Chris Patten
Chris Patten
Christopher Francis Patten, Baron Patten of Barnes CH PCis chancellor of the University of Oxford and a former governor of Hong Kong and the BBC Trust...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth12 May 1944
problem said difficult
It is almost always wrong that the time isn't ripe to decide something. That is always said of difficult problems.
men people territory
Throwing young men out of work, throwing people into poverty and ending business life don't promote stability in the Palestinian territories,.
police needs doe
All parts of the society need to feel that the police service is their police service, and that does not happen unless all parts of society are represented in the police
yugoslavia trying recreation
We're not trying to recreate Yugoslavia
freedom democracy jerk
In democracy everyone has the right to be represented, even the jerks.
tribes language affair
It behaves more like a tribe than a democratic institution...responding to custom rather than reason and using its own liturgy and language for the conduct of its domestic affairs.
atheist curious
It is curious that atheists have proved to be so intolerant of those who have a faith.
writing government important
We have our own system, ... and journalists in our system are not put in prison for embarrassing the government by revealing things the government might not wish to have revealed. The important thing is that our system, under which journalists can write without fear or favor, should continue.
people principles accommodations
So, what I say to people is that politics has got to be about principle and values above all. Of course, there are times when you have to make accommodations.
numbers politician vow
Anyone who supposed that when Margaret Thatcher left Number Ten she was going to take a Trappist vow did not know that formidable politician.
growth world green
Green politics at its worst amounts to a sort of Zen fascism; less extreme, it denounces growth and seeks to stop the world so that we can all get off.
voting exotic way
There is a sort of exotic preposterousness about a lot of elections, the way arguments are made even cruder.
believe responsibility hands
I believe in trying to get a balance between individual freedom on the one hand and social responsibility on the other.
honesty winning people
It'd make a wonderful change to have the leader of a pluralist democracy who acted on that, who told people just how tough things are going to be, just what's going to have to be done - and, maybe, ran all the risks on the side of honesty, rather than spinning stories and trying to win the headlines every day.