Philip Hammond
British politician (born 1955)
Philip Hammond (born 4 December 1955) is a British Conservative politician who has been the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs since 15 July 2014.
Philip Hammond
Quotes
- The British public has a strong sense that the situation of the civilian population in Gaza is intolerable and must be addressed — and we agree with them.
- But what has struck me most looking at my own constituency in-box as well as the thousands of emails that I’m receiving from the general public here is that it isn’t just the Muslim community that’s reacting to this. It’s a broad swathe of British public opinion that feels deeply disturbed by what it is seeing on its television screens coming out of Gaza.
- We understand that Israel has concerns, we understand that Hamas has concerns. We are not saying we’re not interested in those.
- I hope history will judge us to have tackled the problem effectively and delivered a sustainable future for Britain's public services.
- We have to demonstrate to the public that our commitment is protecting public services in the face of a spending contraction which is inevitable.
- Nobody is suggesting that the NHS doesn't have to reform, nobody is suggesting that it doesn't have to become more efficient, that productivity growth doesn't have to become positive … The only difference is that in health, because of the demographic pressure, the savings will all – and more – have to be reinvested in delivering more healthcare.
conservativehome.com interview
- We have to be a forward-looking nation not a backward-looking nation, and I have to run the defence budget to deliver defence effect in the future, not to preserve regiments or shipyards just because they’ve been there for a long time in the past. And we move on. As a nation we move on.
- I think my position on the same-sex marriage thing probably sums up the kind of conservative that I am. I’m a small c conservative as well as a big C Conservative, and that means that I prefer my change to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary, and you know I got myself quite comfortable with the institution of civil partnership, but I was then quite shocked by the urge to move on so quickly to the next stage, but I dare say in time I will become quite comfortable with the institution of same-sex marriage, and I suspect I speak for a large number of Conservatives when I say it isn’t so much the substance of the change as the process and things being evolutionary and gradually taking root rather than through tumultuous change which is disturbing to the settled instinct.