quotes of the week

He supported Clause IV, won four elections and worked with the left. It was an extraordinary achievement.

Tony Benn on Harold Wilson

What is my husband's is also mine - what we have is shared.

Jeanette Jefferies defending the decision of her husband, David Jefferies, the chairman of National Grid, to avoid tax by transferring 59,000 electricity shares into her name

He is faced with such a stinking conspiracy of raddled Thatcherite romantics, newspaper loonies, opportunist xenophobes and spineless, gutless, pointless backbench panickers that he might as well take on the fat-cheque-takers too.

Andrew Marr, 'Independent' columnist, urging John Major to force his party to accept the Nolan recommendations

Three UN observers are now detained. Any more bombing they'll be the first to go. Understood?

Bosnian Serb soldier in radio message to UN forces after Nato strike near Pale

We sterilised it all with five-star brandy and when the operation was over, I drank the rest. I can tell you, I needed it.

Prof essor Angus Wallace, orthopaedic surgeon, describing how he operated with a coat-hanger on a passenger on a Hong Kong to London flight