Gordon Brown Quotes & Sayings

I've got a job to do. — Gordon Brown

In 2005 we have a once in a generation opportunity to deliver a modern Marshall plan for the developing world. — Gordon Brown

Britain does not want a return to boom and bust. — Gordon Brown

I have been fascinated by men and women of courage. People who took brave decisions in the service of great causes especially when more comfortable and far less dangerous alternatives were open to them — Gordon Brown

I am happy for there to be a leadership contest. I think there should be — Gordon Brown

I'm a great supporter of the European Union. I didn't support entry to the Euro, not because I'm against it in principle but because I didn't think it was economically right for Britain. But that doesn't make me any less pro-European. — Gordon Brown

There's no point dwelling on the worst things people have said - there's a job to do. — Gordon Brown

If you look at the question of expenditure in Iraq, you have got to start from the one fundamental truth: that every request that the military commanders made to us for equipment was answered. No request was ever turned down. — Gordon Brown

Good strong banks are essential for every family and for every business in the country and extraordinary times call for the bold and far-reaching solutions that the Treasury has announced today. — Gordon Brown

Higher energy prices are requiring industry and commerce to examine the costs and efficiency of energy use. — Gordon Brown

Making the desirable possible requires us to make the desirable popular, electable, credible, and something that people want to hold on to. — Gordon Brown

Our mission is, in truth, historic and world changing - to build, over the next fifty years and beyond, a global low carbon economy. And it is not overdramatic to say that the character and course of the coming century will be set by how we measure up to this challenge — Gordon Brown

I never subscribed to what you might call the neo-Conservative position that somehow, at the barrel of a gun, overnight, liberty and democracy could be conjured up. — Gordon Brown

What is gained by debt relief and aid can be lost if we don't get a proper trade agreement in Hong Kong, — Gordon Brown

Rigorous financial discipline that, together with monetary stability, ends once and for all the boom and bust that for 30 years has undermined stability — Gordon Brown

When things are difficult, you have to be sure of who you are and what you want to achieve. — Gordon Brown

In the weeks and months ahead, my task is to show I have the new ideas, the vision and the experience to earn the trust of the British people. — Gordon Brown

The patriotism in Britain comes from us being a leader. On jobs, on tax havens, on workers' rights, on the environment. We can be leading Europe ... and it will be to the benefit of every British citizen. — Gordon Brown

In a global marketplace with its increased insecurities and - indeed often - volatility and instability, national economic stability is at a premium, the precondition for all we can achieve, and no nation can secure the high levels of sustainable investment it needs without both monetary and fiscal stability together. — Gordon Brown

While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time, and we can't put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair, and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. — Gordon Brown

Britain was set to repeat the boom-bust cycle that led to 15 per cent. interest rates for one whole year in the early 1990s. — Gordon Brown

Boom and bust is a term that applied to the Conservative years and two of the worst recessions in history — Gordon Brown

I find it quite unusual for people to criticise me for doing what I consider to be my duty. — Gordon Brown

I think people have got to understand when a murder is committed on British soil, when innocent people have been put at risk by the method that murder is committed then we expect authorities in other parts of the world to co-operate. — Gordon Brown

Our approach is to reject the old vicious circle of the '80s-rising debt, higher long-term interest rates, higher debt repayment costs, lower growth, higher unemployment, then enforced cuts in public spending. That was the old boom and bust. — Gordon Brown

We should demonstrate that in war, under Churchill and Lloyd George, and in peace, Britain always was, already is, and can continue to be a leader. — Gordon Brown

Getting married has certainly made a massive difference to my own life. So I am committed to giving support for family finances and having the right policies for work-life balance that make it easier for couples to have a rich family life. — Gordon Brown

The way forward is for governments to consciously pursue monetary and fiscal stability through setting clear objectives, establishing proper rules, and requiring openness and transparency - the new rules of the game. — Gordon Brown

Climate change is a consequence of the build up of greenhouse gases over the past 200 years in the atmosphere, and virtually all these emissions came from the rich countries. — Gordon Brown

On this day I remember words that have stayed with me since my childhood and which matter a great deal to me today, my school motto: "I will try my outmost". This is my promise to all of the people of Britain and now let the work of change begin. — Gordon Brown

We are entering an era in which national government, instead of directing, enables powerful regional and local initiatives to work, where Britain becomes as it should be - a Britain of nations and regions — Gordon Brown

Politics seems much less important today. When you see your young daughter smiling as she was, and moving around, it's a superb feeling. — Gordon Brown

The doubling of oil prices ... is creating a more difficult environment in which to act. — Gordon Brown

