quotes of the week

Hopefully we will hear less from the lap-top bombardiers and more from the voice of compromise and reason.

Lord Owen making his first speech to the House of Lords

You are the most interesting thing to come out of Docklands since the Kray Gang.

Ken Livingstone, Labour MP, addressing the board of British Gas at its annual general meeting

I felt like an old-fashioned Labour MP facing a takeover of his local constituency party by the Militant Tendency.

Toby Young on the infighting at the Modern Review

If I have not got football I have not got anything. I want to be happy again.

Paul Gascoigne on his return to the England squad

I don't expect them to name the new airport after me, or even a boulevard, but perhaps a fountain or a sewage treatment station.

Chris Patten, looking forward to his appraisal once he quits as governor of Hong Kong

At Eton you are trained not to talk about feelings, to be narrow-minded and to employ people who went to Winchester.

Henry Cole, film director