Quotes & Sayings About Tories

Most revolutionaries are potential Tories, because they imagine that everything can be put right by altering the shape of society; once that change is effected, as it sometimes is, they see no need for any other. — George Orwell

The Tories, every election, must have a bogy man. If you haven't got a programme, a bogy man will do. — Aneurin Bevan

I think the fact that people are even talking about the prospect of the Tories coming second is less about anything the Tories have done and more about the failures of Labour to set out, in any kind of coherent sense, what it's for anymore. — Nicola Sturgeon

Voting for New Labour is like helping an old lady across the road while screaming 'Get a move on!' Even the Tories, who you could once rely on to be completely heartless are pretending to care. — Boy George

A coalition with Tories and Liberal Democrats together is a golden opportunity to create the sort of planning reform that means not only can we have more environmentally sensitive planning, but we can have more homes and more schools. — Michael Gove

It is clear that my predecessor as First Minister is frightening the life out of the Tories and the Labour Party. Long may it continue. — Nicola Sturgeon

I wanted us to go to the Tories when we were strong ... not in misfortune to be made an honest woman of. — Winston Churchill

We're not in prison, we're not junkies and we're not Young Tories ... it's no small achievement. — Iain Banks

The Tories win elections when they lead on economic competence. — Maurice Saatchi

A majority of all defectors who voted Labour in 2010 but for a different party in 2015 said Ed Miliband had helped push them to another party. For those switching to the Tories, the second biggest reason was the fear that a Labour government would spend and borrow too much. — Michael Ashcroft

I do not want to see, for any reason, the Tories resurgent in any way. — Nicola Sturgeon

Tories never actually talk about getting rid of their leader, then suddenly there us a flash of steel betweent he shoulder-blades and rigormortis sets in. — Harold Wilson

Still, to paraphrase what John Stuart Mill said about the stupidity of the Tories, while not all people who claim to be politically incorrect are assholes, it's exactly the sort of thing an asshole is apt to say. (183) — Geoffrey Nunberg

There are your enemies, the Red Coats and the Tories. They are ours, or this night Molly Stark sleeps a widow! — John Stark

The Tories seem unable to make any impact north of the border. — Lucy Powell

The Chancellor has delivered his first budget but it's the same old Tories ; hitting hardest at those who can least afford it and breaking their promises. This is true to form for the Tories, but it includes things that the Liberal Democrats have always fought against. Surely they cannot vote for this. — Harriet Harman

Frank Gresham, when twitted with being a Whig, foreswore the de Courcy family; and then, when ridiculed as having been thrown over by the Tories, foreswore his father's old friends. So — Anthony Trollope

When I was a boy during Thatcher, you watched elections and wept in disbelief as the whole country turned blue, Scotland turned red, and we still got the Tories. — John Niven

I started out as a writer with an hour removed from Kingdom of Heaven. You have to make one print for the entire world, and that's something that influences the theatrical cuts of pictures to an enormous degree. It's a reality. You can't have one cut for the Sunni, and one for the Shia, and one each for Tories, Whigs, vegetarians, one cut for the Cineplex, and one for literary intellectuals. — William Monahan

I have written on all sorts of subjects ... yet I have no enemies; except indeed all the Whigs, all the Tories, and all the Christians. — David Hume

The conservatives had started bringing demagoguery to the table on the [Afghan] war issue the previous fall [fall 2006]. Whenever opposition members criticized the war policy, assorted Tories accused them of being disloyal and of failing to support the troops ... [Harper] was gaining the reputation of a leader who couldn't see a belt without wanting to hit below it. — Lawrence Martin

Although there's a lot of focus on the Lib Dems, we need to keep our eyes on the far right of the Tories, who I suspect will become increasingly impatient in their appetite for tax cuts, deregulation and shrinking the state even further. — Frances O'Grady

If the Tories get in, in five years no one will be able to afford to buy an egg. — Harold Wilson

When I started knocking on Highland doors in May 1983, two things struck me more than any other. First was the sheer depth of hostility towards the Tories in general. Second was the particular hostility towards Margaret Thatcher and her local ministerial spear-carrier, energy minister and incumbent MP of 13 years' standing, Hamish Gray. — Charles Kennedy

Every time the Tories get a bit of power, they rip off all the things I love ... The mining industry. Milk. — Rhys Ifans

Triumphant Tories, and desponding Whigs,
Forget their feuds, and join to save their wigs. — Jonathan Swift

I clearly believe a lot more than some of my coalition colleagues - Tories - in redistribution and using the tax system for that purpose. I also believe in the government having an active role in the economy, which is having an industrial strategy. I'm not a believer in laissez-faire. — Vince Cable

