“I actually think the civil service, who are the malignancy at the heart of public life, have consciously prevented, talked ministers out of, made it difficult regulatory-wise, to allow more pressure on alternative energy sources to grow.”
― Ken Livingstone
“My political beliefs are my moral, quasi-religious framework.”
― Ken Livingstone
“The civil service are risk averse.”
― Ken Livingstone
“If voting changed anything, they’d abolish it.”
― Ken Livingstone
“My administration will tackle these issues in consultation with the black communities of London.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I came into politics because I wished to change things. You can’t do that by lying to people; you have to educate, and persuade, and carry them with you – and it’s often a long haul.”
― Ken Livingstone
“Polling in a general election is pretty accurate, because turnout is usually high.”
― Ken Livingstone
“The whole culture of my background was deeply Conservative.”
― Ken Livingstone
“Well, I get on with people who believe in something.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I can’t understand why anyone would want to live the life of a politician if you can’t say pretty much what you think. You are not in it for the money: there’s unremitting pressure on your life, you give up so much of your privacy. It can only be because of the things you want to do and the things you want to say.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I’m never going to take the view that I should say whatever I need to say in order to achieve something. Because that implies a level of dishonesty.”
― Ken Livingstone
“Global warming could be solved by shifting three to four per cent of global GDP to pay for it.”
― Ken Livingstone
“Anybody who enjoys being in the House of Commons probably needs psychiatric help.”
― Ken Livingstone
“World wide capitalism kills more people everyday then Hitler did. And he was crazy.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I Kenneth Robert Livingstone, having been elected to the office of mayor of London, declare that I take that office upon myself, and will duly and faithfully fulfil the duties of it to the best of my judgement and ability.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I undertake that, in the exercise of my functions of that office I will have regard to any guidance with respect to ethical standards issued by the secretary of state under Section 66 of the Greater London Authority Act 1999.”
― Ken Livingstone
“There needs to be radical development in equality law to create the environment to allow women to stay in work.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I grew up in Lambeth, I went to normal schools and I’ve grown up in a city where people say what they think.”
― Ken Livingstone
“All the politics of the post-war period was about the clash between the Soviet Union and America, and virtually all issues ended up being subordinated to that. Now, the question is, what is the most a socialist can achieve in a global economy?”
― Ken Livingstone
“What do we do about climate change bearing down upon us?”
― Ken Livingstone
“The market is a brilliant system for the exchange of goods and services, but it doesn’t protect the environment unless it’s regulated, it doesn’t train your workforce unless it’s regulated, and it doesn’t give you the long-term investment you want.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I loathe and detest all this trivialisation of politics.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I liked it when we had ugly politicians who droned on about issues.”
― Ken Livingstone
“When I was leader of the GLC, by the time I had been in control for three years, the difference in pay between the cleaner and the director general was a four-to-one ratio. I find that attractive.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I became a councillor back in 1971, so if by this stage in politics I’m making lots of big mistakes, then I shouldn’t be here.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I would like to sound like James Mason. I reckon if I’d had a better voice I could have been prime minister. It is the most irritating voice in public life.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I can only admire people who I have never met and are dead – because you know so much about anyone who is alive.”
― Ken Livingstone
“The people I really most admire are Robert Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt. If you know someone, it is very hard to revere them.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I don’t work hard enough. If I had worked harder I might have been prime minister.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I mean I get loads of money, all from different sources. You give it to your accountant. They manage it. But you pay corporation tax. If you’re then taking it out and spending it on yourself, you have to pay more.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I’m in exactly the same position as everybody else who has a small business.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I’ve got people handling the media. I employ at the moment two people. No-one is paying income tax on the money they use to employ people.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I employed my wife for three years to sit in the attic and type up my autobiography, 700 pages, organise everywhere I go. I’m paying the normal rate of tax on the money I take out for myself.”
― Ken Livingstone
“Yes, there are lots of individual exceptions. But no one has ever done a study about voting intention without ascertaining that the biggest determining factor is your income and your wealth.”
― Ken Livingstone
“If I was courting the Muslim vote, I wouldn’t have put establishing the partnership ceremony at the forefront of my first term, would I? I go all around London advocating lesbian and gay rights.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I refuse not to have a sense of humour.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I’ve always told the truth. I’ve often been wrong – but I’ve never knowingly lied. Not in public life. Because I don’t see the need to.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I think it’s much more important to keep people in work than have pay rises.”
