If I cannot understand my friend's silence, I will never get to understand his words.

Lift the curtain and 'the State' reveals itself as a little group of fallible men in Whitehall, making guesses about the future, influenced by political prejudices and partisan prejudices, and working on projections drawn from the past by a staff of economists.

It is no accident that wherever the State ha taken economic decision away from the citizen, it has deprived him of his other liberties as well.

A little nonsense now and then is not a bad thing - where would we politicians be if we were not allowed to talk it sometimes.

The Prime Minister, shortly after she came into office, received a sobriquet as the 'Iron Lady'. It arose in the context of remarks which she made about defence against the Soviet Union and its allies; but there was no reason to suppose that the Right Honourable Lady did not welcome and, indeed, take pride in that description. In the next week or two this House, the nation and the Right Honourable Lady herself, will learn of what metal she is made.

Paisley has been and remains a greater threat to the Union than the Foreign Office and the Provisional IRA rolled into one.

People are disposed to mistake predicting troubles for causing troubles and even for desiring troubles.