Talk:United Kingdom

Retarget redirect?

Rather than redirecting from article space to a category, shouldn't this redirect to the article Great Britain? ~ Ningauble 15:08, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Political bias

Upon reading this page I can't help but feel that there is an abundance of quotes by Thatcher and other right wing figures, including Enoch Powell. I feel that this level of bias creates a false impression of British history and by bringing people like Powell to attention, brings disrespect to the country. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Marlowe123 (talk • contribs) 12 September 2018 (UTC)

@Marlowe123: Do you know of some quotes to balance this article? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 18:08, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Why not trim instead of removing?

Why not trim instead of removing? Ottawahitech (talk) 18:02, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

recent addition -- is it appropriate?

Does this edit belong in this article? I do not see the word "United Kingdom" anywhere. Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 19:07, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Coningsby: Not about the UK?

• Dear @Coningsby‎
  As you know, twice today, you have removed the following quotation. When you removed a longer version earlier today, I took a look wondering what part of the quote was 'not about the UK'. I removed the part that it seemed some could argue was not about the United Kingdom (UK), leaving only that which was very clearly about the UK & reposted it. According to the historical record of the Iraq War, the United Kingdom (U.K) led by Tony Blair played a significant role, the UK's participation in that war is mentioned seven times in the text about it on the wikipedia page Iraq War, leaving no questions about their involvement & support of that invasion/occupation. To say that the quote is not about the UK, is simply not a factual statement and cannot be argued.
  I can understand people being terribly ashamed of the shameful way Tony Blair & the UK government worked with the U.S. government, in that most dreadful, arguably illegal Iraq Invasion/occupation, and how some good people might wish to have the horrible facts concerning their nations actions/involvement removed from the records, but that would be very dishonest. Many believe that only the truth will eventually set us free from tyranny, but only if/when it is not hidden.
  With all due respect Coningsby, unless a good argument is presented here by you or others within 30 days, I propose that the following quote be re-inserted. Does that seem fair and reasonable to you? Why or why not? Fellow wikiquote editors/admins: what do you think about this?!
  Thank you & best wishes to all. Alphabravo2022 (talk) 17:28, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

The quote is about Tony Blair and the Iraq War, not about the UK. Wikiquote pages on countries include quotes that give information about the country. This quote doesn't. That is why it should not be included.--Coningsby (talk) 17:55, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Removed + proposing to reinsert/repost

• UK’s Prime Minister Tony Blair should hang with the U.S. gang, but who is calling for this? How much longer will the necessary prosecutions wait? Till after these international war-criminals have all gone honored to their graves? Although the International Criminal Court considered and dismissed possible criminal charges against Tony Blair’s UK Government regarding the invasion and military occupation of Iraq, the actual crime, of invading and militarily occupying a country which had posed no threat to the national security of the invader, was ignored, and the conclusion was that “the situation did not appear to meet the required threshold of the Statute” (which was only “Willful killing or inhuman treatment of civilians” and which ignored the real crime, which was “aggressive war” or “the crime of aggression” — the crime for which Nazis had been hanged at Nuremberg).
  • Eric Zuesse, Why U.S. Must Be Prosecuted for Its War Crimes Against Iraq, American Herald Tribune, (16 May 2020)

Removed & reinserted, after editing/reducing

• UK’s Prime Minister Tony Blair should hang with the U.S. gang, but who is calling for this? How much longer will the necessary prosecutions wait? Till after these international war-criminals have all gone honored to their graves?
  Although the International Criminal Court considered and dismissed possible criminal charges against Tony Blair’s UK Government regarding the invasion and military occupation of Iraq, the actual crime, of invading and militarily occupying a country which had posed no threat to the national security of the invader, was ignored, and the conclusion was that “the situation did not appear to meet the required threshold of the Statute” (which was only “Willful killing or inhuman treatment of civilians” and which ignored the real crime, which was “aggressive war” or “the crime of aggression” — the crime for which Nazis had been hanged at Nuremberg)... We... now have internationally a lawless world (or “World Order”) in which “Might makes right,” and in which there is really no effective international law, at all. This is merely gangster “law,” ruling on an international level. It is what Hitler and his Axis of fascist imperialists had imposed upon the world... this invasion and subsequent military occupation constitutes the very epitome of “aggressive war” — unwarranted and illegal international aggression.
  • Eric Zuesse, Why U.S. Must Be Prosecuted for Its War Crimes Against Iraq, American Herald Tribune, (16 May 2020)