― Ken Livingstone
“Every budget I have ever prepared has been balanced.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I have only ever borrowed money for investment. I have been sound money all my life.”
― Ken Livingstone
“The world is run by monsters and you have to deal with them. Some of them run countries, some of them run banks, some of them run news corporations.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I think I have gone through my entire public career never telling a lie. I have made mistakes but I never knowingly lied.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I can easily lose myself emotionally in absolute Hollywood garbage.”
― Ken Livingstone
“Psephology isn’t a hate crime.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I go all around London advocating lesbian and gay rights.”
― Ken Livingstone
“Well, I mean, I’m very much a pragmatic person.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I’ve never declined to do an interview.”
― Ken Livingstone
“There isn’t much about my life that’s been particularly conventional.”
― Ken Livingstone
“Most politicians aren’t allowed to express themselves any more.”
― Ken Livingstone
“If women had never been given the right to vote, then Labour would have won every election after the war.”
― Ken Livingstone
“The truth is, no one pays more tax than they have to.”
― Ken Livingstone
“Most people are not shocked that I am occasionally rude to journalists. They are probably amazed I don’t punch one in the face.”
― Ken Livingstone
“This life is messy.”
― Ken Livingstone
“Most people wouldn’t want to marry a politician.”
― Ken Livingstone
“When I’m sifting the compost seed or pruning, I argue over issues in my head; I talk to myself.”
― Ken Livingstone
“Thatcher was prepared to destroy the world rather than give in on something she believed in.”
― Ken Livingstone
“Most kids don’t get to go their parents’ wedding.”
― Ken Livingstone
“The press keep asking me, ‘What was your biggest mistake?’ But if I had made a big mistake, they’d all be writing about it, wouldn’t they?”
― Ken Livingstone
“My only regret is the media’s obsession with the past.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I am not against Israel, I am against Zionists.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I do explicitly see Jewish people as a people – not either a religion or an ethnicity but a people.”
― Ken Livingstone
“Jewish voters are not one homogenous block.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I could not cherish London and not value Jewish London. The contribution of Jews to London is immense – politically, economically, culturally, intellectually, philanthropically, artistically.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I am a socialist, a believer in rational thought and the rule of law.”
― Ken Livingstone
“Working with the Jewish community is essential to me and what I stand for.”
― Ken Livingstone
“The best way to demonstrate the values of a western democracy is you put Osama bin Laden on trial; you challenge what he says.”
― Ken Livingstone
“Everyone changes all the time.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I spent the 1960s and 1970s seeking myself – the working-class tradition of self-education.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I swim three times a week.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I’ve always been a workaholic. I reckon, on average, I’ve had less than one day a year off in my working career.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I do the gardening.”
― Ken Livingstone
“Politics is not a healthy lifestyle.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I grew up in a house with very few books.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I’m an emotional person; I do occasionally shed a tear.”
― Ken Livingstone
“Press TV is one of the few TV channels anywhere in the West that fairly presents the Palestinian case.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I never came into life with any favours or privileges.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I was a weedy kid, not like one of those working-class men who can accommodate not being academically clever by physical strength and prowess.”
― Ken Livingstone
“If you are running a city you must focus on day-to-day problems.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I have opened newspapers and read incredible lies.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I think democracy’s undermined when those who own newspapers fill them with trivia rather than real issues.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I would like all newspapers to become workers’ co-operatives.”
― Ken Livingstone
“Give me the whole world to run and then I’ll be happy. If tomorrow I was told I had to sort out the whole world’s problems I’d sleep like a baby.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I have met the people who run the world, and I am not in awe of them.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I have no interest in managing my financial affairs.”
― Ken Livingstone
“You lose power in Britain and you are just Joe Public again.”
― Ken Livingstone
“My main income is from speaking.”
― Ken Livingstone
“I’m more interested in politicians who deal with human rights in their own country rather than lecture the rest of the world.”
― Ken Livingstone
“Short of being prime minister there isn’t a better job in British politics than running London.”
― Ken Livingstone
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