Barbara Castle in her own words

Barbara Castle: "Fighting all the way"

Some memorable things said by the late Labour stalwart Baroness Castle, about her colleagues and other issues, during her tempestuous political life.

"They wouldn't have me, darling, because I'm a woman." To an admirer who asked why she was never prime minister.

"Certainly Harold Wilson never tried to seduce me. In the nearly 40 years I worked with him, all I can remember is one rather fumbling kiss. He liked a little flirtation, but it was verbal rather than physical."

"I care about my appearance and I think that all women in public life should, for the fun of it, for their own satisfaction."

"In politics, why throw away your womanly assets on being an honorary man? You should have the strength that women have and to call it a man's strength is an insult."

A fellow professional

On the Queen

"If we have to have Tories, good luck to her. She is the best man among them." On Margaret Thatcher during the 1975 Tory leadership campaign.

"If she would only occasionally come in with a smut on her nose, her hair dishevelled, looking as if she had been wrestling with her soul as I do." Again on Margaret Thatcher.

"Petulant, childish, constitutionally incapable of being stirred by great issues of principle..." On James (later Lord) Callaghan, when he was Labour prime minister.

"I have been discarded like a piece of old junk." On being sacked from the government by Callaghan in 1976.

"I keep the agony at bay by being very busy at something or other all the time..." On the death of her beloved husband Ted in 1979.

A fair price for a bag of peanuts

On a small pensions rise by the present government

"His ambition grows by the hour. I believe it is so dominating that it could be his undoing. I do wish he could manage to sound less like a lay preacher helping everyone else to find the right road to God." On Tony Benn.

"A fellow professional." On The Queen.

On the pugnacious title of her memoirs, Fighting All The Way, in 1993: "It is not me at all. I wanted something that shows the gentler side. But I couldn't find anything."

"A fair price for a bag of peanuts." On a small pensions rise by the present government.