Western Morning News (Saturday)
The things they say
■ “In my view they should be ashamed”
– England’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty on people who deliberately peddle “myths” about the coronavirus vaccine.
■ “In recent months, far too regularly, we have seen quick judgment of the actions of individual officers based on a viral clip, or a section of footage showing part of an incident, or second-hand information before the full situation can possibly be known. Rushing to such judgments is dangerous. It undermines the legitimacy of policing and it makes officers feel they need to think twice, or maybe not even volunteer for the role”
– Metropolitan Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick, speaking at the Police Superintendents’ Association
(PSA) annual conference. “A job you can raise a family on must offer a solid foundation on which you can build your life, not worrying about how many hours you’ll be given the next week or how you’ll pay the bills if you fall ill. Labour’s new deal will provide that security by ensuring basic rights for all workers from day one in the job: including holiday pay; protection from unfair dismissal; and guaranteed sick pay”
– Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.
■ “If you think about some of the writers that we longlisted, say An Island, for instance, or even A Passage North, these are writers telling stories that don’t make the news. I don’t think that you would hear about the life of a poor woman in Sri Lanka, or a man who is marooned on an island off the coast of Africa. But while judging the Booker Prize we look at not just what the writers are saying, but how they are saying it, and therefore nationalities do not really matter. What matters is what the writer has brought to the page, and the vision that they have and how they have realised”