QUOTES FROM a man of principles

“A Royal Commission is a broody hen sitting on a china egg” – speech in the House of Commons, 1964.

“Men of power have not time to read; yet men who do not read are unfit for power” – in his book Debts of Honour.

“The national strike of the miners in 1972 performed, I believe, a great service, not only to the miners, but the people in Britain today who wanted coal” – House of Commons, 1974.

“I have been on the Left of the party since I joined it in about 1934 and I have not seen much reason for altering“ – Panorama TV interview, 1976.

“If the freedom of the people in this country had been left to the good sense and fair-mindedness of the judges, we would have had few freedoms in this country at all” – article in Daily Telegraph, 1977.

“Most liberties have been won by people who broke the law” – interview in 1980.

“She has no imagination and that means no compassion” – on Margaret Thatcher, 1981.

“I think the House of Lords ought to be abolished and I don’t think the best way for me to abolish it is to go there myself” – on leaving the House of Commons, 1992.