No one, however long they have held the post, lightly gives up the great office of Chancellor of the Exchequer. Certainly I did not.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I serve at the discretion of the prime minister.
Some members of both Houses have, it is true, been removed from their employments under the Crown; but were they ever told, either by me or by any other of his majesty's servants, that it was for opposing the measures of the administration in Parliament?
I am not the German Tony Blair. Nor am I the German Bill Clinton. I am Gerhard Schroeder, chancellor of Germany, responsible for Germany. I don't want to be a copy of anyone.
Sir Hugh Greene is the man I hold most responsible for the state of our country today. For 11 years hardly a week went by without a sniping reference to me. And he gave access to anyone who was prepared to say anything morally subversive.
When the Lord Chancellor violates the trust of his great office of state to solicit party donations from people whose careers he can control, and then says I'm not sorry, and I'd do it again no wonder the public think that power has gone to their heads.
I'm not going to be known as the Sinn Fein Minister who did the bidding of a Tory administration which is focused on decimating the welfare state.
I. cannot stoop to reply to the folly and the slander of every poor Tory partisan who assails me, and I should not have noticed you but for the fact that you are a member of the House of Commons.
I'm wondering how many elected figures any of us could find who do not, in the front or back of their minds, remember who does them favors, who doesn't.
Lord Chancellor, did I deliver the speech well? I am glad of that, for there was nothing in it.
No one out there is interested in who did what to whom in Westminster politics.