Record

• curprev 16:44, 6 April 2022‎ Coningsby talk contribs‎ 29,051 bytes −1,145‎ Quote isn't about the UK undothank Tag: Undo
• curprev 15:08, 6 April 2022‎ Alphabravo2022 talk contribs‎ 30,196 bytes +1,145‎ →‎W: Although the International Criminal Court considered and dismissed possible criminal charges against Tony Blair’s UK Government regarding the invasion and military occupation of Iraq, the actual crime, of invading and militarily occupying a country which had posed no threat to the national security of the invader, was ignored. undo Tag: Reverted
• curprev 14:10, 6 April 2022‎ Coningsby talk contribs‎ 29,051 bytes −2,253‎ →‎Z: Removed quotes about the Blair and the Iraq War which aren't about the UK undothank

Stock

A British vessel, stopping on the way back from India at the Comoro Islands in the Mozambique Channel, finds the native inhabitants in revolt against their Arab masters; and when they ask why they have taken arms, are told, "America is free, could not we be?" ~ Gijsbert Karel, Count van Hogendorp

To cure the British disease with socialism was like trying to cure leukaemia with leeches. ~ Margaret Thatcher

But where says some is the King of America? I'll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain. ~ Thomas Paine

• Whether it is North Korea, Sierra Leone, or Zimbabwe, we’ll show that poor countries are poor for the same reason that Egypt is poor. Countries such as Great Britain and the United States became rich because their citizens overthrew the elites who controlled power and created a society where political rights were much more broadly distributed, where the government was accountable and responsive to citizens, and where the great mass of people could take advantage of economic opportunities. We’ll show that to understand why there is such inequality in the world today we have to delve into the past and study the historical dynamics of societies. We’ll see that the reason that Britain is richer than Egypt is because in 1688, Britain (or England, to be exact) had a revolution that transformed the politics and thus the economics of the nation. People fought for and won more political rights, and they used them to expand their economic opportunities. The result was a fundamentally different political and economic trajectory, culminating in the Industrial Revolution.
  • Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (2012)

• These are some of the first principles of natural law & Justice, and the great Barriers of all free states, and of the British Constitution in particular. It is utterly irreconcilable to these principles, and to many other fundamental maxims of the common law, common sense and reason, that a British house of commons, should have a right, at pleasure, to give and grant the property of the Colonists. That these Colonists are well entitled to all the essential rights, liberties and privileges of men and freemen, born in Britain, is manifest, not only from the Colony charter, in general, but acts of the British Parliament.... Had the Colonists a right to return members to the British parliament, it would only be hurtful; as from their local situation and circumstances it is impossible they should be ever truly and properly represented there. The inhabitants of this country in all probability in a few years will be more numerous, than those of Great Britain and Ireland together; yet it is absurdly expected by the promoters of the present measures, that these, with their posterity to all generations, should be easy while their property shall be disposed of by a house of commons at three thousand miles distant from them...
  • Town of Boston, The Rights of the Colonists (20 November 1772)

• The twentieth century saw Britain having to redefine its place in the world. At the beginning of the century, it commanded a world-wide empire as the foremost global power. Two world wars and the end of empire diminished its role, but the UK remains an economic and military power, with considerable political and cultural influence around the world. Britain was the world's first industrialized country. Its economy remains one of the largest, but it has for many years been based on service industries rather than on manufacturing.
  • British Broadcasting Corporation, "United Kingdom country profile: Overview" (14 May 2015), BBC News, United Kingdom

• I want to take the opportunity to thank the countless numbers of people here in the UK, including the many then-exiled members of the ANC and the South African Communist Party, who built a powerful and exemplary antiapartheid movement in this country. Having traveled here on numerous occasions during the 1970s and the 1980s to participate in antiapartheid events, I thank the women and men who were as unwavering in their commitment to freedom as was Nelson Mandela. Participation in such solidarity movements here in the UK was as central to my own political formation as were the movements that saved my life.
  • Angela Davis December 13 2013 speech included in Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement (2015)

• We shall form to the American union a barrier against the dangerous extension of the British.
  • Thomas Jefferson, Letter to George Rogers Clark (25 December 1780)

• The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, & what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusetts? And can history produce an instance of a rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of its motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness.
  • Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to William S. Smith (13 November 1787), The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd, vol. 12, p. 356 (1955)

