William Hague Quotes

When you reduce taxes on higher earners it's vital to be reducing them on lower earning people as well so the nation shares in the approach.

Obviously a Conservative government will always leave taxes lower than they have been under Labour. Those things go with the territory of the Conservative Party.

Well, if you're looking for me to lead a normal representative life, well good luck finding a foreign secretary who'd be like that - totally dependant on the political system and has never earned any money. Then you'll get the politicians you deserve.

Egypt is a sovereign nation.

A generation of children has been betrayed.

I think the way things have been left after Iraq is that people won't believe the Government of the day, so they have to know that lessons have been learnt and that all political parties and people, whether they were for or against the invasion of Iraq, have learnt lessons.

Wouldn't it be better to have a watertight law designed to catch the guilty, rather than a press release law designed to catch the headlines?

I described the euro as a burning building with no exits and so it has proved for some of the countries in it.

Someone once claimed I was not really a Yorkshireman!

It's necessary for Israelis and Palestinians to make the compromises that are required to get the direct talks back on track.

When we said that no more areas of power should go to the EU we were right. And now thanks to the European Union Act 2011, by law that cannot happen without a referendum. And we are just as right that the EU has more power in our national life than it should, and I believe as strongly as I ever have that when the right moment comes this party should set out to reduce it.

If some of the people who write about mojo came with me for a week, they would drop dead on their feet.

Inspiring scenes of people taking the future of their countries into their own hands will ignite greater demands for good governance and political reform elsewhere in the world, including in Asia and in Africa.

It's not too late to stop the Lisbon Treaty.

You can see over time whether people are prepared to differ or not.

I have always thought that foreign-policy idealism has to be tempered with realism.

Very few conflicts in the history of the world have been satisfactorily concluded according to a published timetable, because you lose all flexibility in dealing with your opponents.

Remember the No campaign is Conservative people, Labour people, people of no party.

People feel that in too many ways the EU is something that is done to them, not something over which they have a say.

Syria should not belong to one family, to one coterie, or to one party. It belongs to all the people of Syria equally, in all their religious and ethnic diversity.

I don't think my principles change. I think the way in which you apply those principles to modern society changes.

The Bill of Rights was intended to secure freedom of speech - the freedom of speech of members of parliament to speak freely rather than be at threat of... the threat of an over powerful monarch at the time.

It is the mission of the next Conservative Government to build the Responsible Society.

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.

It is not my policy to hit voters during the election.

I still agree with the invasion of Iraq. I don't agree with most of the decisions that accompanied it.

You can gain in your effectiveness as a politician from a wide acquaintance with the world and from a degree of independence that having some outside interests gives.

The world is not going into concentric blocs of power. It is actually going into a diffusion of power with more centres of decision-making than ever in human civilisation. That requires you to place yourself in far more hubs of power than ever before.

In my view what you can't argue for is a system that is neither decisive nor proportional and can be indecisive and disproportionate at the same time.

We are making progress militarily, there is no doubt about that. You've seen the reports from Misrata, although reports of the Gaddafi forces completely pulling out of Misrata seem to be exaggerated.

Labour have been listening for too long to the so-called experts who think that competition is a dirty word and that communicating facts to our children is elitist.

It was inevitable the Titanic was going to set sail, but that doesn't mean it was a good idea to be on it.

One day I will go back to my books and piano, but not yet.

I believe we should reframe our response to climate change as an imperative for growth rather than merely being a way of being green or meeting environmental commitments.

How long do Syrian families have to live in fear that their children will be killed or tortured, before the Security Council will act? How many people need to die before the consciences of world capitals are stirred?

The appalling crackdown that we witnessed in Hama and other Syrian cities on 30 and 31 July only erode the regime's legitimacy and increase resentment. In the absence of an end to the senseless violence and a genuine process of political reform, we will continue to pursue further EU sanctions.

Iran's continued, widespread persecution of ethnic minorities, human rights defenders and political prisoners is a disgrace and stands as a shameful indictment of Iran's leaders.

Gordon Brown promised to abolish boom and bust. He has kept half his promise.

Where defining foreign policy as 'ethical' went wrong was that it implied that all decisions would be exclusive in every respect of any dealings with unethical regimes.

As far as I'm aware, everybody in the shadow cabinet accepts that there's a compelling case on climate change and a strong scientific case.

When we have a Deputy Prime Minister who tells people not to drive cars but has two Jags himself, and where the Minister who tells people not to have two homes turns out to have nine himself - no wonder the public believe politicians are hypocrites.