Top 132 Quotes & Sayings by Ken Livingstone
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an English politician Ken Livingstone.
Last updated on November 22, 2024.
Yes, there are lots of individual exceptions. But no one has ever done a study about voting intention without ascertaining that the biggest determining factor is your income and your wealth.
I liked it when we had ugly politicians who droned on about issues.
I do the gardening.
I don't work hard enough. If I had worked harder I might have been prime minister.
The market is a brilliant system for the exchange of goods and services, but it doesn't protect the environment unless it's regulated, it doesn't train your workforce unless it's regulated, and it doesn't give you the long-term investment you want.
Most kids don't get to go their parents' wedding.
I'm in exactly the same position as everybody else who has a small business.
My administration will tackle these issues in consultation with the black communities of London.
Polling in a general election is pretty accurate, because turnout is usually high.
I came into politics because I wished to change things. You can't do that by lying to people; you have to educate, and persuade, and carry them with you - and it's often a long haul.
I refuse not to have a sense of humour.
I spent the 1960s and 1970s seeking myself - the working-class tradition of self-education.
I have only ever borrowed money for investment. I have been sound money all my life.
If women had never been given the right to vote, then Labour would have won every election after the war.
The whole culture of my background was deeply Conservative.
All the politics of the post-war period was about the clash between the Soviet Union and America, and virtually all issues ended up being subordinated to that. Now, the question is, what is the most a socialist can achieve in a global economy?
I think I have gone through my entire public career never telling a lie. I have made mistakes but I never knowingly lied.
I go all around London advocating lesbian and gay rights.
Most people wouldn't want to marry a politician.
I Kenneth Robert Livingstone, having been elected to the office of mayor of London, declare that I take that office upon myself, and will duly and faithfully fulfil the duties of it to the best of my judgement and ability.
I've got people handling the media. I employ at the moment two people. No-one is paying income tax on the money they use to employ people.
I actually think the civil service, who are the malignancy at the heart of public life, have consciously prevented, talked ministers out of, made it difficult regulatory-wise, to allow more pressure on alternative energy sources to grow.
I never came into life with any favours or privileges.
The press keep asking me, 'What was your biggest mistake?' But if I had made a big mistake, they'd all be writing about it, wouldn't they?
I was a weedy kid, not like one of those working-class men who can accommodate not being academically clever by physical strength and prowess.
I'm never going to take the view that I should say whatever I need to say in order to achieve something. Because that implies a level of dishonesty.
I employed my wife for three years to sit in the attic and type up my autobiography, 700 pages, organise everywhere I go. I'm paying the normal rate of tax on the money I take out for myself.
I grew up in Lambeth, I went to normal schools and I've grown up in a city where people say what they think.
There needs to be radical development in equality law to create the environment to allow women to stay in work.
When I'm sifting the compost seed or pruning, I argue over issues in my head; I talk to myself.
What do we do about climate change bearing down upon us?
When I was leader of the GLC, by the time I had been in control for three years, the difference in pay between the cleaner and the director general was a four-to-one ratio. I find that attractive.
I can easily lose myself emotionally in absolute Hollywood garbage.
I can only admire people who I have never met and are dead - because you know so much about anyone who is alive.
I became a councillor back in 1971, so if by this stage in politics I'm making lots of big mistakes, then I shouldn't be here.
This life is messy.
If I was courting the Muslim vote, I wouldn't have put establishing the partnership ceremony at the forefront of my first term, would I? I go all around London advocating lesbian and gay rights.
I've always told the truth. I've often been wrong - but I've never knowingly lied. Not in public life. Because I don't see the need to.
Well, I get on with people who believe in something.
I think it's much more important to keep people in work than have pay rises.
The truth is, no one pays more tax than they have to.
Thatcher was prepared to destroy the world rather than give in on something she believed in.
Most people are not shocked that I am occasionally rude to journalists. They are probably amazed I don't punch one in the face.
Anybody who enjoys being in the House of Commons probably needs psychiatric help.
The world is run by monsters and you have to deal with them. Some of them run countries, some of them run banks, some of them run news corporations.
My political beliefs are my moral, quasi-religious framework.
The people I really most admire are Robert Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt. If you know someone, it is very hard to revere them.
Psephology isn't a hate crime.
I've never declined to do an interview.
I undertake that, in the exercise of my functions of that office I will have regard to any guidance with respect to ethical standards issued by the secretary of state under Section 66 of the Greater London Authority Act 1999.
There isn't much about my life that's been particularly conventional.
Every budget I have ever prepared has been balanced.
I mean I get loads of money, all from different sources. You give it to your accountant. They manage it. But you pay corporation tax. If you're then taking it out and spending it on yourself, you have to pay more.
I would like to sound like James Mason. I reckon if I'd had a better voice I could have been prime minister. It is the most irritating voice in public life.
Most politicians aren't allowed to express themselves any more.
If voting changed anything, they'd abolish it.
World wide capitalism kills more people everyday then Hitler did. And he was crazy.
I can't understand why anyone would want to live the life of a politician if you can't say pretty much what you think. You are not in it for the money: there's unremitting pressure on your life, you give up so much of your privacy. It can only be because of the things you want to do and the things you want to say.
I loathe and detest all this trivialisation of politics.
Well, I mean, I'm very much a pragmatic person.
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