Frases de Ramsay MacDonald

James Ramsay MacDonald fue un político británico dos veces primer ministro del Reino Unido.

De orígenes humildes, entró en el Parlamento en las elecciones de 1906 y se convirtió en líder del Partido Laborista en la Cámara de los Comunes en 1914. Su oposición a la I Guerra Mundial le hizo impopular, perdió su escaño en las elecciones de 1918 y regresó al Parlamento en 1922, cuando los laboristas superaron a los liberales como el partido más grande del ala izquierda del espectro político en el Reino Unido. Su primer Gobierno -formado con el apoyo de los liberales en 1924- duró nueve meses, al ser derrotado en ese mismo año en las elecciones generales en medio de acusaciones de haber sido promocionado dicho Gabinete por el Ministro de Asuntos Exteriores de la URSS, Grigori Zinóviev.

En 1929 los laboristas regresaron al poder, pero fueron arrastrados por la Gran Depresión, durante la cual el gobierno laborista se escindió por las demandas de realizar recortes en el gasto público para mantener el patrón oro. Así, en 1931, se formó un Gabinete de unidad en el que sólo había dos ministros laboristas, dando esto como resultado la expulsión de MacDonald del partido bajo la acusación de "traidor".

MacDonald permaneció como Primer Ministro del Gobierno de Unidad de 1931 a 1935. Durante este período su salud se deterioró rápidamente y se volvió inefectivo como líder. En 1935 perdió su escaño en la elección general, pero regresó por otra circunscripción y permaneció como Lord Presidente del Consejo, hasta que se retiró en 1937. Murió un año más tarde. Durante mucho tiempo ha tenido mala reputación, particularmente entre los laboristas, aunque su legado ha sido defendido extensamente por algunos historiadores. Wikipedia  

✵ 12. octubre 1866 – 9. noviembre 1937
Ramsay MacDonald Foto
Ramsay MacDonald: 27   frases 0   Me gusta

Ramsay MacDonald: Frases en inglés

“Might and spirit will win and incalculable political and social consequences will follow upon victory. Victory must therefore be ours. England is not played out. Her mission is not accomplished. She can, if she would, take the place of esteemed honour among the democracies of the world, and if peace is to come with healing on her wings the democracies of Europe must be her guardians…History, will, in due time, apportion the praise and the blame, but the young men of the country must, for the moment, settle the immediate issue of victory. Let them do it in the spirit of the brave men who have crowned our country with honour in times that have gone. Whoever may be in the wrong, men so inspired will be in the right. The quarrel was not of the people, but the end of it will be the lives and liberties of the people. Should an opportunity arise to enable me to appeal to the pure love of country - which I know is a precious sentiment in all our hearts, keeping it clear of thought which I believe to be alien to real patriotism - I shall gladly take that opportunity. If need be I shall make it for myself. I wish the serious men of the Trade Union, the Brotherhood and similar movements to face their duty. To such it is enough to say 'England has need of you'; to say it in the right way. They will gather to her aid. They will protect her when the war is over, they will see to it that the policies and conditions that make it will go like the mists of a plague and shadows of a pestilence.”

Letter to the Mayor of Leicester, declining to speak at a recruitment meeting (September 1914), quoted in David Marquand, Ramsay MacDonald (Metro, 1997), p. 175
1910s

“Of the Budget as a whole, I say "Bravo". I am going to support it through thick and thin.”

On Lloyd George's People's Budget, quoted in 'From Green Benches', Leicester Pioneer (8 May 1909).

“Felt the virtues of the Victorian times so condemned by Mr Strachey. The simple honesties can always be made a butt by the impish unrealiabilites.”

Diary entry (23 April 1921), quoted in David Marquand, Ramsay MacDonald (Metro, 1997), p. 246. MacDonald was reading Strachey's biography of Queen Victoria. He finished the book two days later and wrote in his diary that he was relieved that Strachey "enmeshed in Victoria's virtues & the real drama of her last phase. As a good Victorian I shd. like to let myself loose upon him. A psychological study of unusual interest" (Marquand, p. 246)
1920s

“He had been across the veldt, he had seen the battlefields, the still open trenches, and it all came to Chinese labour. They were told it was going to release the slaves, the Uitlanders, to open up South Africa to a great flood of white emigrants. They were told it was going to plant the Union Jack upon the land of the free. But the echoes of the muskets had hardly died out on the battlefields, the ink on the treaty was hardly dry, before the men who plotted the war began to plot to bring in Chinese slaves. (Cheers.) They could talk about their gold; their gold is tainted. (Hear, hear.) They could talk about employing white men; it was not true, and even if it were true, was he going to stand and see his white brothers degraded to the position of yellow slave drivers? No, he was not. (Loud and continued cheers.) These patriots! These miserable patriots! If they had had the custodianship of the opinions of the country 75 years ago, slavery in the colonies would have continued. When the north was fighting the south for the liberty of men, these men would have counted their guineas, would have told them how many white men had plied the lash in the southern states, and they would have said that for miserable cash, miserable trash, the great name of the country required to be bought and sold. Thank God there were no twentieth century Unionist imperialists in office then.”

Loud cheers.
Leicester Daily Mercury (6 January 1906)
1900s

“The desolation of loneliness is terrible. Was I wise? Perhaps not, but it seemed as though anything else was impossible.”

Notebook entry (27 December 1932) on his estrangement from the Labour Party, quoted in David Marquand, ‘ MacDonald, (James) Ramsay (1866–1937) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/34704,’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2009
1930s

“Yes, to-morrow every Duchess in London will be wanting to kiss me!”

Fuente: MacDonald to Philip Snowden the day after the formation of the National government (25 August 1931), quoted in Philip Snowden, An Autobiography. Volume Two: 1919-1934 (London: Ivor Nicholson and Watson, 1934), p. 987

“In youth one believes in democracy, later on, one has to accept it.”

Diary entry (20 March 1919), quoted in David Marquand, ‘ MacDonald, (James) Ramsay (1866–1937) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/34704,’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2009
1910s

“If we yield now to the TUC we shall never be able to call our bodies or souls or intelligences our own.”

Diary entry (22 August 1931) after the TUC rejected cuts in public spending, quoted in David Marquand, ‘ MacDonald, (James) Ramsay (1866–1937) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/34704,’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2009.
1930s

“The day is coming when we may have to give up orthodox free trade as we inherited it from our fathers.”

Remark to J. H. Thomas (14 January 1930), quoted in Thomas Jones, Whitehall Diary, Volume II: 1926–1930 (Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 235
1930s