Paddy Ashdown
Paddy Ashdown
Jeremy John Durham Ashdown, Baron Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon, GCMG, CH, KBE, PC, usually known as Paddy Ashdown, is a British politician and former diplomat who served as Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 1988 until August 1999...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth27 February 1941
bit sell
I'd sell my grandmother for a bit of definition.
leave might suppose
It might be done I suppose before I leave but I think that a little unlikely.
jobs doors europe
My second job has been to try to use my power to create institutions of a modern state that could enter the European Union, and there was very little time. The door was closing, and I wanted to get Bosnia through before it shut.
compromise
Politics is compromise.
song jobs goal
It's not my job to be popular. I'm goal-driven; my job is to get results.
trying produce sells
We have to make their livelihoods viable, get them the proper prices for their produce, try and make them stay rather than sell their property and leave again.
agreement boards ambassadors
I am formally accountable to the steering board of the PIC, and I meet with nine ambassadors from the PIC every week. I have to have the capitals' broad agreement with what I do.
party my-future democrat
What my future will not be is active politics in the Liberal Democrat party.
people criticism hurtful
Maybe it's legitimate criticism, though it can be hurtful. Maybe I haven't paid sufficient attention to the people with whom I would have a natural affinity as a liberal, and they feel let down by that.
expectations justice done
I can establish the expectation of retributive justice. Have we done that? No.
jobs ambition home
History teaches us these lessons for the interveners: leave your prejudices at home, keep your ambitions low, have enough resources to do the job, do not lose the golden hour, make security your first priority, involve the neighbours.
stupid way would-be
It would be a foolish high representative who worked that way.
thinking bosnia ready
I don't think Bosnia is ready for reconciliation, but I do think it is ready for truth.
brother airports russia
Now we are intimately locked together. You get swine flu in Mexico; it’s a problem for Charles de Gaulle Airport 24 hours later. Lehman Brothers goes down; the whole lot collapses. There are fires in the steppes of Russia; food riots in Africa.