Why is playing football in Europe considered the pinnacle of our game, yet in other spheres of life, that same phrase - 'being in Europe' - is dismissed with suspicion? — Gordon Brown

While you cannot deliver policies without principles, you cannot deliver principles without having power. You have quickly to move to a stage where, emphasising your principles, you build a programme, then call for popular support. — Gordon Brown

The extraordinary summer heatwave of 2003 in Europe resulted in over 35,000 extra deaths. — Gordon Brown

I hope the Spice Girls will come back, although it may be beyond even Bob Geldof to get that to happen. — Gordon Brown

Under this Government, Britain will not return to the boom and bust of the past. — Gordon Brown

In just 25 years the glaciers in the Himalayas which provide water for three-quarters of a billion people could disappear entirely. — Gordon Brown

Foreign policy can no longer be the province of just a few elites. — Gordon Brown

There are values far beyond those of contracts, markets and exchange — Gordon Brown

Britain must lead in Europe to intensify the fight against global terrorism and make our country safer. — Gordon Brown

Take, therefore, what modern technology is capable of: the power of our moral sense allied to the power of communications and our ability to organize internationally. That, in my view, gives us the first opportunity as a community to fundamentally change the world. — Gordon Brown

Let us think of ourselves not as 'yes' and 'no' Scots but simply as Scots, and let us be a nation, united again. — Gordon Brown

The NHS cannot be privatised if that's not the will of the Scottish people, and the Scottish health service will have the funding that's necessary if that's also the will of the Scottish people. — Gordon Brown

David Blunkett and I both take the same view that it is scandalous that someone from North Tyneside, Laura Spence, with the best qualifications and who wants to be a doctor, should be turned down by Oxford University using an interview system more reminiscent of the old school network and the old school tie than justice. It is about time for an end to that old Britain where what matters more are the privileges you are born with, rather than the potential you actually have. — Gordon Brown

The motto of the old order in the City of London was, 'My word is my bond,' but the financial crisis revealed a culture quite alien to that heritage. The stewards of people's money were revealed to have been speculators with it. — Gordon Brown

We must then build a proper relationship between the richest and the poorest countries based on our desire that they are able to fend for themselves with the investment that is necessary in their agriculture, so that Africa is not a net importer of food, but an exporter of food. — Gordon Brown

When I lost the sight of my eye and faced the prospect of going blind, my sight was saved by the NHS. — Gordon Brown

I am not going to make decisions based on barricades and blockades, nor am I going to make decisions based on the short-term volatility of the oil price. — Gordon Brown

I don't see politics as one or two people just making or delivering announcements - it's also about winning public support and the public enthusiasm. You've got to win public support. — Gordon Brown

We can find common qualities and common values that have made Britain the country it is. Our belief in tolerance and liberty which shines through British history. Our commitment to fairness, fair play and civic duty. — Gordon Brown

I think that's a bit unfair. I'm a father with a 2-year-old child and I feel pretty young, actually. — Gordon Brown

You have to live in the future, not the past. — Gordon Brown

So another challenge for our generation is to create global institutions that reflect our ideas of fairness and responsibility, not the ideas that were the basis of the last stage of financial development over these recent years. — Gordon Brown

Stability is necessary for our future economic success. — Gordon Brown

Our new economic approach is rooted in ideas which stress the importance of macro-economics, post neo-classical endogenous growth theory and the symbiotic relationships between growth and investment, and people and infrastructure. — Gordon Brown

There is nothing that you could say to me now that I could ever believe. — Gordon Brown

We had lost the art of communication - but not, alas, the gift of speech. — Gordon Brown

Globalisation feels like a runaway train, out of control. — Gordon Brown

I will listen and I will learn. I will strive to meet people's aspirations. I want to lead a government humble enough to know its place - where I will always strive to be - and that is on people's side. — Gordon Brown

The best way of realising our high ideals is to show that we have an alternative in government that is credible, that is radical, and is electable - is neither a pale imitation of what the Tories offer nor is it the route to being a party of permanent protest rather than a party of government. — Gordon Brown

I want to do something for Kirkcaldy and Fife. I am a full-time MP, not a businessman. — Gordon Brown

The British economy of the future must be built not on the shifting sands of boom and bust, but on the bedrock of prudent and wise economic management for the long term. It is only these firm foundations that we can raise Britain's underlying economic performance. — Gordon Brown

Meet the challenges of the time. — Gordon Brown

I love Scotland; I love the NHS. I was born into the NHS; I grew up in the NHS. My family grew up in the NHS. — Gordon Brown

I said that this would be a Budget based on prudence for a purpose and that guides us also in our approach to public spending. — Gordon Brown

