Top 100 Quotes & Sayings by John McDonnell

In 1985, as a community activist and GLC councillor, I organised the first ever public meeting to explain the threat of a third runway at Heathrow airport for my local community.

New Labour has systematically alienated section after section of our natural supporters - teachers, health workers, students, pensioners, public service workers, trade unionists and people committed to the environment, civil liberties and peace.

People realise that if Labour is to fulfil its founding goal of transforming our economic and political system into a more equal, free and truly democratic society, which provides security and life-changing opportunities to the British people, then there is no going back.

If we as a party are serious about devolution, then we must respect councils and nations enough to determine their own agenda.

We have to face up to the fact that without the armed uprising in 1916 Britain would not have withdrawn from southern Ireland.

Heathrow is in my constituency and I have been at both the Terminal 4 and Terminal 5 planning inquiries. At these inquiries my community has been assured by the inquiry inspectors, BAA and government ministers that each development would be the last piece of expansion of the airport because of its ever-increasing noise and air pollution.

Parties don't lose overnight, there is a gradual erosion of their base and electoral machine, which leads to sometimes cataclysmic defeat.

Conservatives claim they are 'one nation' Tories when they have actually been a government for the 1% who have undermined our economic interests through their greed.

I am categorically opposed to any fees for education - and I have voted and campaigned against their introduction at every stage.

I made the case for public ownership in 'Another World is Possible' - a manifesto for 21st-century socialism - as it is the most rational approach for managing resources in the long-term interest of the entire community.

Airport expansion is just one example of how our planet is being plundered for profit.

My ambition is to learn to play the trombone. My wife pulls my leg about it. I'll find time, my neighbours might not appreciate it but I'm going to try.

Nationally, unrestrained Heathrow expansion has prevented the balanced development of regional airports and their economies and the planning of an integrated transport system maximising more environmentally friendly modes of transport such as rail linked more effectively to Europe.

We need to promote employment through investment in major public works schemes to meet the U.K.'s needs.

Many argue that graduates earn a 'premium' because of their education, and should have to pay their way. I agree, and that's why I've always advocated a progressive taxation system - so if people do receive large salaries, they pay more income tax.

No cause is worth the loss of a child's life.

From nuclear waste to Northern Rock and Metronet, risk is never transferred to the private sector - the state will always be forced to step in where there is a clear public interest.

New Labour has deregulated, liberalised and privatised - but every time the private sector fails it is the taxpayer who pays.

Democratic government requires the consent of the governed.

When I left school I went onto the shop floor, working 12-hour shifts in a TV factory. My workmates were sharp, skilled and all capable of enjoying higher education - but they didn't have that opportunity.

The illegal 2003 invasion had little to do with liberating Iraqis from Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. Instead, the real freedoms and benefits were destined to go to corporations like Halliburton and others that stood to gain from the privatisation of the formerly state-owned Iraqi economy.

If we need more demand in the economy then protect people in work and raise the incomes of those on low incomes who need to spend, such as the low paid, pensioners and families with children.

I call a spade a shovel, straightforward. If I disagree with someone, I tell them.

We urgently need a major programme of investment in renewable energy generation to tackle climate change.

Going to university is, and should be, so much more than a mechanical process of grinding out a degree qualification for a pre-determined career path.

What Gramsci is all about is hegemony: you win the battle of ideas and it dominates.

We need an NHS with fewer managers, fewer contractors and more power (rather than choice) to patients - with the input of the real experts: healthcare professionals.

The worry in Labour circles is that, when pressed, Gordon Brown instinctively moved to cut the benefits of the poor rather than upset businesses and the wealthy.

Heathrow expansion is an object lesson in the dominance of a rapacious sector of industry over government decision-making.

If corporations and rich people who made fortunes out of us during the boom are not paying their fair share then reform the tax system and close down the tax havens.

Only the political process offers the real prospect of a united Ireland at peace with itself.

The New Labour political elite has long conspired to secure a so-called 'smooth transition' for Blair's successor. This would amount to little more than the imposition of a leader on the party and our supporters without any real democratic participation.

New Labour has created a society increasingly oppressed by the worry of personal debt.

I have a political philosophy by which I judge political events. It's called socialism, which at its core is about achieving equality, justice and peace through democracy.

Millions of people feel ignored by the political establishment.

The interests of big corporations have so permeated government that its major decisions are indistinguishable from the boardroom demands of the leading companies in each commercial sector.

When governments fail us, what else can people do except take to direct action? When corporate power can so dominate government policy-making that whole communities are placed at risk, where else can people turn?

It may sound corny in a cynical age but literally generations of our people have given much of their lives to establishing and cherishing the Labour party because they believed what the party told them when they joined.

Our supporters just want a Labour government. They want a Labour government that does what Labour governments are expected to do. They expect a Labour government to provide them, their families and their communities with the support and security they need, especially in difficult times.

If allowed, democracy does actually work.

The plundering for profit of the world's natural resources has threatened the very sustainability of the planet.

If people need homes then put councils and building workers to work to build them, buy up the empty ones and stop the repossessions.

If we are to depression-proof our economy we may need to pay more attention to the radical ideas and policies of those who witnessed the misery inflicted on so many during the 1930s.

The arrogant view that young people don't count because they don't vote has thankfully been smashed for ever.

Since John Smith's death and the Blair/Brown takeover in 1994, party members have watched the way in which an elite leadership group has formed in the Labour party, cutting itself off from the party's traditions, values and norms of behaviour.

Our objectives are socialist. That means an irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth in favour of working people.

Tightening up border and immigration controls go nowhere in addressing the underlying causes of terrorism in our society and in our world.

I think that I was the first MP to call for the nationalisation of Northern Rock, although that is hardly surprising because I have been calling for the nationalisation of the financial sector for 30 years or more.

Labour will only survive in government if we can restore the sense of mission upon which it was founded.

A fairer system bases itself on actual outcomes - if you earn more you pay more, through progressive income tax.

Producing more reams of detailed policies that have marginal and limited effects on our society is futile.

Ministers may not be responsible for administrative errors, but they are responsible for major policy blunders.

When I was a GLC councillor, we won and held London as Labour was imploding nationally - running popular campaigns against the Thatcher Government and fighting on our own agenda.

Britain has moved on. It is a radically different country from that which shaped New Labour.

Changing leaders is pointless if the same policies are pursued.

The spread of information technology and the long-term decline in the cost of computing power have created opportunities that simply did not exist before. Airbnb, for example, could not have existed before the Internet.

To be effective in tackling poverty wages, a living wage has to be mandatory and basic trade union rights should be restored so workers can protect themselves from exploitative employers.

If the government is injecting public money, it should also take the right to oversee board appointments, executive pay, and future business operations.

Governments usually end not with a bang but with a whimper, as the Conservatives learned in the 1990s. Support and authority erodes over time until there is a final collapse of support and pivotal electoral shift.

To me, education is not a commodity. It is a public good, essential to any society with a claim to being civilised.