There was a time when a certain type of Tory could have been relied on to swing from the chandeliers in defence of the rights of freeborn Britons. I suppose a lot of those Tories would have been what you might call 'one-nation Tories.' That tradition has died in the Conservative party.

Emily Thornberry

A scam is a scam. A fraud is a fraud. Different rules don't apply in the City than they do for you and me.

We need to put human rights, a belief in multilateralism and respect for international law back at the heart of foreign policy.

Emily Thornberry

Respect Art T

I was born into the Labour party. I was delivering leaflets by the age I could reach the letter box.

Emily Thornberry

Art Age T

The fact of the matter is that when governments fail - as the Tories have done - to tackle the root causes of working peoples' need for welfare support, like low pay and high rents, the number of working people relying on benefits increases.

Emily Thornberry

Work Men Government

We got evicted from our house in Guildford. We were chucked out and had nowhere to go. We ended up in social housing. And it was very hard for my mum. My brothers were five and three.

Emily Thornberry

Where Were Very

Whether it's in Jobcentres or in Whitehall, young people are constantly coming up against a narrative that portrays them as lazy and feckless, when in reality nothing could be further from the truth.

Emily Thornberry

Truth Young People Young

White collar crime must be taken as seriously as any other crime.

Emily Thornberry

White Us Taken

The Human Rights Act is not a terrorists' charter. It enables ordinary citizens to seek redress when the government breaches fundamental freedoms enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights such as the right to a fair trial, the right to life and free expression.

Emily Thornberry

Men Life Government

We need to build on our diplomatic networks, and the unrivalled expertise of our Foreign Office, to project a positive image for Britain as a force for good in the world.

Emily Thornberry

Work Positive Good

The 'Welfare Reform and Work' Bill does nothing to address low wages, or underemployment, and I haven't even got started on how it undermines the provision of affordable housing.

Emily Thornberry

Work Men Art

There's a particularly nasty element when lots of men get together sometimes.

Emily Thornberry

Time Men Art

It's often been said that politics in Islington, in many ways, begins and ends with housing, and it's not hard to see why. Despite the borough's image of exclusivity - the stereotype that it's all Georgian squares and cappuccino bars - the reality is much more complex.

Emily Thornberry

Politics Age Wit

We have all these strong men in politics - whether it's Brazil, or the Philippines, or Trump, or Putin. They're all big men: it's let's look up to them, don't be afraid, they're looking after things. It's so fundamentally anti-democratic.

Emily Thornberry

Politics Men Whether

Low pay is a serious problem, and its victims need a genuine solution.

Emily Thornberry

Victims Victim Us

The Tories have long since abdicated any pretension of principled global leadership.

Emily Thornberry

Leadership Tension Ten

My awakening to the fight for women's votes came when I was 13, and the BBC screened a drama called 'Shoulder to Shoulder' about the suffragettes, with the great Sian Phillips as Emmeline Pankhurst. It made a huge impression on me - not just the history, but because of the debates it triggered at home.

Emily Thornberry

Women Men Home

We must apply the same standards to countries such as Saudi Arabia, Israel and Egypt that we apply to Iran, Russia and Syria.

Emily Thornberry

Us UN Tan

First-past-the-post builds a direct relationship between a community and their MP. Residents come together to decide who most people want as their national representative. No one has more than one vote and it has to be cast responsibly.

Emily Thornberry

Relationship Who Want

The social safety net was created by a united society in the aftermath of the Second World War. It came out of a British sense of fairness.

Emily Thornberry

War Society World War

People don't seem to be safe inside Pentonville, and now it transpires inmates can escape. That is the final straw. If they don't have control of the place, what is the point of it being there? This was built in 1842 and is totally inappropriate for modern needs.

Emily Thornberry

Totally Total Ton

Why the Tories are happy to subsidise home ownership for middle class graduates and affluent social tenants, but not for widows on low incomes, is simply beyond me.

Emily Thornberry

It took LGBT activists 15 years to defeat section 28, but this is not a movement that's afraid of the long struggle. They know all progress is hard-fought, that discrimination against any individual anywhere is discrimination against all, and that the campaign for true, global equality must therefore be won one issue, case and country at a time.

Emily Thornberry

Laws protecting this right - whatever the level of the minimum wage, and whatever the Government chooses to call it - are only as strong as the threat of enforcement is both real and feared.

Emily Thornberry

I certainly think sometimes when it comes to sexism, some Sky presenters need to look at themselves.

Emily Thornberry

By creating a perception that the U.K. places a higher premium on striking commercial deals than it does on promoting and protecting human rights, our reputation in the world suffers.

