It is my settled opinion, after some years as a political correspondent, that no one is attracted to a political career in the first place unless he is socially or emotionally crippled.

There are many Welsh who are taciturn, truthful, well formed, open minded, handsome and peaceful, even if no particular individual immediately springs to mind.

Politics, as I never tire of saying, is for social and emotional misfits, handicapped folk, those with a grudge. The purpose of politics is to help them overcome these feelings of inferiority and compensate for their personal inadequacies in the pursuit of power.

Better to go than sit around being a terrible old bore.

When Glenda Jackson reveals that she has never been in a relationship with a man in which he hasn't raised his fists to her, I don't know whether this tells us more about the contemporary male or about Glenda Jackson.

Generally speaking, the best people nowadays go into journalism, the second best into business, the rubbish into politics and the shits into law

The urge to pass new laws must be seen as an illness, not much different from the urge to bite old women. Anyone suspected of suffering from it should either be treated with the appropriate pills or, if it is too late for that, elected to parliament [or congress, as the case may be] and paid a huge salary with endless holidays, to do nothing whatever.