The Biteback Dictionary of Humorous Political Quotations

… Balls is good at ignoring things. He is covered in a transparent varnish which sometimes makes him impervious to other points of view and to mocking laughter.
Quentin Letts, 50 People Who Buggered Up Britain, 2008

Quentin Letts, 50 People Who Buggered Up Britain, 2008

less the learned prophet than a man whose breakfast has just gone down the wrong way after receiving a nasty surprise from the electricity bill.

he looks permanently surprised

One could not even dignify him with the name of stuffed shirt. He was simply a hole in the air.
George Orwell, ‘The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius’, 1941

I think Baldwin has gone mad. He simply takes one jump in the dark; looks round; and then takes another.
F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead, 1872–1930, lawyer, orator, Conservative statesman, letter to Austen Chamberlain, 1923

He occasionally stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened.
Winston Churchill

Never murder a man when he’s busy committing suicide.
Woodrow Wyatt, 1918–97, Labour MP and columnist

It is only when one begins to write things down that one sees the wisdom of not writing them down.
Norman Lamont, Conservative MP and Chancellor of the Exchequer

A farm is an irregular patch of nettles bounded by short-term notes, containing a fool and his wife who didn’t know enough to stay in the