Emily Thornberry

It is clear that too many bankers think that laws are for the little people.

Emily Thornberry

One of the fundamental pillars of international humanitarian law is that proper distinction should be made between military targets and civilians. That is why indiscriminate bombing, let alone the deliberate targeting of residential areas or agricultural infrastructure, is considered a war crime.

Emily Thornberry

The principle behind the Equal Pay Act is that if an individual woman finds a man doing similar work and being paid more she can take her employer to a tribunal and get paid equally and compensated. Sounds simple enough. But in reality this law has been hamstrung by a series of stupid loopholes that have developed over the years.

Emily Thornberry

The destructive impact of employment tribunal fees, which were introduced in 2013, is by now well known.

Emily Thornberry

The notion of women being written out of history is as old as the Bible, but it always seems more galling when it is the history of progressive movements - such as the abolitionist campaign in Britain or the fight for African-American civil rights - in which the role of women has been diminished.

Emily Thornberry

When I first started campaigning to become an MP in 2004, we were suffering as a party because our hierarchy and leadership were totally detached from the party's membership.

Emily Thornberry

It is my view that our response to the Brexit vote should not have been to turn in on ourselves. At a time of grave constitutional and economic challenge for our country, it was incumbent on us to rise to this threat and ensure that the Labour party should defend the interests of our communities and not allow the Tories a free hand.

Emily Thornberry

Prosperity need not come at the expense of this country's proudest traditions as a beacon of justice.

Emily Thornberry

Carving out our own role, distinct from America's, might not be easy. But we must ask ourselves: what alternative is there? Unthinking, uncritical loyalty to the U.S. under Donald Trump is a far less appealing idea.

Emily Thornberry

When I was starting out as a barrister in the 1980s, Lord Denning was the most famous judge in the land, and the supposed role model for every lawyer. But not for me.

Emily Thornberry

Unesco can rightly be claimed as one of Britain's greatest contributions to that global architecture of peace, and for Penny Mordaunt to be willing to destroy that legacy by withdrawing Britain's membership is nothing but historical and cultural vandalism.

Emily Thornberry

I was 10 when the Equal Pay Act was passed. It was pretty inspiring stuff.

Emily Thornberry

We should waive fees for those taking equal pay claims; they are our whistleblowers and should be encouraged.

Emily Thornberry

There was a time when a certain type of Tory could have been relied on to swing from the chandeliers in defence of the rights of freeborn Britons. I suppose a lot of those Tories would have been what you might call 'one-nation Tories.' That tradition has died in the Conservative party.

Emily Thornberry

It is up to Labour to keep alive the belief that government should be for the whole nation and that no section of society should place itself beyond scrutiny and above the law.

Emily Thornberry

Equal constituencies' sound fair. So why is Labour so against the constituencies bill and why do we call it gerrymandering? Because, like so much Tory rhetoric, it sounds good, but if we look beyond the soundbites it becomes clear that it covers policies that promote narrow sectional interests.

Emily Thornberry

Even though I've had the odd terse word to say about Donald Trump, I still get invited to events at the U.S. embassy. I always attend, because as long as they're prepared to hear the opposite viewpoint, then I'll never miss that chance when I can.

Emily Thornberry

When the Tories came to power in 2010, the ground-breaking Equality Act had just become law. But the newly appointed Equalities Minister wasted no time in systematically undermining both the Act itself and the Commission responsible for enforcing it.

Emily Thornberry

We need a foreign policy which responds to challenges like forced marriage, and which speaks to the particular needs of women and girls at risk of being sold into slavery.

Emily Thornberry

The welfare state, which grew out of post-war solidarity, has for decades been based on the principle that those who pay into the system are entitled to expect that the safety net will be there for them when they fall on hard times.

Emily Thornberry

Taxpayers' and 'people on benefits' are not two separate and distinct groups of people.

Emily Thornberry

By repealing the Child Poverty Act, which forced governments to take real action to tackle child poverty, this government brings a proud chapter of British history to an undignified end. In future the government will measure child poverty not by looking at whether they have any money, but by looking at their so-called 'life chances.'

Emily Thornberry

The Alternative Vote is sectarian and self-serving and it will not improve people's lives.

Emily Thornberry

When one party is really unpopular, like the Conservatives in 1997, AV can really skew the result disproportionately against them.

Emily Thornberry

AV does not bring you greater proportionality - and there is a tendency for parties to gang up on one of the major ones to run an 'anyone but' campaign.

Emily Thornberry