Quotes By William Hague

I don't deny that there are problems in the intelligence world, but I would argue that in the UK we try to uphold the highest standards in the world.

Inspiring scenes of people taking the future of their countries into their own hands will ignite greater demands for good governance and political reform elsewhere in the world, including in Asia and in Africa.

Obviously a Conservative government will always leave taxes lower than they have been under Labour. Those things go with the territory of the Conservative Party.

I'm going to reduce the size of the Cabinet, cut the number of ministers, reduce the size of the House of Commons, campaign for a European Parliament with 100 fewer members, halve the number of political advisers, and abolish a huge swathe of Labour's regional bureaucracies and agencies and their offices in Brussels.

When you reduce taxes on higher earners it's vital to be reducing them on lower earning people as well so the nation shares in the approach.

Elected presidents are for countries.

We're not getting involved in terms of sending ground forces into Libya. Let's be clear about that. And indeed the UN Resolution forbids that. It says no foreign occupation of any part of Libya.

People feel that the EU is a one-way process, a great machine that sucks up decision-making from national parliaments to the European level until everything is decided by the EU. That needs to change.

Where defining foreign policy as 'ethical' went wrong was that it implied that all decisions would be exclusive in every respect of any dealings with unethical regimes.

The war in Iraq, clearly has not turned out in the way that was hoped.

Today further EU targeted sanctions on Syria come into force. The message is clear and unambiguous: those responsible for the repression will be singled out and held accountable.

When a Cabinet Minister who is sacked for telling lies is re-appointed, in the face of every constitutional convention, only for the same man to be sacked again from the same Cabinet for the same offence by the same Prime Minister no wonder the public are cynical about politics.

Those who back the Syrian regime from now on will find themselves in an even more isolated and indefensible minority.

The appalling crackdown that we witnessed in Hama and other Syrian cities on 30 and 31 July only erode the regime's legitimacy and increase resentment. In the absence of an end to the senseless violence and a genuine process of political reform, we will continue to pursue further EU sanctions.

People know that you can't spend more than you have.

You can gain in your effectiveness as a politician from a wide acquaintance with the world and from a degree of independence that having some outside interests gives.

Very few conflicts in the history of the world have been satisfactorily concluded according to a published timetable, because you lose all flexibility in dealing with your opponents.

Syria should not belong to one family, to one coterie, or to one party. It belongs to all the people of Syria equally, in all their religious and ethnic diversity.

The British retreat is over and now the advance will begin.

People feel that in too many ways the EU is something that is done to them, not something over which they have a say.

It's not too late to stop the Lisbon Treaty.

The message I take all round the world is Britain is open for business.

The EU is not a country and it's not going to become a country, in my view, now or ever in the future. It is a group of countries working together.

There is no budget for travel for a Shadow Foreign Secretary.

Spending only what the country can afford, rewarding savings, encouraging independence, supporting marriage: people know that these things are common sense.

Ambition is best tempered with self-knowledge!

At a time of such hope and optimism in the Middle East, we cannot let the Libyan government violate every principle of international law and human rights with impunity.

I described the euro as a burning building with no exits and so it has proved for some of the countries in it.

Whatever happens in Mogadishu, in Somalia, will happen in Great Britain. We have interlocking interests.

It must be quite rare for an interviewer to be interviewed.