Mere tabloid journalists, obliged to choose between the word of a Tory MP and that of a common prostitue, have been far too stupid to see that you can put your mortgage on the latter being true. — William Donaldson

As the Tories know, the problem with setting yourself up as a shining example for others to follow is that when you get caught out, that proverbial substance really hits the fan. — Jo Brand

...a "proletarian" world, with no variety, no "quality", nothing noble, ancient, memorial in it, but in theory simply a gigantic sty of evenly-fed swine, in practice a den of fratricidal and cannibalic monsters. — George Saintsbury

I come from a generation that suffered school lessons in portacabins and crumbling hospitals. I tell you one thing, for the eighteen years they were in power the Tories did nothing to fix the roof when the sun was shining. — Ed Miliband

I've been dreaming of a time when The English are sick to death of Labour and Tories And spit upon the name Oliver Cromwell and denounce this royal line that still salutes him And will salute him forever. — Steven Morrissey

There has always been something less than wholesome about New Labour. But Blair for a long time had an easy ride. There was the whopping majority. There was the relief that the Tories were finally gone. There was the grand hyperbole. — Martin Jacques

During the last economic slowdown in the 1990s, the Tories slashed infrastructure investment. I am determined not to make that mistake. — Geoff Hoon

There is a reason for the affected profession of " anarchist sympathies" among Tories and grandees, and of " libertarian principles" by Hobbesian yahoos of the right. Among the former, one sees the upholding of the view that a gentleman's business and property are his own, and none of the government's. Among the latter, a distaste for democracy, for taxation, and for the need to consult others about the planet. — Christopher Hitchens

In the Fall of 1774 & Winter of 1775, I was one of upwards of thirty, chiefly mechanics, who formed ourselves into a committee for the purpose of watching the movements of the British soldiers, and gaining every intelligence of the movements of the Tories. — Paul Revere

The king to Oxford sent a troop of horse, For Tories own no argument but force; With equal care, to Cambridge books he sent, For Whigs allow no force but argument. — William Browne

While loyalists and defectors overall said John Smith did a better job of standing up for Labour's values, they put Blair ahead on representing the whole country, appealing beyond traditional Labour voters and offering strong, competent leadership; switchers to the Tories gave him a clear lead in all categories. — Michael Ashcroft

All socio-political phenomena in the U.K. come laden with the baggage of a class-based theory or two attached to them. In the case of gay Tories, there is one particularly silly variant of the category, which asserts that gayness is bred in public schools and thus fits with Conservatism like hand in glove. — Evan Davis

The division of members into Tories or Whigs had by 1761 lost nearly all significance; the real division was between supporters and opponents of the current "government," or ministry, or of the king. By and large the Tories protected the landed interest; the Whigs were willing now and then to consider the desires of the business class; otherwise both Tories and Whigs were equally conservative. Neither party legislated for the benefit of the masses. — Will Durant

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

The conversion of agnostic High Tories to the Anglican church is always rather suspect. It seems too pat and predictable, too clearly a matter of politics rather than faith. — Terry Eagleton

I understand why the Tories will be gunning for Alastair Campbell because they fear his campaigning skills. — Peter Mandelson

It's hard to find good teamwork in practice, and I have never thought that we, as a party, were any better at working as a team than the Tories, despite our core values. — Bob Ainsworth

As the economy faces such difficulties, more tough questions need to be asked about what the Tories would do if elected. Their ideology of free markets and small government needs challenging. That has to be part of our job. — Lucy Powell

Where we are from ... [s]tories are factual. If a farmer is declared a music virtuoso by the state, everyone had better start calling him maestro. And secretly, he'd be wise to start practicing the piano. For us, the story is more important than the person. If a man and his story are in conflict, it is the man who must change. — Adam Johnson

In these difficult times, when tough decisions are required, the differences between Labour and the Tories are becoming much clearer. One party believes in intervention to reduce social and economic costs and the other believes in market forces and letting things take their course. — Lucy Powell

We won't enshrine the Tories' policies in Scotland. We won't run away from the Tories but then let them run our economy. We will face up to the Tories, and we will beat them. — Johann Lamont

The Tories always hold the view that the state is an apparatus for the protection of the swag of the property owners ... Christ drove the money changers out of the temple, but you inscribe their title deed on the altar cloth. — Aneurin Bevan

The global economy is spluttering back into life. The Tories would have left it to choke to death. — Alistair Darling

