"I could have been a serious athlete, only to have my promise cut short when I discovered Woodbines and women. Thankfully I have long since given up the former, and the latter have long since given up on me—except, of course, for the lovely Lady Stratford, who for reasons beyond my comprehension still tolerates my presence."

“If champagne ever wanted cheering up, it would drink Tony Banks.”

“...one of the most charismatic politicians in Britain, a true man of the people.”

“He was a fairly competent chairman of Housing . Every time he gets up now I keep thinking, "What on earth is Councillor Major doing?" I can't believe he's here and sometimes I think he can't either.”

“More people have probably died from eating dodgy Chinese food than contracting some form of avian flu. The last thing we want is for the Daleks from Defra to start suggesting that they want to exterminate wildlife—as is their normal response when confronted with such a problem. We do not want any proposal that migrating birds are going to be destroyed because of alarmist figures and notions that appear in the Tory press.”

“She behaves with all the sensitivity of a sex-starved boa constrictor”

“I have gone to a safe house, as they say, so I might as well have a different name”