al FREE SPEECH
Housing.and Planning Bill, 3 November John Patten (City of Oxford, Conserva- tive): The hon. member for Perry Bar [Jeff Rooker] referred to the important evidence of the Institute of Housing. I hope that I enjoy cordial relations with the institute, which is an interesting group. It provides us with important information, and I very often meet its members at conferences. Those who attend the conferences often barrack me, but always in a cheerful way. They have never done so in a nasty or malicious way, perhaps with the excep- tion of one lady who I have always believed to be a member of the insti- tute. She sits below me at meetings and shouts things such as 'Pompous Tory twit'. I do not like that sort of thing. I did not come into politics to be de- scribed as a pompous Tory twit. The comment that this lady shouted that hurt, and deeply, was 'Fat, pompous Tory twit'. My tailor in Oxford, Mr Stamp, labours long and hard to conceal that sort of thing, and he, too, was deeply hurt by the lady's accusation. The thing that really worries me about her is that when she comes to meetings and barracks me she is always knitting. That makes me feel extremely uneasy. There is the sound of the tumbrils coming to get me and the tricoteuse.
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