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I had a nasty moment in Lagos when I thought I was going to explode just from my own internal juices and organs, which would have looked very bad in a pale suit on camera - Clive Anderson, television personality, after eating a dodgy meal in Nigeria

New Labour remains eminently beatable, especially by a Prime Minister whose speciality is nail-biting finishes in which he comes from behind to win - Sir Charles Powell, who was Margaret Thatcher's private secretary at 10 Downing Street

If Tony Blair is a One-Nation Tory, then I am a monkey's uncle - Kenneth Clarke, Chancellor of the Exchequer

Royalty is paid to be dignified. MPs are paid to say what they think. Neither are earning their money - George Walden, Conservative MP

There is no debauchery on the planet like that of certain jazz people - Jools Holland, jazz musician

Like pandas, some hereditary peers deserve preservation on aesthetic grounds: those aristocrats, hairy of buttock and small of brain, whose gaze could open an oyster at 50 paces, merit a place in any Red Data Book of endangered primates - Steve Jones, professor of genetics

I have long been of the view that a little inflation does you good - Lord McAlpine, former Conservative party treasurer