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A selection of lines from parliamentary sketch-writers.

Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth has announced spending cuts which will free up money to pay for 22 Chinook helicopters and other equipment for troops in Afghanistan.

Mr Ainsworth on his ability to pack his statement so full of jargon that no-one, particularly not the enemy in Afghanistan, could understand him:

"They may have wiggled their aerials and spanked their crystal sets to try to improve the reception. They may have drilled the earwax from their plugholes and bawled at the tribal goat to shaddup while they listened to the crafty Engleeshman's fiendishly coded signal."
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"Much of it was bespoke mahogany-bomber speak, Whitehall spiel designed to bestow managerial plausibility to the once basic business of rations being cut."

the news that the helicopters will not be ready until 2012 ie a year after the US plans to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan:

"So the British are like a guest who arrives after the party has ended, but at least brings a bottle of wine."

for the defence secretary:

"He's got a surprisingly active personality for a sandbag. He's colourful for camouflage. When you put his predecessor, Geoff Hoon, beside him, Geoff suddenly looks vibrant and glamorous. Geoff suddenly looks like Prince. And not Prince Charles, I mean the artist formerly known as Prince."

that in spite of the defence secretary's constant reiteration of "prioritisation" and contradictions in his speech, his opposite number Liam Fox failed to strike a decent blow.

Elsewhere, one of Mr Ainsworth's ministers was giving evidence to a select committee. Quentin Davies, a former Tory who "defected" to Labour was up in front of defence select committee chairman James Arbuthnott, which was an amusing occasion for one reason completely unrelated to defence:

"It isn't every day that you see a man with a belltower interviewed by a man who has purchased three garlic peelers from QVC on expenses."

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