“But if people want to swim in the Thames, if they want to take their lives into their own hands, then they should be able to do so with all the freedom and exhilaration of our woad-painted ancestors.”

It is all too easy to draw conclusions and make sweeping judgments about millions of Muslim women based on fleeting television images. That is not right.

Never a tear bedims the eye that time and patience will not dry.

I lead a life of blameless domesticity and always have done.

David Lloyd George had been to Germany, and been so dazzled by the Führer that he compared him to George Washington. Hitler was a ‘born leader’, declared the befuddled former British Prime Minister.

I don’t believe that economic equality is possible; indeed some measure of inequality is essential for the spirit of envy and keeping up with the Joneses that is, like greed, a valuable spur to economic activity.

In addition, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act provides protection for those in the firearms industry from lawsuits arising out of the criminal or unlawful acts of people who misuse their products.

The dreadful truth is that when people come to see their MP, they have run out of better ideas.

I am hoping very much to get re-elected but it is going to be a tough fight.

The job of mayor of London is unbelievably taxing, particularly in the run-up to the Olympics.

Volunteering is also now more crucial than ever in helping people find work.

What Hitler did in his concentration camps was equalled if not exceeded in foulness by the Soviet gulags, forced starvation and pogroms.

It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving picaninnies; and one can imagine that Blair, twice victor abroad but enmired at home, is similarly seduced by foreign politeness.

Since January 1993 there have been 27 other countries not in the EU that have done better than the UK at exporting goods into the single market.

Try as I might, I could not look at an overhead projection of a growth profit matrix and stay conscious.

They say he is shortly off to the Congo. No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in Watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird.

London is the sporting capital of the world. I say to the Chinese and I say to the world, ping pong is coming home.

We live always under the weight of the old and odious customs… of our barbarous ancestors.

Like our ancestors, we act in ways that will bemuse future societies.

Birth is nothing without virtue, and we have no claim to share in the glory of our ancestors unless we endeavor to resemble them.

Offspring, the due performance on religious rites, faithful service, highest conjugal happiness and heavenly bliss for the ancestors and oneself, depend on one’s wife alone.

The ancients, sir, are the ancients, and we are the people of today.

I would like to be like my father and all the rest of my ancestors who never married.

Posterity who are to reap the blessings will scarcely be able to conceive the hardships and sufferings of their ancestors.

Distinguished ancestors shed a powerful light on their descendants, and forbid the concealment either of their merits or of their demerits.