A biography for Barry Gardinerhasn’t been written yet.
“Dictators have an old trick to assess the strength of their opposition: they say something patently untrue, and then look to see who mindlessly repeats it. Those who do, they recognise as their true supporters.”
“Public demand for better services requires increased revenue, but international market competition for capital and labour drives down the ability of any one country to raise either corporate or personal income tax.”
“We want trade agreements that aid development and increase prosperity, growth and productivity at home and in our trade partner countries.”
“The basis for securing preferential future trade terms with India begins in that recognition of essential equality. Indeed it begins in recognising that India is now an emerging global superpower whose primary interests are regional in South East Asia and who needs a deal with the U.K. less than we need one with her.”
“We engage in the public institutions of work and school and club and team, because it is there that we find meaning and purpose. But sometimes when we engage, we find confrontation not affirmation.”
“An efficient economy does not perpetuate the misallocation of capital - it punishes it.”
“We need to be investing in the low-carbon technologies that are creating the apprenticeships and skilled jobs of the future.”
“Climate change brings increasingly frequent and severe weather patterns and this means more floods.”
“Fracking locks the U.K. into an industry that is based on fossil fuels long after our country needs to have moved to renewables.”
“The mark of a bad leader is not to make the wrong decision. It is to make no decision at all.”
“We as politicians have to understand that the greatest threats to our security are no longer conventional military ones. You cannot nuke a famine.”
“World leaders need to work together through the rules-based system of the WTO to tackle unfair practices, including the widespread dumping of steel on world markets at less than market price.”
“The Paris Agreement makes it impossible for any country or any sector to say climate change isn't their problem. It has created unprecedented momentum for all sectors in all countries to take action and be part of the solution.”
“The Paris Agreement is a highly significant step in tackling climate change - but a piece of paper will not save the world. It is not 'job done.'”
“We need robust sustainability regulations for shipping that are internationally recognised and respected. This will ensure shipping plays its part in the global transition to carbon neutrality.”
“GDP has been a con perpetrated upon the poor of the world: a measure of economic activity and not of actual wealth. What it masks is the way in which we transform their natural capital into our consumption through international rules that regard the ecosystem services upon which they rely as mere externalities.”
“Most people are surprised to find out that the myth of the crowded little island is just that - a myth.”
“Donald Trump spoke to the experience of ordinary working people when he dubbed Nafta the 'worst trade deal ever made.'”
“Fear is a treacherous leader. It shrinks from the new and fails to meet the challenges of the future.”
“In the Labour Party we are absolutely united in our belief that shipping must define its 'fair share' of tackling climate change, and develop an emissions reduction plan for the sector.”