"My Lords, there is a line of Nietzsche’s that General de Gaulle liked to quote, which is that the state is,
“the coldest of all cold monsters”.
How chilling too can be the state’s artefacts—even its paper ones. For a remainer such as me, these two little light green pages …..." Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield - View Speech
"My Lords, I declare an interest in that I witnessed the launch in question from the survey vessel two and half miles away from where the missile came out of the sea. I put it to the Minister, with great respect, that it would make it much easier for those …..." Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield - View Speech
"I add my welcome to this, the ninth industrial strategy since I have been on this earth. In the debate on the Autumn Statement that we had before Christmas I suggested that we were waiting for the eighth, but the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, got in touch with me and …..." Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield - View Speech
"My Lords, I declare my professorship of contemporary British history at Queen Mary, University of London, my fellowship of the British Academy and my membership of the Council for the Defence of British Universities. There is a special, a delicate quality about higher education legislation. It is the nearest we …..." Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield - View Speech
"My Lords, it may be that future economic historians will single out the new industrial strategy element in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement as its most enduring and significant ingredient. I hope so, but my hope is tempered somewhat. Why is that? It is because we have form as an industrial …..." Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield - View Speech
"My Lords, there is a curse on our country when we talk about civil nuclear power. I am old enough to have read the Eagle comic in 1954 and cut out a picture of Calder Hall, which was to provide the first civil electricity in the world. Indeed it did: …..." Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield - View Speech
"My Lords, we are living through a molten time for our people, our politics, our society and our country. We are living in the aftershock of an extraordinary event of a magnitude which, in my judgment, none of us has experienced in peacetime. In my lifetime—I was born in 1947—there …..." Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield - View Speech
"My Lords, I declare my membership of the Royal United Services Institute’s independent surveillance review, whose report A Democratic Licence to Operate was published last year. Open societies possess huge, enduring and, we hope, ultimately prevailing advantages over closed ones, yet open societies throw up special torments of their own—what …..." Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield - View Speech
"My Lords, I declare my membership of your Lordships’ Science and Technology Committee and my fellowship of the British Academy.
In the grand sweep of the wider history of our islands the science and technology element of our debate today is a tad strange, because the life of the mind …..." Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield - View Speech
"My Lords, I am second to none in my admiration for departmental record reviewers; they have a very intense workload. Not only do they have to prepare historical material for release to the National Archives but, as my noble friend and mentor Lord Morgan has just pointed out, they firefight …..." Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield - View Speech