• Deep is the primitive belief that it is the Anglo-Saxons, more than the CIA, more even than the Jews, who are the puppet masters of everything that happens in Iran.
  • Christopher Hitchens, "Persian Paranoia: Iranian leaders will always believe Anglo-Saxons are plotting against them", Slate (June 22, 2009). -- move to Iran, if not already there Ficaia (talk) 12:42, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

• In addition to relative indifference to the fate of the euro area, Britain is more protected because of speculation the central bank may intervene directly to finance the debt ... Europe is not a cash box, let alone a cashpoint... The British have been particularly shy about the issues of financial regulation, and attentive only to the interests of the City – hence their reluctance to see the introduction of a tax on financial transactions and tax harmonisation in Europe.
  • François Hollande, "New French leader fires a broadside at Britain: You only care about the City of London, says President Hollande" (8 May 2012), Daily Mail

• There is no doubt that the treacherous attack has confirmed that Britain and America are acting on behalf of Israel and the Jews, paving the way for the Jews to divide the Muslim world once again, enslave it and loot the rest of its wealth.
  • Osama bin Laden, regarding Operation Desert Fox (December 1998), as quoted in Time magazine interview (23 December 1998)

• The European Union and many of its countries, which used to take initiatives in the United Nations for peaceful settlements of conflict, are now one of the most important war assets of the U.S./NATO front. Many countries have also been drawn into complicity in breaking international law through U.S./U.K./NATO wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and so on.
  • Mairead Maguire in "The Disturbing Expansion of the Military-Industrial Complex", Common Dreams (14 October 2014)

• We were wrong to believe that the British are our friends. You are obsessed solely with your own selfish interests and treat us as a people beyond the pale. But your attitude is a matter of profound disinterest. Your democratic system has already erupted into chaos. We shall soon overtake you and in a decade you will be struggling in our wake. Perhaps then you will remember how you treated us.
  • Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, as quoted in The Shah and I (1991), by Asadollah Alam, I. B. Tauris, p. 237

• But where says some is the King of America? I'll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve as monarchy, that in America the law is king.
  • Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)

• The position of the United Kingdom is as usual so nuanced that it's difficult to see where they are on the spectrum, but look, that's what Britain's like...
  • Fabian Picardo describing the UK government's position on the UN Decolonisation Committee (2012)

• His expedition against the Britanni was celebrated for its daring. For he was the first to launch a fleet upon the western ocean and to sail through the Atlantic sea carrying an army to wage war. The island was of incredible magnitude, and furnished much matter of dispute to multitudes of writers, some of whom averred that its name and story had been fabricated, since it never had existed and did not then exist and in his attempt to occupy it he carried the Roman supremacy beyond the confines of the inhabited world
  • Plutarch, as quoted in The Life of Julius Caesar -- move to Celtic Britons

• The whole existence and development of capitalism in Britain and France between 1885 and 1960 was bound up with colonization, and Africa played a major role. African colonies meant surplus appropriated on a grand scale; they led to innovations and forward leaps in technology and the organization of capitalist enterprise; and they buttressed the capitalist system at home and abroad with fighting men. Sometimes, it appeared that these two principal colonial powers reaped so many colonial benefits that they suffered from “too much of a good thing.”
  • Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972), p. 189

• Most countries are founded in conquest. Europe, conquest, conquest and more conquest. Look at Britain. Before becoming an empire, it was conquered by the Norman kings of France and earlier by the Romans.
  • Dinesh D'Souza, America: Imagine the World Without Her (2014)

• The quickest way to understand modern Britain is to look at what LBJ’s Great Society did to the black family and imagine it applied to the general population.
  • Mark Steyn, After America: Get Ready for Armageddon (2011), Regnery Publishing, pp. 206–206

• The significance of the Falklands War was enormous, both for Britain's self-confidence and for our standing in the world...We had come to be seen by both friends and enemies as a nation which lacked the will and the capability to defend its interests in peace, let alone in war. Victory in the Falklands changed that. Everywhere I went after the war, Britain's name meant something more than it had. The war also had real importance in relations between East and West: years later I was told by a Russian general that the Soviets had been firmly convinced that we would not fight for the Falklands, and that if we did fight we would lose. We proved them wrong on both counts, and they did not forget the fact.
  • Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years (1993), pp. 173-4.