United Kingdom Quotes

“Americans may say they love our accents (I have been accused of sounding 'like Princess Di') but the more thoughtful ones resent and rather dislike us as a nation and people, as friends of mine have found out by being on the edge of conversations where Americans assumed no Englishmen were listening.

And it is the English, specifically, who are the targets of this. Few Americans have heard of Wales. All of them have heard of Ireland and many of them think they are Irish. Scotland gets a sort of free pass, especially since Braveheart re-established the Scots' anti-English credentials among the ignorant millions who get their history off the TV.”
― Peter Hitchens

“The rich run a global system that allows them to accumulate capital and pay the lowest possible price for labour. The freedom that results applies only to them. The many simply have to work harder, in conditions that grow ever more insecure, to enrich the few. Democratic politics, which purports to enrich the many, is actually in the pocket of those bankers, media barons and other moguls who run and own everything.”
― Charles Moore

“Everything in London is great and adorable,
apart from the weather which is so unpredictable.”
― Mouloud Benzadi

“Now, I have always wanted to agree with Lady Bracknell that there is no earthly use for the upper and lower classes unless they set each other a good example. But I shouldn't pretend that the consensus itself was any of my concern. It was absurd and slightly despicable, in the first decade of Thatcher and Reagan, to hear former and actual radicals intone piously against 'the politics of confrontation.' I suppose that, if this collection has a point, it is the desire of one individual to see the idea of confrontation kept alive.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Prepared for the Worst: Selected Essays and Minority Reports

“London is one of the world's centres of Arab journalism and political activism. The failure of left and right, the establishment and its opposition, to mount principled arguments against clerical reaction has had global ramifications. Ideas minted in Britain – the notion that it is bigoted to oppose bigotry; 'Islamophobic' to oppose clerics whose first desire is to oppress Muslims – swirl out through the press and the net to lands where they can do real harm.”
― Nick Cohen

“This historic general election, which showed that the British are well able to distinguish between patriotism and Toryism, brought Clement Attlee to the prime ministership. In the succeeding five years, Labor inaugurated the National Health Service, the first and boldest experiment in socialized medicine. It took into public ownership all the vital (and bankrupted) utilities of the coal, gas, electricity and railway industries. It even nibbled at the fiefdoms and baronies of private steel, air transport and trucking. It negotiated the long overdue independence of India. It did all this, in a country bled white by the World War and subject to all manner of unpopular rationing and controls, without losing a single midterm by-election (a standard not equaled by any government of any party since). And it was returned to office at the end of a crowded term.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“What if, I never tire of asking, we said 'Secret Council' instead of the archaic and therefore cuddly 'Privy Council'?”
― Christopher Hitchens

“Today, as a result of the policy of Macmillan's Government, Great Britain presents in the United Nations the face of Pecksniff and in Katanga the face of Gradgrind.”
― Conor Cruise O'Brien

“Genghis Miliband roars up to the despatch box like a caged donkey.”
― Andy Zaltzman

“Nice mix of Tory MPs saying this issue shouldn't be used for petty political pointscoring, & Tory MPs trying to score petty political points.”
― Andy Zaltzman

“the updated 2016 State of Nature report discovered that the UK has lost significantly more biodiversity over the long term than the world average. Ranked twenty-ninth lowest out of 218 countries, we are among the most nature-depleted countries in the world.”
― Isabella Tree, Wilding

“Faith communities will remember Queen Elizabeth, for their warm relationship with her, with a particular commitment to interfaith dialogue and harmony.”
― Qamar Rafiq

“I was connected to the Queen through my medical work.”
― Steven Magee

“London is often confused with England. The English also live in London but they are only one of the communities which inhabit a true world city.”
― M.J. Akbar, Have Pen, Will Travel: Observations of a Globetrotter

“The United Kingdom is like a schizophrenic patient with delusions of grandeur.”
― Ryan Gelpke, 2017: Our Summer of Reunions: Braai Seasons with Howl Gang (Howl Gang Legend)

“This tendency to see politics as a conveyor belt on which conservatives fall off and liberals stay on reflects how progressives see the world. Rather than see politics and human nature as what they are - unpredictable, chaotic, messy and volatile - the new elite believe they are on a linear path towards ‘progress’, that history will only ever bend in their direction.”
― Matthew Goodwin, Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics

“There's not one but two UKs -
one is United Kingdom,
where animals worship a king,
another is United Kin-dom,
where humans live as kin.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat

“Beyond King and Crumpet
(Uncoronation Sonnet)

There's not one but two UKs -
one is United Kingdom,
where animals worship a king,
another is United Kin-dom,
where humans live as kin.

