Top 77 Quotes & Sayings by Crispin Blunt

In view of the mess left behind by the French and ourselves, we cannot simply leave Libya alone.

What we have to do is make sure there are prison places for those sent to prison by the courts and we will continue to do that regardless of how many people are sent to prison.

Is there an alternate role for the U.K. outside the E.U? I think absolutely there is. It shouldn't be something we should be worried about.

It is my view there is a gaping hole in parliamentary oversight.

To say that the U.K. could have no part to play in improving a justice system different to our own, but which was seeking advice on how to deliver more internationally compliant standards, was a betrayal of our international humanitarian duty.

Having western, Russian or Iranian forces providing the ground defeat of Isis would certainly work militarily, but would be the least attractive option as it might help reinforce the Isis myth.

The coalition government made it clear from the outset that it would proceed with defendant anonymity in rape cases only if the evidence justifying it was clear and sound. In the absence of any such finding, it has reached the conclusion that the proposal does not stand on its merits.

I am a unionist. But I'm a unionist up to the point of, if other people don't want to be in a union with me then, well, fine.

Refusal to engage with the Russian government is not a viable long-term foreign policy option for the U.K.

Unity among like-minded liberal democracies is paramount.

A national Libyan force needs to be created.

Our unique selling point as a country is global, not regional. Our industries have a pitch to the world, rather than simply trade with Europe.

I have known Damian Green for over 20 years, since we were elected together in 1997. He stands out among us with the highest standards of public service, probity and integrity.

The Islamist camp is infused with a righteous indignation, as the forces of old, corrupt and rotten Egypt unite to try and drive them underground once again. This indignation is lethally reinforced by a willingness to die for their beliefs and a determination that they are not going to be driven from the political field as they were before.

For the government, there is the frustration of not being a full part of the anti-Isis coalition. For ministers to have their position restrained by our parliament is an embarrassment with their international colleagues.

Saudi Arabia has been commended for allowing women the right to drive; the opening of cinemas and other entertainment establishments; ending the power of arrest of the religious police. In parallel however, there have been arrests of the activists who for years had advocated for these changes.

We simply do not have time as we move from one meeting to the next to have hours to peruse leisure websites of whatever type. There are days when I do not have time to switch my desktop computer on, and computer access is by mobile devices on the run between competing engagements.

For all those who seek to maintain the rules-based international order, Russia presents a challenge.

The private sector complains that some of the agencies set up to advise and assist them in protecting their networks, such as CESG, are good at gathering information, but reluctant to disseminate it. This culture of information hoarding has to be changed.

I accept of course we're in deep trouble and deep difficulty. But if we, under a new leader, reinvent ourselves properly as a Brexit party, we will be faced with the inevitability at some point of a general election in order to deliver Brexit because this Parliament is stopping the delivery of Brexit.

I accept that speculation, cheerful or otherwise, about the private life is something public figures must expect, but I am lucky enough to continue to enjoy the love and support of Victoria and my children, Claudia and Freddy, and to finally be at ease with myself.

Britain's independent possession of nuclear weapons has turned into a political touchstone for commitment to national defense, but this is an illusion.

There may be connections between the nearest prison to Oxford these days, HMP Bullingdon, and other institutions of that name. I have yet to investigate these and, on reflection, probably won't.

Eighty per cent of the membership of the Conservative Party are very keen to make sure that Brexit happens, we'll be in a position to enthusiastically support leaving the E.U. with no deal and if we are then able to agree a position to put to the country, I think we would hit the ball out of the park.

It's not going to be my political raison d'etre, I think it would be presumptuous to take a leadership role. But I would want to make sure that we support equality.

There is not a shortage of assets in northern Syria but a shortage of targets.

Those members of the executive council who voted against my candidacy in the absence of a cogent reason they could publicly present and having now been so convincingly contradicted by the wider membership must ask themselves how they can best assist uniting and reinvigorating a party which is overwhelmingly united around my candidacy.

My ministerial career is 100 percent behind me, so I can be slightly braver about taking positions which I did argue for while in office, but was constrained by collective responsibility.

Nigel Farage said he would do a deal with the devil to get Brexit over the line; the Conservative party is very far from being the devil in this.

Huwaei receives significant funding from the Chinese government and is run by a former director of the telecoms research unit of the People's Liberation Army. The components are feared to have given China the ability to disrupt or shut down key parts of the U.K.'s critical national infrastructure.

I strongly believe that we would be amiss to cut ourselves off from Saudi Arabia without expending every effort to avert disaster.

