Tony Banks, Baron Stratford

"She behaves with all the sensitivity of a sex-starved boa constrictor"

"She is a half-mad old bag lady. The Finchley Whinger."

"...so unpopular, if he became a funeral director people would stop dying"

"He was a fairly competent chairman of Housing [on Lambeth Council]. Every time he gets up now I keep thinking, "What on earth is Councillor Major doing?" I can't believe he's here and sometimes I think he can't either."

"Since the great days of Jimmy Greaves, it's the only time anyone's managed to score five times in a Chelsea shirt."

"To make matters worse, they have elected a foetus as the party leader. I bet a lot of them wish they had not voted against abortion now!"

"That this House is appalled, but barely surprised, at the revelations in M15 files regarding the bizarre and inhumane proposals to use pigeons as flying bombs; recognises the important and live-saving role of carrier pigeons in two world wars and wonders at the lack of gratitude towards these gentle creatures; and believes that humans represent the most obscene, perverted, cruel, uncivilised and lethal species ever to inhabit the planet and looks forward to the day when the inevitable asteroid slams into the earth and wipes them out thus giving nature the opportunity to start again."

"I have gone to a safe house, as they say, so I might as well have a different name"

"I found it intellectually numbing, tedious in the extreme. All you were was a sort of high-powered social worker and perhaps not even a good one. So I won't miss that."

"Living proof that a pig's bladder on the end of a stick can be elected to Parliament"

"At one point Portillo was polishing his jackboots and planning the next advance. And the next thing is he shows up as a TV presenter. It is rather like Pol Pot presenting the Teletubbies."

"I think my exact words were "Fuck me!""

"We'll look back and wonder who were these barbarous people, just like we look back at those who supported bull-baiting"

"Personally I wish the police had truncheoned the English fans to death, but I can’t really say that on the record."

"I am finding the inherent politeness of this place quite destabilising. Having come from a House where politeness is about as rare as an orderly queue at a London bus stop, the culture shock on entering your Lordships' House has been profound. Indeed, such relentless politeness is not merely destabilising, but positively exhausting."

"I could have been a serious athlete, only to have my promise cut short when I discovered Woodbines and women. Thankfully I have long since given up the former, and the latter have long since given up on me—except, of course, for the lovely Lady Stratford, who for reasons beyond my comprehension still tolerates my presence."

"More people have probably died from eating dodgy Chinese food than contracting some form of avian flu. The last thing we want is for the Daleks from Defra to start suggesting that they want to exterminate wildlife—as is their normal response when confronted with such a problem. We do not want any proposal that migrating birds are going to be destroyed because of alarmist figures and notions that appear in the Tory press."

"If champagne ever wanted cheering up, it would drink Tony Banks."

"...one of the most charismatic politicians in Britain, a true man of the people."