"I held Nigella's neck repeatedly while attempting to emphasise my point.

There was no grip, it was a playful tiff."

Charles Saatchi, Nigella Lawson's husband

"The amount of domestic violence apologism that has gone on is absolutely shocking. Sarah Sands, a female editor who edits the Evening Standard where Charles Saatchi is a columnist, has actually put up an editorial column this afternoon saying that this is about their marriage. Well, it's not. You can't consent to being assaulted."

Louise Mensch, former MP

"What a difficult question, I find it so difficult to imagine- so you see a couple- I mean, I don't know what happened-"

Nick Clegg, on LBC Radio

"Let's get this into perspective. For all we knew, she could have said to him, 'Oh, do you have to smoke another fag?' and he had jokingly said, 'Yes, and I could just throttle you every time you ask me that.'"

Tracey Emin, artist

"Seizing your interlocutor by the throat is never anything but a brutish way of silencing dissent."

Allison Pearson, The Telegraph