The government is sending some terrible signs about what we really stand for.

In 2008, Damian Green, then shadow immigration minister, had his parliamentary office raided without a warrant, by the Metropolitan police, after he was implicated in leaking Home Office documents that were politically embarrassing to the then Labour government.

It always had occurred to me that drugs misuse was obviously a major driver of demand in the criminal justice system.

We already heard from President Macron saying he won't let Britain leave the customs union until we get access to their fishing grounds. You can then see the complexity in future, this will go on forever.

Failure to find a way to incorporate political Islam in democracy, however uncomfortable its ideology is for secular liberals, will mean we have given them little alternative but to find other means of expression. Inevitably, some of this would be violent.

Any initiative involving the green beret - as opposed to special forces - to expand and train a national Libyan military capacity has value, but not in Tripoli, where U.K. forces will be targets and look like an invading force.

Any deeper involvement, including the use of airstrikes against Islamic State positions, will require parliamentary approval. The government anyway needs to get over its fear of discussing this with parliament and, if necessary, to seek authorisation at the appropriate moment.

When the air forces of the U.S., Russia, France, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and others are already engaged with Isis in Syria, it's a shortage of targets rather than of aircraft that is the coalition's principal military constraint.

U.K. policy in Libya before and since the intervention of March 2011 was founded on erroneous assumptions and an incomplete understanding of the country and the situation.

There is fear of impoverishment as a narrowly based ideological government, infused with medieval religious rectitude, lays waste to the Egyptian economy, which, given the economy's precariousness, is a clear and present danger to the daily life of millions of Egyptians.

The cyber security strategy for the United Kingdom is a master of the formulaic jargon we have come to associate with the Labour government, and is almost totally devoid of substance.

Order has been sustained in Egypt over at least the last three decades by police conduct which bears more hallmarks of Egypt's Ottoman heritage than an accountable criminal justice system.

The committee accepts that, as the government response suggests, U.K. policy in Libya was initially driven by a desire to protect civilians. However, we do not accept that it understood the implications of this, which included collapse of the state, failure of stabilization and the facilitation of Islamist extremism in Libya.

I am disappointed not to receive the endorsement of the Reigate and Banstead Conservative Association's executive council as the Parliamentary candidate at the 2015 General Election.

I do have a huge debt of gratitude to people who fought for equality.

There is a growing body of opinion in support of a royal commission. It's not an issue which will go away, because the global environment is changing around us.

Theresa May's triumph at being the first foreign leader to visit Donald Trump, when she addressed the Republican caucus and advised that it is sensible to engage with Russia but to beware, appears to have come a bit late for Jeff Sessions.

Disentangling this mess of foreign national interests is a necessary precondition to ensuring that there will be a future for Syria that is Syrian-led and Syrian-owned.

The Conservatives as a Brexit party, being very clear about their objectives are almost certainly going to have to go into some kind of electoral arrangement with the Brexit Party, otherwise Brexit doesn't happen.

The creeping optimism that there might be a route to peace in Syria remains constrained by the elephant in the room - Bashar al-Assad.

Our lack of understanding of the institutional capacity of the country stymied Libya's progress in establishing security on the ground and absorbing financial and other resources from the international community.

In truth the importance of U.K. airstrikes and the U.K.'s eight additional planes is more political than military. It is in honesty a micro military issue. There is no great military necessity for the U.K. to be involved since planes are queuing up from a wide range of countries over the skies of Syria.

European exporters will be paying twice as much duty on stuff they sell to the U.K. because they sell twice as much stuff as we sell to them. We would then have quite a lot of money to support our industries in ways that we choose when we leave the E.U.

Doing something to make ourselves feel better is beside the real point of defeating Isis and ending the Syrian civil war.

Development of a framework for the reporting of cyber incidents between government and industry is considered a priority. This includes the government sharing information with industry and, where possible, providing the research community with cyber-security event data.

London Pride is a big event in the global celebration of freedom.

The requirement for military force is clear when looking at the first of the nine points agreed in Vienna, which states that 'Syria's unity, independence, territorial integrity and secular character are fundamental.'

After a proposal made by us, Saudi Arabia has had a major government reshuffle. Ibrahim al-Assaf has replaced Adel al-Jubeir as foreign minister, and the Saudi ambassador to the U.K. has been recalled to advise King Salman.

In delivering the agreed objective of a Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political process, the removal of Isis from its territory in Syria by Syrian forces, the Syrian army and the Syrian Free Army fighting alongside each other is an opportunity to bind wounds.