Quotes About Policy

I abhor anything that constitutes torture. Water-boarding, it's perfectly clear to me it is torture. I never supported extraordinary rendition to torture, always said that Guantanamo should be closed. There is no clash of ideals and pragmatism there.

Aside from the occasional genocide, oppression, evil and torture, etc., it is inarguable that public policy could be implemented more rapidly in an autocracy.

There's just no doubt in my mind - under any set of rules - water boarding is torture.

We have a very clear position in the U.K. against torture, and we should maintain that.

America does not torture. We never have, and we never will.

Sinn Fein will not do Tory austerity.

I'm not Tory but I do happen to think that the Government should be allowed to govern.

When I was energy and climate change secretary I sat around a cabinet table with Gove, and he couldn't help playing to the Tory climate-sceptic audience. As education secretary, he tried to ban climate change from the geography curriculum. After an angry exchange of letters with me, he eventually backed down.

Tory governments are bad for Scotland.

Mental health is a case study in Tory failure.

Tory housing policy is the epitome of tinkering with the deckchairs while the ship is listing.

The FHA literally drew up the redlining map and then basically distributed - I'm sorry, the Home Owners' Loan Corporation actually did it, and then distributed to banks who used that as policy to determine how they would lend and who they would lend to. The racism in the system was pervasive and total.

We should reduce total government spending as a percentage of the economy.

I can tell you that a carbon tax will be a total economic disaster.

We have a Conservative leader that believes in green taxes, that won't bring back grammar schools, that believes in continuing with total open-door migration from eastern Europe and refuses to give us a referendum on the EU.

A comprehensive national energy policy is critical to our nation's economy and our national security. Energy expenditures account for about 7% percent of our total economy and influence pricing in the much of the rest of the economy.

I think, in effect, in most of the European countries, the total marginal tax rate is over 50 percent; that's to say, add on other taxes like VAT to the income tax.

But I contend that if we're providing total medical coverage for every man, woman, and child in Iraq, shouldn't we at least be doing the same thing for every man, woman, and child in the United States?

California has the highest number of illegal immigrants residing in its borders. The estimated number of illegal alien residents in California was about 2.2 million, or nearly 32 percent of the total number of illegal immigrants in the United States.

The rich pay more in total taxes now than ever before - ever. It's true. Just like it's true that when the rich are convinced they're going to be taxed more, they spend less. And when the top few percenters don't spend, there goes all your spending, because they account for half of all retail spending.

We should reduce total government spending as a percentage of the economy. The left wants to focus on the deficit so they can take us away from the focus on spending as a percentage of the economy.

The chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80% of the total health care bill out there. There is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place. The decision is not whether or not we will ration care. The decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.

One could argue the GOP made no progress on limiting government in their four years of total control from 2002 to 2006. If anything, government expanded like never before.

Contrary to what most people think, bank money is much more important than state money. In Greece, for example, bank money makes up 84.26% of the total money supply.