It is time to train British workers for the British jobs that will be available over the coming few years and to make sure that people who are inactive and unemployed are able to get the new jobs on offer in our country. — Gordon Brown

This is a Budget for Britain's future to secure fairness for each child and invest in every child — Gordon Brown

The vision of personalised public services - meeting the individual needs of all our citizens - requires continuing reform in the way services are delivered — Gordon Brown

56,000 companies have already benefited from the schemes that we have brought in. If we have taken the advice of the Conservative Party, no money would have been used. As Barack Obama said only yesterday, doing nothing is not an option. — Gordon Brown

I have to say that if our global alliances are going to be alliances with Hezbollah and Hamas and Hugo Chavez's Venezuela and Vladimir Putin's Russia, there is absolutely no chance of building a world-wide alliance that can deal with poverty and inequality and climate change and financial instability, and we've got to face up to that fact. — Gordon Brown

I'm all for greater co-operation between Europe and America because I think that sometimes we've missed out on the benefits that transatlantic trade could give both continents, and I've been pressing this since 1997. — Gordon Brown

When you've got a society that is diverse, what happens is for a time, the issue is integrating your minorities into that society. — Gordon Brown

Famously, I'm somewhat impatient. — Gordon Brown

Once government's objectives were economic growth and social cohesion. Now they are prosperity, fairness and environmental care — Gordon Brown

I'm a father; that's what matters most. Nothing matters more. — Gordon Brown

If people are persuaded of the need for education and the need to invest in education, they're also persuaded of the need not to waste that investment by having low-quality education but to have high-quality education. — Gordon Brown

I think fathers, mothers, grandfathers, grandmothers - we should look at what young people are saying to us. — Gordon Brown

In Britain, we are not a secular state as France is, or some other countries. — Gordon Brown

I admired and valued Robin as a colleague and friend and as one of the greatest parliamentarians of our time. His wife Gaynor and his two sons are in our thoughts and prayers. — Gordon Brown

We must understand that the British public's relationship with Europe is - and always has been, the sporting arena aside - about the benefits we can achieve in jobs, security, and quality of life from membership and how these benefits outweigh any disadvantages. — Gordon Brown

I think it's important that people know who you are and ... can ask any questions they like about you. — Gordon Brown

Britain can be proud of its response to the tsunami appeal. — Gordon Brown

Nigel Farage wanted to privatise the health service. Nigel Farage does not believe in the values we believe in for our public services. — Gordon Brown

I understand that in the UK there have already been 10,000 complaints from viewers about these remarks, which people see, rightly, as offensive. I want Britain to be seen as a country of fairness and tolerance. Anything detracting from this I condemn. — Gordon Brown

People believe in the power of education to change lives. — Gordon Brown

I don't believe that any prime minister would send our troops into conflict without the assurance from the military that they had the equipment necessary for the operation. — Gordon Brown

When people criticise you, you've got to listen to that criticism, and to learn from it, which I've tried to do. — Gordon Brown

I believe that our vote is both a public duty and a sacred trust. — Gordon Brown

The next election will be a flyweight versus a heavyweight. However much the right hon. Gentleman (David Cameron) may dance around the ring beforehand, at some point, he will come within the reach of a big clunking fist. — Gordon Brown

Think for a moment: what is the British equivalent of the U.S. Fourth of July, or even the French 14th of July for that matter? — Gordon Brown

If our economies are to flourish, if global poverty is to be banished, and if the wellbeing of the world's people enhanced - not just in this generation but in succeeding generations - we must make sure we take care of the natural environment and resources on which our economic activity depends. — Gordon Brown

What has become clear is that Britain cannot trust the Conservatives to run the economy. Everyone knows that I'm all in favour of apprenticeships, but let me tell you this is no time for a novice. — Gordon Brown

A woman said to me, 'You're better than your successor.' She then said she's lived under 10 prime ministers, and each was worse than the last. That put me in my place. — Gordon Brown

Every country is going to have to face up to globalisation, but Scotland has got a unique capacity because of its history as part of a multinational state to help us deal with that problem. — Gordon Brown

Those who write off our European heritage are, at least in part, writing off their own heritage. — Gordon Brown

It will not be a surprise to you to learn I'm more interested in the future of the Arctic Circle than the future of the Arctic Monkeys. — Gordon Brown

You can't just vote for yourself. All the time, you're thinking what sort of country, what world, what future? — Gordon Brown

People have now got the ability to speak to each other across continents: to join with each other in communities that are not based simply on territory, streets, but networks; and you've got the possibility of people building alliances right across the world. — Gordon Brown