quotes of the week

I don't think we'd want people saying "Oh, the Prudential's closed again". Spokesman for the Pru on London Underground's proposal to allow companies to pay to have Tube stations named after them

The worst form of litism is the kind that makes intelligent, well-educated people condescend to what they assume to be the public taste.

George Walden, Tory MP, who is to chair this year's Booker Prize

Too old, too bourgeois, too distant from the average man, not supported by my political friends, too low in the opinion polls, and having already been sampled nobody wants to repeat the experience.

Valery Giscard d'Estaing, ex-French president, on why he should not stand again for the presidency

This is another sickening display of privatised boardroom greed which makes a nonsense of the Prime Minister's stated intention to crack down on top salary excesses.

Michael Meacher, shadow transport secretary, on reports that rail chiefs expect huge pay rises under privatisation

There were moments when Mrs Thatcher would privately rage so ferociously against something the Government had done that you almost forgot she was Prime Minister.

David Mellor, MP