Guardian Special Reports: Queen's speech 2002 - Full coverage of the speech itself with transcript and audio. Comment, analysis, sections for each of the areas covered and web resources.
UK Parliament: Bills before Parliament - Official directory of Bills from both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, with links to full text, explanatory notes and amendments for each.
United Kingdom Legislation (HMSO) - UK legislation, including Acts of Parliament, Statutory Instruments and Measures of the General Synod of the Church of England. From Her Majesty's Stationery Office.
Britain: A Case of Democratic Deficit - Argues by reference to political philosophers and case studies that Britain is a case of severe democratic deficit.
Direct democracy - Allows participants to "vote" on government proposals and issues. Argues for referenda on issues of public consern.
BBC In-Depth: The Queen's Speech 2003 - Complete coverage including full transcript, summary and opposition responses plus video, news stories, analysis, backgrounders and forums.
"I should reproach him for not giving us enough evidence." (Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 1872-1970, what he would say to God if they 'met') "One of the great dangers in having a career is getting bored." (Itzhak Perlman) If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be
closed for any other business.
-- Abraham Lincoln There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
-- Benjamin Disraeli Govern a family as you would cook a small fish - very gently.
-- Chinese Proverb Issues Nothing has really happened until it has been recorded.
-- Virginia Woolf If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit." (Aristotle) Issues
"Have confidence that if you have done a little thing well, you can do a bigger thing well, too." (David Malcolm Storey) Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.
-- Salvador Dali The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.
-- G. K. Chesterton If a man is considered guilty for what goes on in his mind, give me the electric chair for all my
future crimes.
-- Prince Democracy encourages the majority to decide things about which the majority is blissfully
ignorant.
--John Simon Issues "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." (George Bernard Shaw) "To err is human; to forgive, divine." (Alexander Pope) Our own heart, and not other men's opinions form our true honor.
-- Coleridge, Samuel Taylor Issues
I criticize by creation - not by finding fault.
- Cicero "Mistakes are the portals of discovery." (James Joyce) It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
-- Gore Vidal Nothing is wrong with California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn't cure.
- Ross MacDonald A person is not given integrity. It results from the relentless pursuit of honesty at all times.
-- Anon. Issues Love is an ocean of emotions entirely surrounded by expenses.
-- Lord Dewar For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of our tasks; the ultimate,
the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.
-- Rainer Maria Ril Marriage is like a hot bath. Once you get used to it, it's not so hot. Issues
Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the
time by watching the second hand of a clock.
-- Ben Hecht It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.
- Mark Twain Black holes are where God divided by zero.
- Steven Wright Before marraige a man will like awake all night thinking about something you said. After marriage
he will fall asleep before you have finished saying it.
-- Anon. I am not young enough to know everything.
-- Oscar Wilde Issues "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ine Nothing shows a man's character more than what he laughs at.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Good friends are good for your health.
-- Irwin Sarason Issues
"Those that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." (Benjamin Franklin) They were doing a full back shot of me in a swimsuit and I thought, Oh my God, I have to be so
brave. See, every woman hates herself from behind.
-- Cindy Crawford, supermodel "If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost." (Aristotle) Motivation will almost always beat mere talent.
-- Norman R. Augustine Giving a man space is like giving a dog a computer: the chances are he will not use it wisely.
-- Bette-Jane Raphael Issues A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.
-- Thomas Carruthers Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more
experiments you make the better. What if they are a little course, and you may get your coat
soiled or torn? Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from
both sides.
-- Margaret Thatcher Issues
It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.
- Oscar Wilde "Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." (George Bernard Shaw) Imagination is the highest kite one can fly.
-- Lauren Bacall I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence.
-- Doug MacLeod There is no future in any job. The future lies in the man who holds the job.
-- George Crane Issues Knowledge is the intellectual manipulation of carefully verified observations.
-- Sigmund Freud I think of my wife and I think of Lot, and I think of the lucky break he got. But at my back I always hear Time's winged chariot hurrying near.
- Andrew Marvell Issues
"A wise man among the ignorant is as a beautiful girl in the company of blind men." (Saadi) Imitation is the sincerest form of television.
-- Fred Allen "If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way." (Mark Twain) They're almost inseparable. Sometimes it takes ten people to separate them.
-- Anonymous Music is the art of thinking with sounds.
-- Jules Combarieu Issues The only thing that holds a marriage together is the husband bein' big enough to keep his mouth
shut, to step back and see where his wife is wrong.
-- Archie Bunker, character on "All in the Family, "Well begun is half done." (Aristotle) "The face is the soul of the body." (Ludwig Wittgenstein) Issues
"Defeat the fear of death and welcome the death of fear." (G. Gordon Liddy) "The want of logic annoys. Too much logic bores. Life eludes logic, and everything that logic alone constructs remains artificial and forced." (André Gide) The Internet is so big, so powerful and pointless that for some people it is a complete substitute
for life.
-- Andrew Brown The real questions are the ones that obtrude upon your consciousness whether you like it or not,
the ones that make your mind start vibrating like a jackhammer, the ones that you 'come to terms
with Losing a wife can be hard. In my case, it was almost impossible. Issues Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.
-- Aristotle No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.
-- Abraham Lincoln Whenever a husband and wife begin to discuss their marriage, they are giving evidence at an
inquest.
-- H. L. Mencken Issues
"In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted." (Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 1872-1970) They had a dispute about a night out with the boys. But he finally decided to let her go.
-- Anonymous "Wise men learn more from fools, than fools from the wise." (Anonymous) What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.
-- Abraham Lincoln When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.
-- Ernest Hemingway Issues Realism is a corruption of reality.
-- Wallace Stevens Bachelor: the only man who has never told his wife a lie. A Code of Honor: Never approach a friend's girlfriend or wife with mischief as your goal. There
are just too many women in the world to justify that sort of dishonorable behavior. Unless she's
reall Issues
The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains that I
have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time.
- George Bernard Shaw When ideas fail, words come in very handy.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Being on the tightrope is living; everything else is waiting.
-- Karl Wallenda Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.
- Isaac Asimov A team effort is a lot of people doing what I say.
-- Michael Winner Issues "Freedom of press is limited to those who own one." (Henry Louis Mencken) "... What good are dreams if they come true?" (Frederick Exley, A Fan's Notes) Parents are the bones upon which children sharpen their teeth.
-- Peter Ustinov Issues
"I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They're beautiful. Everybody's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic." (Andy Warhol, Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close Up) Marriage is like a box of chocolates. You have to squeeze a few bottoms to make sure you like
what you are getting.
-- Anonymous "Do not go gentle into that good night. Old age should burn and rave at close of day. Rage, rage against the dying of the light." (Dylan Thomas) I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to
know where many ignorant men are sure -- that is all that agnosticism means.
- Clarence Darrow, Women's liberationists spread the word that...the only peaceful family is one in which either the
wife is enslaved or the husband is androgynous.
-- R. Emmett Tyell, The Liberal Crack-Up, 1984 Issues Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love,
but no friendship.
-- Oscar Wilde I have always dressed according to certain Basic Guy Fashion Rules, including:
* Both of your socks should always be the same color
* Or they should at least both be fairly dark
-- Dave Barry "Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget." (G. Randolf) Issues
