Editing Nicholas Budgen (section)

==Quotations==
{{more citations needed|section|date=September 2018}}
On the [[Downing Street Declaration]] which said that Britain has "no selfish, strategic or economic interest" in maintaining the Union with Northern Ireland, Budgen asked John Major the question -
"Can I reassure my constituents that the United Kingdom has an interest in maintaining Wolverhampton in the Union?"{{citation needed|date=May 2021}}

On supporting [[Douglas Hurd]] in the 1990 Conservative leadership contest: 
"it is the Conservative worker's fate to be betrayed by his leader, so we may at least be betrayed elegantly."{{citation needed|date=May 2021}}

"New Labour will not nationalise industry, it will instead nationalise people."{{citation needed|date=May 2021}}

"If the Conservatives say beggars should be kicked once, then New Labour will say that beggars should be kicked twice."{{citation needed|date=May 2021}}

"It would be my general feeling that the transference of power to Europe was so important a matter as to require a vote against any organisation and any party that wished to transfer that power."{{citation needed|date=May 2021}}

On John Major: "he would make a reasonably competent head of a Wolverhampton Social Security office."<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20070524232134/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fopinion%2F2003%2F08%2F28%2Fdo2802.xml Politicians are not self-interested shysters], ''[[Daily Telegraph]]'', 28 August 2003</ref>

"If it [Labour] comes to power, those solid citizens will put pressure on the fresh-faced public school boy ([[Tony Blair]]) and we shall be back to the old story of an enormous public sector borrowing requirement, higher taxes and higher interest rates, and there will be no difference whatsoever in substance between the fresh-faced public school boy and all the old chaps who are in favour of old Labour."<ref>[https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1995/jul/12/the-economy#S6CV0263P1_19950712_HOC_471 The Economy], HC Deb 12 July 1995, vol 263 cc971-1062</ref>

Former Labour MP [[Ken Livingstone]] once "said admiringly" to Nick Budgen in 1996: "you've made Major change his policy on Europe, again and again.".<ref>[https://www.questia.com/article/1G1-19138459/what-reasons-are-there-for-supposing-a-blair-government What reasons are there for supposing a Blair Government will not be as stricken by party Dissenters as Major's has been? Plenty, actually], ''[[New Statesman]]'', 13 December 1996</ref>