Highlight of the week

Bill Cash:

"As far as I'm concerned personally it was the fact I was called number one in the Prime Minister's Questions. There's a lot of luck in this, but having been called I had the chance to put the case to the prime minister that the British people had been misled for decades now over the European issue.

"I quoted Winston Churchill who in 1932 said, 'Tell the British people the truth'. He was speaking about Germany in relation to the rest of Europe and here we are again in different circumstances with Germany at the heart of the debate about tax harmonisation."

Teresa Gorman:

"The highlight has to be this ding dong over the Lords, really, when Hague challenged Blair over stitching up a deal with the Lords, and telling him that it wasn't really on. That's what it was about, really. William Hague feels strongly that the Lords does need reforming, but he feels that Cranborne didn't have a mandate to stitch up a deal.

"After all, if you're the captain of the ship and you ask one of your lieutenants to do a bit of negotiating, that's not the same as saying you can go up to the rudder and change the direction. That's really what it boiled down to. It's really the toffs versus the Commoners."

Winner of the week

BC: "I think William Hague won the backing of the Conservative Party by getting the support of the backbenchers on the 1922 Committee on Wednesday. He probably can feel quite glad that after quite a long period of time when people had expressed some uncertainty on the issue of the House of Lords, he did get their complete backing. It was absolutely crystal clear and I haven't heard such applause since the days of Margaret Thatcher. I think he was a winner of that account.

"As to whether or not we're going to win the battle on the House of Lord and when the present situation is going to settle down, but I would say he did win the backbenchers over to his side."

TG: "At the start of the week, we managed to get hold a crib-sheet which the Labour robots had been given on how to intervene in Francis Maude's speech on the economy. It was hilarious - in addition to then jumping up and down the make their interventions on our speech, on our side of course we also had the crib sheet and were jumping up and down not even bothering to answer the questions, just saying "Number 5". In parliamentary terms that was hilarious, because we had there was proof of the way the Labour Party programmes its backbenchers to do the things they want them to do, rather than allowing them to think for themselves."

Loser of the week

BC: "I think Gordon Brown is the loser this week. Although the House of Lords farrago overtook the tax harmonisation issue, what we've actually seen this week is a greater realisation of the German demands for a super-state. The whole movement is towards more and more integration and the British people are waking up to this."

TG: "The funniest thing of the week was Peter Mandelson. He hates being in the Commons, he's very, very insecure standing at the despatch box, he doesn't like being attacked - he's one of these very vain people. But when he's actually attacked verbally, he doesn't know how to cope with it.

"So to prevent himself having to have a battle with someone on the opposite benches, he refuses to take interventions. So every time one of ours stood up - which was quite a lot - he simply waved his hand in a rather camp way at them and said, 'No no, I won't give way!' Just like a petulant child. In the end his own frontbench whispered in his ear and said, 'Look, you're making a fool of yourself'. So at that stage he stood up, and he did in the end let John Bercow in, whose very tenacious, in - but he did it with a flounce and a flourish, my dear, which would've graced a pantomime dame. It was very funny."

Quote of the week

BC: "When the prime minister replied to me during Question Time, he said the member for Stone must be very pleased that his view on Europe are now the views of the Conservative frontbench team.

"I am very pleased because of the recognition that we have shifted the argument to the point where all the so-called divisions over Europe in the past have now been resolved in the sense that the Conservative Party is now adopting a position along the lines I've been trying to get them to adopt for a very long time."

TG: "Didn't that pompous ass Cranborne say something about feeling like James IV of Scotland dying on the Flodden Field in 1513? For sheer arrogance and pomposity, it has to be that - which of course was his way of saying to William Hague 'Up Yours'. One of the Lords said Cranborne dealt with Hague as he would an under-gardener."

How many times have you been in the Chamber this week?

BC: "I've been in every day. Of course, being number one for Prime Minister's Questions I was in fairly early for prayers to make sure I got my seat. I took part in the European Parliamentary Elections Bill and all in all it's been a pretty busy week."