at the moment, I don't think that other people in the world would share the view that there is mounting chaos.”

James Callaghan

Response to Evening Standard reporter's question "What is your general approach, in view of the mounting chaos in the country at the moment?" (10 January 1979); used to justify The Sun headline "Crisis? What Crisis?" on 11 January.
Prime Minister

“First of all, please make sure that you go and vote in the Common Market referendum on Thursday. And secondly, the Government asks you to vote 'Yes', clearly and unmistakeably.”

James Callaghan

Referendum broadcast (2 June 1975).
Callaghan had not wanted to appear in a broadcast for 'Britain in Europe', so he was instead introduced as the Foreign Secretary giving a separate broadcast within a 'Britain in Europe' timeslot.
Foreign Secretary

“For 338 paragraphs the Franks report painted a splendid picture, delineated the light and the shade, and the glowing colours in it, and when Franks got to paragraph 339 he got fed up with the canvas he was painting and chucked a bucket of whitewash over it.”

James Callaghan

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1983/jan/26/falkland-islands-franks-report in the House of Commons (26 January 1983) responding to the Franks Inquiry into intelligence before the Falklands War.
Post-Prime Ministerial

James Callaghan Quotes about homeland

“I have not the slightest doubt that the economic measures and the Socialist measures which one will find in countries of Eastern Europe, will become increasingly powerful against the uncoordinated, planless society in which the West is living at present.”

James Callaghan

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1960/dec/15/south-west-africa in the House of Commons (15 December 1960)
Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer

“Now that the House of Commons has declared itself, we shall take our case to the country.”

James Callaghan

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1979/mar/28/her-majestys-government-opposition-motion in the House of Commons (28 March 1979). Following the announcement that the government had lost by 1 vote, Callaghan declared his intention to call a general election
Prime Minister

“Unilateral disarmament by Britain is opposed to our country's best interests, could begin the unravelling of NATO and therefore jeopardise the stability of Europe.”

James Callaghan

The Guardian (19 November 1982)
Post-Prime Ministerial

“The Soviet Union's propaganda clearly wishes to use public opinion in this country to get the West to reduce its own arms while doing nothing themselves. In this way they would gain nuclear superiority. This is simply not on.”

James Callaghan

Speech at Cardiff (25 May 1983), quoted in Tim Jones, "Callaghan defends deterrent", The Times (26 May 1983), p. 1. This was during the 1983 general election in which the Labour Party had a policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament.
Post-Prime Ministerial

“Jim said he was more depressed as a trade-unionist now about the future of this country than he had been for fifty years. He never believed it would come to this.”

James Callaghan

Remarks to the Cabinet quoted in Tony Benn's diary (1 February 1979), quoted in Tony Benn, Conflicts of Interest: Diaries 1977–80 (Hutchinson, 1990), p. 450
Prime Minister

“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

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 was written by his son-in-law, future BBC Economics correspondent Peter Jay
Prime Minister

James Callaghan Quotes about the trip

James Callaghan

Labour Party Annual Conference Report 1976, page 188.
Speech at the Labour Party Conference, 28 September 1976. This part of his speech was written by his son-in-law, future BBC Economics correspondent Peter Jay.
Prime Minister

“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

Speech https://www.theguardian.com/education/thegreatdebate/story/0,,574645,00.html to Ruskin College, Oxford University (18 October 1976)
Prime Minister

“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

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

“The power structure in Britain is changing. Authority is no longer obeyed for its own sake. There are severe limits on what government can do, so the way to win the battle against inflation and unemployment is not to try to dragoon the country. If we do we shall fail. We must secure its consent. We are playing for high stakes. In a real sense, adherence to the social contract puts on trial whether our society has the will and determination to solve its problems by democratic means.”

James Callaghan

Speech to the Labour Party Conference in London (27 November 1974), quoted in The Times (28 November 1974), p. 6
Foreign Secretary

James Callaghan Quotes

“Never let me hear anyone say again that a Socialist State cannot provide outlets for those with initiative. The rewards given to ability in the U. S. S. R. at all levels are far greater than those given to the employed in capitalist Britain. I have seen it and it works.”

James Callaghan

Reynolds News (17 March 1946)
Backbench MP

“It is quite clear from what has been said and written that, time after time after time, there has been a conspiracy between the Conservative Front Bench in this House and the inbuilt Conservative majority in the House of Lords to defeat legislation that has passed through the House of Commons…I warn the House of Lords of the consequences…it is our strong view that the House of Lords should recall that its role is not that of a wrecking chamber, but of a revising chamber. In recent weeks, it has been wrecking legislation passed by this House.”

James Callaghan

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1976/nov/09/economic-policy in the House of Commons (9 November 1976)
Prime Minister

Strong , Time , Housing

“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

"Mr Callaghan renews plea for 5% pay guideline", The Times, 6 September 1978, p. 4.
Speech at the Trades Union Congress, 5 September 1978. Callaghan was teasing the audience about the date for the impending general election. Although his message was intended to convey that he may not call an election in October, many people interpreted him as saying that the opposition would be caught unprepared by an October election.
Callaghan deliberately misattributed the music hall song "Waiting at the Church" to Marie Lloyd rather than to its real singer, Vesta Victoria, knowing that Vesta Victoria was too obscure for the audience to recognise.

Laughter , Waiting

“A leader has to appear consistent. That doesn't mean he has to be consistent.”

