There's a cord sticking out of the back of my DVD machine. Might you tell me where it goes?

Prince Philip to actress Cate Blanchett upon being told that she worked in the entertainment industry

*

This skunk is unbelievably powerful. It's completely different to - I think I'll stop there.

Conservative leader David Cameron on drugs control plans

*

I think everybody wants safer environments, everybody wants safer streets and everybody will fight to achieve that within our government.

Gordon Brown on the Government's approach to dealing with the upsurge of knife crime in Britain, BBC TV interview

*

We are not legislating now on the basis that we are bringing it in now for something that might happen in the future. We are putting in a provision for it if it becomes unhypothetical.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith attempting to explain the reasoning behind proposals to extend detention periods for terrorist suspects

*

I wouldn't walk around at midnight and I'm fortunate that I don't have to... I just don't think that's a thing that people do, is it really?

Jacqui Smith, the minister responsible for Britain's policing, admitting in a press interview that the streets of London were too dangerous to walk alone at night

*

The number of women aged between 15 and 50 is fixed. Because the number of birth-giving machines and devices is fixed, all we can ask is for them to do their best per head.

Hakuo Yanagisawa, Japanese Health Minister, on his country's low birth rate. He later said he was “sorry to call them machines”

*

Too much democracy leads to homosexuality, moral decay, racial intolerance, economic decline, single-parent families and a lax work ethic.

Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia's no-nonsense and longest serving Prime Minister

*

I don't question your sincerity; don't question my morality. You lose your temper very easily. To be President of the Republic, you must remain calm.

Nicolas Sarkozy to Ségolène Royal during a televised debate. He won the election. On his first official visit to the US the following October, he stormed out of a televised interview with the prestigious CBS 60 Minutes show when asked a question about his troubled marriage.

What an imbecile.

Sarkozy berating his press aide as he walked out of 60 Minutes

Then get lost, you poor jerk.

Sarkozy, losing his temper at the Paris agricultural fair while enthusiastically working a line of spectators when one member of the crowd refuses to shake hands with him.

*

Italy is now a great country to invest in...today we have fewer communists and those who are still there deny having been one. Another reason to invest in Italy is that we have beautiful secretaries... superb girls.

Silvio Berlusconi visits the New York Stock Exchange

*

No one is perfect.

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, President of Indonesia on the death of former dictator Suharto, thought to have been responsible for half a million deaths in suppressing Communist subversion in the 1960s and in his 31 years in power fleecing the Indonesian economy of up to $35 billion through corruption

*

Do you have blacks, too?

George W. Bush to Brazilian President Fernando Cardoso. Witnessed, but not reported, by the White House press corps. Brazil has the largest population of blacks of any country outside Africa

*

I promise you it will be swift and decisive.

Bush on the plans for regime change in Iraq

*

I think we are welcomed. But it was not a peaceful welcome.

Bush, reflecting on the prediction that US troops in Iraq would be “welcomed as liberators”, NBC News interview

*

There are neighbourhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through today.

John McCain visits a market in the Iraqi capital in April 2007, during which he was flanked by 22 soldiers, ten armoured Humvees, and two Apache attack helicopters

*

Why was there a banner that said “Mission Accomplished” on the aircraft carrier? I have said for a long time that reconstruction of Iraq would be a long, long, difficult process, but the conflict, the major conflict, is over, the regime change has been accomplished, and it's very appropriate.

McCain on Fox News, June 2003

*

To state the obvious, I thought it was wrong at the time...those statements and comments did not comport with the facts on the ground.

McCain, by now the Republican presidential nominee, also on Fox News, May 2008

*

Bomb, bomb, bomb; bomb bomb Iran.

McCain, singing a riposte (to the tune of the Beach Boys' Barbara Ann) on being asked about his post-Iraq policy towards Iran. When asked if he was not being insensitive, he replied, “Insensitive to what? The Iranians?”

*

Iran, Cuba, Venezuela - these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us.

Barack Obama, campaign rally, Oregon, May 18, 2008

Let me be absolutely clear: Iran is a grave threat.

Obama, campaign rally, Montana, May 19, 2008

*

I think it's time for us to end the embargo with Cuba... [It] has failed to provide the sorts of rising standards of living and has squeezed the innocents in Cuba, and utterly failed in the effort to overthrow Castro... it's time for us to acknowledge that that particular policy has failed.

Obama, to a university audience, Illinois, January 2004

As president, I'll maintain the embargo - it's an important inducement for change.

Obama, to a Cuban-American audience, Miami, August 2007

*

I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.

Hillary Clinton, campaigning in March 2008, describing her visit to Bosnia in 1996. In fact, television footage showed her and her daughter, Chelsea, calmly disembarking from the aircraft at Tuzla airport and being welcomed by a local girl. Clinton was shown hugging the child wreathed in smiles for the cameras.

I misspoke.

Clinton explaining her account, May 2008

*

I supported the President when he asked for authority to stand up against weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Bill Clinton, speech in Mississippi, May 2003

I...opposed Iraq from the beginning

Clinton, campaigning with wife Hillary in the presidential primaries, November 2007

© Matthew Parris and Phil Mason 2008. Extracted from Mission Accomplished! Things Politicians Wish They Hadn't Said, published by JR Books at £8.99. Copies can be ordered for £8.54 with free delivery from The Times Books First on 0870 1608080

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