The sheer scale of what the Tories are attempting to do is staggering. But Sinn Fein will not agree to this ideologically driven austerity agenda. — Martin McGuinness

Taken together, New Labour policies have helped to build a series of overlapping chav caricatures: the feckless, the non-aspirational, the scrounger, the dysfunctional and the disorderly. To hear this sort of rhetoric from Labour, rather than the Tories, has confirmed the stereotypes and prejudices many middle-class people have about working-class communities and individuals. But it can be far subtler than outright attacks. Many of New Labour's underlying philosophies were steeped in middle-class triumphalism. They were based on the assumption that the tattered remnants of the working-class were are on the wrong side of history - and must be made to join 'Middle England' like the rest of us. — Owen Jones

The right-wing Tories and the conservative Whigs fought Napoleon as the Usurper and the Enemy of the Established Order; the liberal Tories and the radical Whigs fought him as the Betrayer of the Revolution and the Enslaver of Europe; they were all agreed in fighting him, and his notion that their disagreement signified national disunion was mere wishful thinking. All dictators since his time have fallen into the same trap: themselves blind to the values of liberty, they cannot conceive that people who disagree on its meaning can nevertheless unite in upholding their freedoms against patent despotism. — J. Christopher Herold

But no parties could live under such labels as Petitioners and Abhorrers. Instead of naming themselves they named each other. The term "Whig" had described a sour, bigoted, canting, money-grubbing Scots Presbyterian. Irish Papist bandits ravaging estates and manor-houses had been called "Tories." Neither — Winston S. Churchill

Ed Balls has made it crystal clear that, left to its own devices, a Labour government would simply carry on with the same budget policies as the Tories. — Nicola Sturgeon

My child was one of Nature's Tories pitted against a mother who was one of nurture's Lefties: it was no contest. — Allison Pearson

No deals with the Tories; it's war. — Nigel Farage

I read recently that 60% of all drugs on the black-market had been put there by the police. No sooner are drugs seized, it seems, than they are recycled onto the streets by the arresting officers! I know our Leader, Mrs Thatcher, is in favour of private enterprise, but this is the free market gone mad! ... Yours for the Market Economy Within Reasonable Limits! — William Donaldson

I like fighting Tories ... that's what I do. — Anthony Albanese

Edward Campbell Lowe was a radical in his blood and in his bones... his maternal grandfather had famously made a bonfire with a valuable portrait of the Marquess of Bute because, he had declared, it was more than a man could stomach to encounter a Tory every morning before breakfast. — Clare Clark

The Tories had the legal right to demand extra meetings of the council but I could decide when they would be held and always called them for Friday afternoons, knowing that three or four of the richer Tories went to the country early and were not prepared to stay in the city beyond lunchtime. I realised that nothing in politics is new when I read in Suetonius's The Twelve Caesars that Julius Caesar pulled the same trick when reactionaries in the senate were making his life difficult. — Ken Livingstone

I've instinctively hated the Tories since birth. — Charlie Brooker

These masters of the universe must be tamed in the interests of the ordinary families whose jobs and livelihoods are being put at risk ... The Tories won't say anything about the current crisis as they are completely in the pockets of the hedge funds. — Vince Cable

I think the Tories are doing - and are intent on doing - damage to things I hold dear. — Nicola Sturgeon

If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals - if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is. — Ronald Reagan

People in my constituency are starving and born with sixteen fingers. Did you ever eat weasel shish-kebob? Freddy doesn't walk by the side of the motorways to gather dandelions for his salad, but the people who sent me here do. Why are we supporting him? He doesn't deserve it. The Tories won't give milk to children who go to school hungry and come home to baked cat. — Mark Helprin

I've been called treacherous, stupid, venal, lazy ..and that's only by the Tories. — Peter MacKay

Conservatives like to talk about 'the strivers' who share what they like to think of as Conservative values. But as I found in my Blue Collar Tories research in 2012, such people no longer see the party as their natural ally. — Michael Ashcroft

Nice mix of Tory MPs saying this issue shouldn't be used for petty political pointscoring, & Tory MPs trying to score petty political points. — Andy Zaltzman

That is why no amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party that inflicted those bitter experiences on me. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin. They condemned millions of first-class people to semi-starvation. Now the Tories are pouring out money in propaganda of all sorts and are hoping by this organised sustained mass suggestion to eradicate from our minds all memory of what we went through. But, I warn you young men and women, do not listen to what they are saying now. Do not listen to the seductions of Lord Woolton. He is a very good salesman. If you are selling shoddy stuff you have to be a good salesman. But I warn you they have not changed, or if they have they are slightly worse than they were. — Aneurin Bevan

