#britain

The test of a progressive policy is not private but public, not just rising income and consumption for individuals, but widening the opportunities and what Amartya Sen calls the 'capabilities' of all through collective action. But that means, it must mean, public non-profit initiative, even if only in redistributing private accumulation. Public decisions aimed at collective social improvement from which all human lives should gain. That is the basis of progressive policy—not maximising economic growth and personal incomes. Nowhere will this be more important than in tackling the greatest problem facing us this century, the environmental crisis. Whatever ideological logo we choose for it, it will mean a major shift away from the free market and towards public action, a bigger shift than the British government has yet envisaged. And, given the acuteness of the economic crisis, probably a fairly rapid shift. Time is not on our side. ↗

— Eric J. Hobsbawm

#britain #climate-change #economics #environmentalism #free-market

This is an odd one. You have one country in the world where a word has a deeper meaning, it can really mess with design plans. ...But we have a difficult situation here so I guess we'll be looking at putting different sound chips in the dolls heading there [Britain]. ↗

— Todd McFarlane

#dolls #england #great-britain #language #toys

Sir, I shall not defeat you - I shall transcend you. ↗

— Benjamin Disraeli

#history #literature #politics #defeat

Britain can be proud of its response to the tsunami appeal. ↗

— Gordon Brown

#britain #proud #response #tsunami

Britain should be the world's number one center for genetic and stem cell research, building on our world leading regulatory regime in the area. ↗

— Gordon Brown

#britain #building #cell #cell research #center

The west has a great deal to answer for in the Middle East, from Britain's belated empire-building after the First World War to the US and British policy that condemns modern Iraq to the material and social squalor of a half-century ago. ↗

— James Buchan

#ago #answer #belated #britain #british

Judy couldn't move to Britain for family reasons, so I had to come to the States, and the U.S. government wouldn't give me a Green Card, so I airily told her I'd write a book. ↗

— Bernard Cornwell

#britain #card #come #family #give

Even in Britain, the trade unions tell me that employment contracts have less protection than in the past. ↗

— Jacques Delors

#contracts #employment #even #in the past #less

The web of influence which News Corporation spun in Britain, which effectively bent politicians, police and many others in public life to its will, amounted to a shadow state. ↗

— Thomas Watson, Jr.

#bent #britain #corporation #effectively #influence

Here's the truth. The proposed top rate of income tax is not 50 per cent. It is 50 per cent plus 1.5 per cent national insurance paid by employees plus 13.3 per cent paid by employers. That's not 50 per cent. Two years from now, Britain will have the highest tax rate on earned income of any developed country. ↗

— Andrew Lloyd Webber

#britain #cent #country #developed #developed country