15 Quotes by Alan Clark

Give a civil servant a good case and he'll wreck it with clichés, bad punctuation, double negatives, and convoluted apology.

Since mid-2005 there have been concrete signs that the consumer is bouncing back and there is evidence from individual retailers as well as the key surveys that the critical Christmas period saw very robust retail spending.

Given that oil production has reversed somewhat in the past few months and the hurricane insurance pay-outs will not recur, we expect the deficit to narrow sharply again in (the fourth quarter of) 2005.

We're disappointed that our proposal didn't go through, but we're ecstatic in the fact that they did choose rail because it brings rail back to Cape Breton.

Zoning is a local government issue, and we're looking at the regional picture,

Clearly the departure of the most hawkish member of the committee suggests a risk of a marginally more dovish balance.