Some are whigs, liberals, democrats, call them what you please. Others are tories, serviles, aristocrats, &c. The latter fear the people, and wish to transfer all power to the higher classes of society; the former consider the people as the safest depository of power in the last resort; they cherish them therefore, and wish to leave in them all the powers to the exercise of which they are competent. — Thomas Jefferson

An unemployed electrician,whom I had been taunting with my reminder of how much richer I was, leaned forward and said:'What are your qualifications? I know exactly what your qualifications are.You bent over in the shower to pick up some soap at Eton and Harrow, like all the rest of them. — Auberon Waugh

Until now their line has been that the Tories are incapable of doing anything about poverty, and aren't interested in doing it in the first place. By contrast, Labour says, we are also incapable of doing anything about poverty, but would dearly love to do something. If we knew what. — Simon Hoggart

After listening to the debate on unemployment I can see a danger that Liberals lose to the Tories their claim to have new and sensible ideas and are left saying "Me too" to a Socialist conventional wisdom which is failing ... The salient need of this country to produce more and much more efficiently hardly figured on the agenda. — Jo Grimond

It is more important for Labour to raise the reputation of politics than for the Tories, who are only in politics for the money. — Frank Dobson

In the 1990s, the Lib Dems won a string of byelections at the expense of struggling Conservative governments. Christchurch, Ribble Valley and Eastbourne went straight back to the Tories at the next general election, but the Lib Dems held their later byelection gains - Eastleigh, Newbury and Romsey - in at least two subsequent general elections. — Michael Ashcroft

Tories must end tribalism and divisions. — Priti Patel

Timing is always crucial in delivering a jibe. John Major thought he'd won the football pools when he succeeded Thatcher. At his first Prime Minister's Questions, the Tories cheered wildly. He rose to his feet and in the split-second hush between his MPs falling silent and Major uttering his first words I yelled: 'Resign!' There was utter pandemonium. — Dennis Skinner

Our opposition will never understand the Democratic Party. Our Party is
to the unpracticed eyes of the old Republican Tories
a mysterious contraption that usually seems to be moving in a thousand directions. What they don't know is what hurts them. For all that movement in the Democratic Party is caused by the internal combustion of creative ferment, of ideas, of people vigorously committed to the proposition that change and social progress are not only to be desired; they are necessities of twentieth-century America. — Hubert H. Humphrey

Our contemporary Tories prefer the term 'ordered liberty' to 'freedom'. The word 'freedom' scares them; it has too much of a paleolithic ring to it. — Edward Abbey

The American people were, in the beginning, Revolutionaries and Tories. The American people ever since have been Revolutionaries and Tories. They have been Revolutionaries and Tories regardless of the labels of the past and present. Regardless of whether they were Federalists, Democrat-Republicans, Whigs, Know-Nothings, Free Soilers, Unionists or Confederates, Populists, Republicans, Democrats, Socialists, Communists, or Progressives. They have been and are profiteers and patriots. They have been and are conservatives, liberals, and radicals. — Saul Alinsky

If our legislature does not heartily push our University [of Virginia] we must send our children for education to Kentucky [Transylvania College] or Cambridge [Harvard College]. The latter will return them to us as fanatics and tories, the former will keep them to add to their population. — Thomas Jefferson

Had they [the Tories] been in the wilderness they would have complained of the Ten Commandments. Remark. — John Bright

The Tories in England had long imagined that they were enthusiastic about the monarchy, the church and beauties of the old English Constitution, until the day of danger wrung from them the confession that they are enthusiastic only about rent. — Karl Marx

I don't agree with the Tories on most things. — Johann Lamont

The world's full of people with unusual beliefs, Julia. Scientologists, Rastafarians, Catholics, Moonies, Mormons, Baptists, Tories, dentists, captains of industry - every madness has its cheerleader. The asylums and parliament are crammed full of delusionists, and only a madman would want to eliminate them. — Hanif Kureishi

The Tories and the Lib Dems talk about social mobility, but, short of winning the lottery, the only way to guarantee young people from all backgrounds the opportunity to do better and to raise aspirations is through education. — Lucy Powell

After being Washington's aide for four years and becoming the hero of Yorktown, Hamilton was viewed with a great deal of suspicion because of his association with Tories. — Ron Chernow

Conservative Party membership has almost halved since David Cameron become leader. The truth is the Tories are financially reliant on, and as a result are governing on behalf of, an ever-shrinking class of people. The more they attack working peoples' attempts to have some influence on the political landscape, the more they reveal that they govern for the millionaires, not the millions. — Len McCluskey