Patience is a virtue; virtue is a grace.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
In the U.S., free speech and the press are protected by the First Amendment. It has a clarity unmatched by modern legislators and declares that 'Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or the press.'
Free Trade puts consumers at the centre of economic activity. It lowers the cost of imports, which gives people the opportunity to buy more with the same amount of money: domestic producers have to compete with the lowest global costs or invest in new business.
I would almost certainly vote for Trump if I was American.
Lobbying has become a term of reproach, as if it were improper to push for a particular belief. This has happened because of paid lobbyists whose opinions are for hire and the fear that decision-makers, whether politicians or officials, are susceptible to their charms and wiles. This has tarred entirely proper lobbying with the same brush.
Zero-hours contracts offer an entry point for people who are either new to the workforce or have commitments that make it hard to work full-time.
I'm not interested in the past, I'm interested in the future. Europe is past.
A constitutional monarchy requires the monarch to be above politics but to be fully informed about politics.
When Margaret Thatcher was leader, she and Michael Heseltine were hardly soulmates, but she would not have allowed personal rivalry to take the heat off the Labour Party, whose own deep internal divisions are buried in other news now, nor would she have countenanced any attempt to have a show trial.
Zero-hours contracts are a low proportion of the workforce; they provide a route into employment and flexibility for staff. They benefit business, consumers, and taxpayers by keeping costs down, and they boost productivity, allowing the efficient use of labour.
If people ignore the rules already, new regulations are not likely to deter them.
Mark Carney is one of the enemies of Brexit. He has opposed it consistently.
I've made no pretence to be a modern man at all, ever.
My personal opinion is that life begins at the point of conception, and abortion is morally indefensible.
A poor worker is taxed heavily to receive his own money back with a modest supplement. Surely it would be more efficient just to pay the supplement and take him out of direct tax altogether.
One of the great constraints on economic growth and employment is that the tax and benefits system has grown up over generations and does not give the right incentives. Increasing the minimum wage does not solve this problem.
Unsalted butter is a sin against the Holy Ghost.
Obstacles to trade put up the cost both to consumers and businesses.
I've never put all my eggs in one basket, and I've always been cautious.
I'm of the opinion that one of the perks of being in Parliament is not having to do the school run.
Tony Blair adopted the accent of the audience he was speaking to, which worked very well initially, but then voters began to perceive him as phoney. The 'man of the people' act is the height of condescension.
Eschatological fears are an ancient human concern. The Romans expected the world to end in 634 B.C. owing to a prophecy involving twelve eagles, while the early Christians anticipated the Final Judgment in their own lifetimes. Pope Sylvester II thought A.D. 1000 would be the last year, a view updated for the modern age by the Millennium bug.
Sometimes 'sin' taxes are useful not because of their perceived health benefits but because they are effectively a form of voluntary taxation which tends to arouse less irritation than other taxes.
You've got to judge people, ultimately, by their actions rather than their words.
I very much like potatoes.
Meeting someone does not mean you're endorsing them.
If we want to change a law, we can do that in Parliament. That is a democratic right that has often been taken from the E.U.
We are the Conservative and Unionist party. No Conservative would do anything to harm the union, and that crucially includes Northern Ireland.
Fundamental protections, the assumption of innocence, trial by jury, and the right to appear before a court have all been sacrificed on the altar of the E.U. superstate.
Electorally, the number of women who want to wear a burka is insignificant, yet it is important to defend such a minority against the tyranny of the majority.
The state ought not to intervene to prevent individuals from doing things that not only are no risk to others but are of no risk to themselves either.
I would always vote for Tory candidates in the United Kingdom, and I would probably be Republican if I was an American.
Before the government decides to raise the minimum wage, it must consider the effects of the tax and benefits merry-go-round that affects the low-paid.
The E.U. is a backward-looking project based on an economic model of the 20th century.
It is easy to defend the right of people to do things that fit in with the cultural norms of the majority. This includes practices that give personal pleasure but may be harmful, such as smoking or drinking. It is harder to argue for minority activities, especially those which stand out and may be obviously unsuitable in certain contexts.
Employers' national income is a particular disincentive to employ because it is an expense without benefit.
In the 2010s, it is not the price of bread that is falsely and unnecessarily inflated by obstinate politicians but that of energy. There are cheap sources of energy either available or possible, but there is a reluctance to use them.
Although nannies who cover more than one generation are rare, those like Veronica Crook - who looked after me and now looks after my four children - are pearls of great price. They provide a continuity and stability for a family that is of inestimable value for the child and, indeed, the man.
The biographies of the great rarely report much about the nanny, but for many, she will have played a crucial role in their formative years.
Subsidising inefficient businesses does not encourage them to become more competitive and means that extra money has to be taken from tax payers for the same result. Inevitably, this reduces the total size of the economy and lowers living standards.
I take the teachings of the Catholic Church seriously.
It is hard to see taxing plastic bags as one of the great issues of our time that merits the foremost place in our finest statesmen's minds. It is an absurd little issue, a picayune proportion of household waste, and a pointless inconvenience in people's lives.
The requirement upon the sovereign to 'advise, encourage, and warn' means that the Queen must be well informed. The weekly audience with the Prime Minister is not to discuss the weather but to talk about the most pressing problems facing the nation. An ill-informed monarch cannot do that and would fail in a key constitutional task.
The promise of welfare and welfare regulation mean that there is no incentive to accept jobs that do not meet basic standards.
In an age of considerable bureaucratic burdens, a business knowing immediately that someone who has the relevant training is eligible to work in the United Kingdom is an important convenience and helps keep costs down.
It has never been the case that a peerage can be extinguished, even for the lifetime of a peer, by a motion of the Lords. This does not mean that there are not effective ways of penalising errant peers.
I'm not a great beer drinker, but I do like Butcombe, probably because it's made of good Somerset water.
In England and, later, the United Kingdom, Habeas Corpus is a right of great antiquity: Anyone who is arrested must be brought before a court, but this does not apply in continental countries.
'Ever closer union' is one of the totemically controversial phrases in the European Union's Treaties. It seems to give weight to the view that the scheme is designed to end in a single state and that those who agreed the texts have long know this, even if they have been unwilling to admit it to the British people.
There is sometimes an almost vindictive streak in politics whereby governments follow policies which they know will harm the electorate, but nonetheless, they keep them, sometimes for years. The Corn Laws are a classic example.
