Shirley Williams Quotations

I think it is really terrifying that we are narrowing down to a mechanistic assessment of children by how many pass exams... if standards meant improving right across the board, character, originality, interests, then I wouldn't mind so much. But it doesn't. It always boils down to the same thing, how will we pass exams.

It is our goal to provide full public access to as many files as we possibly can.

It feels like you've lost someone in your family real close to you, and they're never coming back.

I was pushing the baccalaureate back in the days when I was education secretary. It always takes everybody forever in education. We were saying that A-levels were too narrow back then as well.

We really shouldn't be running education like a supermarket where you compare prices.

There are hazards in anything one does but there are greater hazards in doing nothing.

The government's response that it cannot control electricity and fuel prices as the Jamaica Public Service is privately owned and that the government has no control over oil prices is as irresponsible as it is delinquent.

The Government cannot move on until it admits to this 'the greatest diplomatic blunder since Suez' and learns lessons from it. One of those lessons is how weak Britain's influence has been over the American administration.

We just take everything one day at a time. We're happy to have them here. A lot of people don't have any family or friends at all.

The ones that we could not transfer students from was junior high and high schools,

.The reports indicated that the problem is so severe that there had to be demolition of construction in some instances where the cement was used.

The Catholic Church has never really come to terms with women. What I object to is being treated either as Madonnas or Mary Magdalenes.

The British civil service ... is a beautifully designed and effective braking mechanism.

If the Labour party goes back to reasserting its socialist and democratic beliefs, that's where I belong.

The saddest illusion of the revolutionary is that revolution itself will transform the nature of human beings.

society, while willing to make room for women, is not willing to make changes for them.

We have run out of creativity for children and teachers alike in the name of pushing up standards.

We have to say now we think the character of the party has changed so far it will take something very exceptional, something really out of the ordinary line to make us be convinced there's a chance of winning back the party.

The danger of any new party at a time of disillusion with the old parties, is that it becomes all things to all men.

It would be excellent if he is prepared to listen to other points of view.

I am not interested in a third party. I do not believe it has any future.

No test tube can breed love and affection. No frozen packet of semen ever read a story to a sleepy child.

We really shouldnt be running education like a supermarket where you compare prices.

There are hazards in everything one does, but there are greater hazards in doing nothing.

This has been the hardest thing I've ever had to do my entire life.