Douglas Alexander Famous Quotes
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Just as people have long believed that strengthening ties of trade improves the prospects for peace and the free exchange of ideas, Facebook friendships or Twitter followings already transcend national borders.
The depth of concern people feel about UKIP is not always matched by depth of understanding.
The Government have consistently made it clear that the mechanism in the United Kingdom whereby the European draft constitutional treaty could be implemented is approval by the House of Commons followed by a referendum of the people of Britain. There is no question of implementing it by the back door.
Newspapers can make their own judgment in terms of who they support in a general election. Our responsibility is to make a considered judgment about where the national interest lies.
Of course we need to show we are a genuine alternative to an unpopular, Conservative-led government. But we need to set ourselves a higher standard than a party offering anger like UKIP.
Our responsibility is to protect people and help them into work.
Obama better understood community organisation and peer-to-peer communication than any recent candidate, and we are applying that lesson.
The 'Arab Spring' is the most spectacular example of the dispersal of power.
As Development Secretary, I have seen in the developing world that climate change there is not a theory, is not a future threat: it is a contemporary crisis.
I think politicians who suggest they are uninterested in the support of newspapers are not being straight with people.
It is already clear that, because of advances in technology, drones are going to play an increased role in warfare in the years ahead. It is therefore vital that the legal frameworks governing their use are robust and internationally recognised.
In an era of billion-person countries and trillion-pound economies, we need to find ways to amplify our voice. We are most likely to be heard when the Chinese negotiate with a £10 trillion E.U., not a £1.5 trillion Britain.
Kneejerk interventionism or kneejerk isolationism is the wrong course for Britain.
What we are going to offer is not a one-way communication, but one-to-one communication.
I don't get up in the morning and think my mission is to end Britain. I do get up in the morning and think that my mission is to end poverty.
There's no doubt that what has emerged in the years after 9/11, unlike the situation in Britain, there were practices sanctioned in the U.S. that fall far below the standard of conduct that should have taken place. It is for the American system of government, in all of its branches, to address that. It is not for a British politician.
David Cameron's approach has left Britain weakened and weary because to retreat from the world is as foolish as it is futile.
The Network Generation are secure in, and proud of, their Scottishness. Unlike my generation that grew up in the '80s, they don't see our sense of identity as under threat.
As Scots, we certainly want change today, but the change the Nationalists offer is not the change we want or need.
David Cameron can change the branding of the party, but he can't change the beliefs.
Labour's task for government is to build consent for an outward-looking Britain as the best way to advance not just our interests, but also our values at a time of challenge, both at home and abroad.
The Commonwealth is a vital and positive partnership between countries striving to develop trade relations and promote democracy and human rights, united by shared values.
Historically, Labour has used technology as a form of control. We would use pagers and faxes to send out messages telling people what line to take. The key learning from the Obama campaign is to use technology to empower your supporters.
If you're part of the Network Generation, you don't have to belong just to one nation. Dual identities come easily to these dual screeners. They fear a separate Scotland would be a narrowing, not a broadening, experience.
What matters in any campaign is that you have a strategic core that makes the judgements, decides the strategy, and can deliver.
Change is a process: future is a destination. People want a sense of hope, possibility and pride about Britain.
We'll set our approach to borrowing, to spending, to taxation, in a sensible way on a sensible timescale.
We can have enhanced devolution - greater powers in Scotland - but within the strength, security and stability of the United Kingdom, and I think that's what most Scots want.
My general approach to opposition is where the government is getting something right, we should say so. And where we disagree with them, we should say so, too.
As times change, so do the way each generation see the world. It is rather like the way our generation came to see our grandparents' views on the Empire and colonies as outdated.
One of the big weaknesses of the Conservative Party is not just their ignorance of and lack of effective response to the cost-of-living crisis but a more fundamental error about what makes for success in the 21st century.
The style of politics that Damian McBride represents has been discredited, and Labour has moved on.
What people want is a sense of a better future to come.
The Olympics is a time primarily for sport and celebration, but diplomacy does not stop at the door of the U.N., and for it to work, it must be sustained and consistent.
I'm in agreement with David Miliband when he says our generation of Labour politicians are not willing to hand over the direction of the country without a serious electoral fight.
Any politician in a democracy has to be mindful of public opinion.
Having disrupted business practices, social interactions and political campaigns, 2011 will be seen as the year that the rise of the Internet first disrupted foreign relations.
The scale of the ISIS threat is not yet matched by a clarity of approach for securing their defeat.
Too often, the idea seemed to be that the cost of being part of Europe was being less like Britain. So after years of fighting to defend Europe against attacks from the Eurosceptic right, it would be fatal to retreat into the same arguments and begin the battle anew.
Building the future holds more attraction than ancestor worship, whichever ancestor we're talking about.
The Nationalists peddle a misplaced cultural conceit that holds that everyone south of the Solway Firth is an austerity loving Tory.
Most people understand that Lehman Brothers didn't collapse because Gordon Brown built too many schools and hospitals.
This Network Generation have grown up in a connected world. With Skype, Facebook, Twitter and the Internet, the world is at their fingertips via their smart phone. They find the idea of watching TV programmes at a time to suit the broadcaster quaint and old-fashioned.
For me, fiscal realism is not a betrayal of Labour values; it is the foundation by which we win the trust of the public.
If you talk to most people under 30, they don't read a newspaper.
Traditionally, diplomacy was done in an environment of information scarcity. Ambassadors would send back telegrams to foreign ministries, comfortable in the knowledge that their views of a country would be the only source of information the minister would see.
Part of the reason I am so evangelical in our campaigning work is that I had an unshakeable faith in Labour values, but we needed a machine worthy of the message. I grew up with a peerless Conservative machine, with vastly superior resources.
A politics that defines itself by difference holds no appeal for me.
In every generation, there are horrors that define an age and events that scar the global conscience.
Stories come and go. The challenge is to frame the questions that voters will be asking on polling day, such as who has avoided a global depression and worked here to deliver jobs.
In sport, as in science, business, and diplomacy, as Scots we understand that we benefit from the deep and diverse partnerships that make up the United Kingdom.
David Cameron wants people to believe that his isolation in Europe is a result of Britain being outnumbered when it matters most.
I've never been interested in self-promotion and that side of politics; and if that means people judge that you're less prominent than others, that's a choice I've been willing to make.
My vision for Scotland is one in which we fight together for the values we are care about: equality, fairness and social justice. Those values are the same whether you live in Dumfries or Carlisle.
As Scots - like everyone else - we live in an increasingly inter-connected world that demands shared solutions to shared problems. Walking away from others have never been our way. Walking with others has been our heritage and still represents our best future.
It would be wrong for us to offer difference from the Conservative Party at the cost of credibility, but equally it would be wrong to offer credibility at the cost of being clear that there remain very fundamental differences.
Politicians often reveal most about themselves in unguarded moments.