Storm's coming! Huts and homes
of the humble will thrive,
while castles and palaces
of thieves will crumble.
Either we are explorers
of equality and dignity, or
we are crown worshipping animal.

Putting all kings and queens to bed,
Citizens must come out and work the soil.
Enough chasing the parade of dead meat,
March your own parade, tackling turmoil!

Crown, cross and rigid constitution,
Mindlessness has taken many a form.
Beyond the fetish of king and crumpet,
Beckon the rays of an honorable dawn.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat

“Putting all kings and queens to bed,
Citizens must come out and work the soil.
Enough chasing the parade of dead meat,
March your own parade, tackling turmoil!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat

“When a philandering ass is declared head of state, and the other woman sleeps her way to the throne, it's not a moment of national pride, it's an outlandish declaration of national pestilence.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat

“Better britain begins with a better brit, an inclusive brit, a decolonized brit - a brit who knows no king and queen - a brit who celebrates no tomfoolery of coronation - a brit who knows but one race, the human race - a brit who knows but one religion, love - a brit who knows but one tradition, integration.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat

“As British governments do, Kings James appointed a committe to investigate. It reported that things were very bad, and offered many explanations. It said something must be done, and then the king did nothing.”
― Nick Bunker, Mayflower Pilgrims

“Bradford tells us about another lusty youth, Howland's ungodly double, a 'proud ... & profane' seaman who jeered and cursed the seasick passengers, saying that he expected to dump half of them over the side before journey's end. It pleased God to smite the young man with disease, and he was tossed overboard himself.”
― Nick Bunker, Mayflower Pilgrims

“When natives are treated alien,
and aliens take over as master,
cultures uprooted by legal decree,
honor is stolen as spoils of war,
defying the delirium of king and country,
rise and stand human against imperial larceny.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Brit Actually: Nursery Rhymes of Reparations

“Alien Native
(The Sonnet)

When natives are treated alien,
and aliens take over as master,
cultures uprooted by legal decree,
honor is stolen as spoils of war,

empires erected on blood and bones,
when prosperity is rooted in plunder,
homes are stripped of hopes and dreams,
violations feed the palace of blunder,

when baboons are adorned with bootleg,
each rock is drenched in bloodshed,
when festivities thrive on thievery,
correction is cursed as blasphemous,

defying the delirium of king and country,
rise and stand human against imperial larceny.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Brit Actually: Nursery Rhymes of Reparations

“Baa Baa White Sheep
(The Sonnet)

Baa baa white sheep,
have you any wool!
Yes sir, yes sir,
London tower full.

Pull it over your eyes,
or weave it into blanket.
All stink of blood and blunder,
a scent second not even to crumpet.

Imperials rise upon indigenous fall,
declaring themselves as light-bringer.
Native tears form kohinoor on the crown,
Blood is but cologne to the colonizer.

Not all of colonial descent are colonizer,
but those who take pride in the past are.
To these animal ghosts of the human world,
no matter your ethnicity send a get well card.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Brit Actually: Nursery Rhymes of Reparations

“Carry on Up The Tower (The Sonnet)

British museum is not a repository of relics,
it's a time capsule of british barbarism.
It's a classic case of cannibalism, narcissism,
kleptomania and psychopathy combined in one.

Tower of London is not a heritage site,
it's the Bedlam of the british.
The title of "heritage site" belongs
to memories of pride, not primitives.

Buckingham palace is not a noble home,
it's the national zoo of England,
where they coddle massacre 'n stagnation,
with no civil initiative for atonement.

Nobility of blood is nobility of the jungle,
modern nobility involves substance of character,
whose identity isn't anchored in transgressions,
bloodline defines chimps, humans by behavior.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Brit Actually: Nursery Rhymes of Reparations

“British museum is not a repository of relics, it's a time capsule of british barbarism.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Brit Actually: Nursery Rhymes of Reparations

“British museum is not a repository of relics, it's a time capsule of british barbarism. It's a classic case of cannibalism, narcissism, kleptomania and psychopathy combined in one.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Brit Actually: Nursery Rhymes of Reparations

“Tower of London is not a heritage site, it's the Bedlam of the british.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Brit Actually: Nursery Rhymes of Reparations