James Callaghan

Post-Prime Ministerial
Source: The Harvard Business Review (1 November 1986)

Appearance

“Millions of people in Britain must have been very surprised to hear that the language of Chaucer, of Shakespeare and of Milton must in future be regarded as an undesirable American import from which we have to protect ourselves if we are to build a new Europe. We can agree that the French own the supreme prose literature in Europe. But if we are to prove –– if we have to prove –– our Europeanism by accepting that French is the dominant language in the Community, then my answer is quite clear, and I will say it in French in order to prevent any misunderstanding: Non, merci beaucoup.”

James Callaghan

Speech at Southampton (25 May 1971)
Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer

People , Communication , Literature , Future

“Meantime I say to both sides of industry, 'Please don't support us with general expressions of good will and kind words, and then undermine us through unjustified wage increases or price increases. Either back us or sack us.”

James Callaghan

Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Brighton (5 October 1977), quoted in Labour Party Annual Conference Report 1977, p. 217
Prime Minister

Support

“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.”

James Callaghan

Labour Party Annual Conference Report 1976, p. 188.
Speech at the Labour Party Conference, 28 September 1976.
Prime Minister

“If we were to fail, I do not think another Government could succeed. The result would be a National Government situation and I fear it would lead to totalitarianism of the Right or Left.”

James Callaghan

Financial Times, 1 October, 1976.

Fear , Thinking

“There are times, perhaps once every thirty years, when there is a sea-change in politics. It then does not matter what you say or what you do. There is a shift in what the public wants and what it approves of. I suspect there is now such a sea-change and it is for Mrs. Thatcher.”

James Callaghan

On the general election of 1979, quoted in Kenneth Morgan, Callaghan: A Life (1997), p. 697
Prime Minister

Change , Time , Sea

“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

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.
Callaghan objects to the line of questioning of ITN's David Rose in an interview recorded on 2 May 1979. He was eventually persuaded to return and recorded a new interview, but owing to an agreement with NBC TV that they should have access to all material recorded by ITN, it was shown in the USA and then reported in the Daily Telegraph.
Prime Minister

Housing

“Those who advocate devaluation are calling for a reduction in the wage levels and the real wage standards of every member of the working class.”

James Callaghan

"Chancellor stands by three per cent growth and no devaluation", The Times (25 July 1967), p. 13
The government was forced to devalue in November 1967.
Chancellor of the Exchequer

“I think there is a case for opening a national debate on these matters.”

James Callaghan

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1976/oct/14/economic-policy-2 in the House of Commons (14 October 1976), referring to education policy. The phrase "national debate on education" is associated with Callaghan's speech at Ruskin College on 18 October 1976 but appears nowhere in the text; it was however used extensively in pre-briefing for the contents of the speech.
Prime Minister

Thinking

“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

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1979/mar/28/her-majestys-government-opposition-motion 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 opinion polls. In the event the Scottish National Party lost 9 of its 11 seats
Prime Minister

History , Courage , Time , Christmas

“But the policies of the 1960s would not be successful today. No more would general import controls. They benefit some home industries at the expense of the livelihood of everyone working in exports. We would be robbing Peter to pay Paul.”

James Callaghan

Speech at Woolwich (30 January 1976)
Foreign Secretary

Home , Success

“I hate putting up taxes.”

James Callaghan

Interview on BBC television (20 May 1965)
Chancellor of the Exchequer

Hate

“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

Speech https://www.theguardian.com/education/thegreatdebate/story/0,,574645,00.html to Ruskin College, Oxford University (18 October 1976)
Prime Minister

School , Home , Understanding , Children

“You know, as I do, that we face two deep-seated problems, inflation and unemployment. Both of them are still too high. … I have to emphasize to you that if we fail to bring down inflation, we shall never succeed in overcoming unemployment. We cannot have a prosperous industry in this country if we are unable to sell our goods overseas. No one owes Britain a living, and may I say to you quite bluntly that despite the measures of the last 12 months, we are still not earning the standard of living we are enjoying. We are only keeping up our standards by borrowing, and this cannot go on indefinitely. There is no soft option. I do not promise you any real easement for some time to come. There can be no lasting improvement in your own living standards until we can achieve it without going deeper and deeper into debt as a nation.”

James Callaghan

First television broadcast as Prime Minister (5 April 1976), quoted in The Times (6 April 1976), pp. 1–2
Prime Minister

Problem , Time , Country

“The dangers which some have seen of an over-centralised, over-bureaucratized and over-harmonised Community will be far less with 12 member states than with nine.”

James Callaghan

Letter to Ronald Hayward, General Secretary of the Labour Party (30 September 1977), quoted in The Times (1 October 1977), p. 3
Prime Minister

Communication

“We have had a tremendous battle over the past 12 months. Sterling is safe. That battle is won.”

James Callaghan

Chancellor of the Exchequer
Source: Speech in the House of Commons (30 September 1965), quoted in The Times (1 October 1965), p. 16

Past

“There could be no democratic and independent Socialist Party in this country unless they aligned themselves with others against the insidious attempts of Communism to break the Socialist movement.”

James Callaghan

Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Morecambe (1 October 1952), quoted in The Times (2 October 1952), p. 2
Backbench MP

Country , Communication

“5 per cent it is, and I have told the unions that they have all the weapons. We are naked in their presence and we need their co-operation.”

James Callaghan

Prime Minister
Source: Remarks to the Cabinet on official pay policy (20 July 1978), quoted in Tony Benn, Conflicts of Interest: Diaries 1977–80 (1990), p. 326