QUOTES OF THE DAY

“European citizens are growing angry and upset at the fact that the vaccine rollout has not happened as rapidly as we had anticipated. Both the EU and the UK have contracts with AstraZeneca and my understanding is the company is supplying the UK but not the European Union”

- Ireland’s European commissioner

Mairead McGuinness.

“The grown-up thing would be for the European Commission and some of the European leaders to not indulge in rhetoric but to recognise the obligations that we all have. We will all hold each other to our contracts. Making a vaccine is like baking a cake. We all have different ingredients and the European Commission will know that”

- Defence Secretary Ben Wallace,

above.

“With so many vulnerable people now vaccinated, people may ask why the restrictions the Government is bringing in this coming week are tougher than they were last summer when we didn’t have a vaccine”

- Conservative former minister Steve Baker, deputy chairman of the

Covid Recovery Group.

“Despite the avalanche of unfair criticism my colleagues have faced this week, they will continue to be the first to arrive whenever these same critics call us for help”

- John Apter, chairman of the Police

Federation.

“I will certainly never forget this day, in fact it’s still sinking in that I’ve been monitoring a walrus on the Pembrokeshire coast, it’s been absolutely amazing”

- RSPCA animal rescue officer Ellie West after an Arctic walrus was spotted off the coast of South Wales.