Words of the week

I CANNOT begin to convey the sense of absolute devastation across Calderdale that, for so many residents, we are in the same position again, having been flooded in the Boxing Day floods in 2015. – Halifax MP

Holly Lynch.

WHEN it comes to housing development, we must stop tarmacking and paving our green fields. – Calder Valley MP Jason McCartney after the Storm Ciara floods.

PENNY-PINCHING, narrow-minded and wrong. – Former Labour leader Ed Miliband on the Government’s response to the South Yorkshire floods.

WILL she consider community payback schemes using exoffenders to help with dredging and other things we need to prevent flooding in the future? – Tory MP Joy Morrissey’s question to Theresa Villiers, the then Environment Secretary, in the Commons on Monday.

I SHOULD note that much of this work is quite specialist so I am not sure how that would work but I welcome her suggestion. – The response of Ms Villiers before losing her job.

HIS career in print was notable for its partisan brio rather than devotion to facts. – Sky News presenter Adam Boulton on Boris Johnson’s claims to be a journalist.

THE BBC is a great national asset. A diminished BBC is a weakened United Kingdom. – BBC chairman Sir David Clementi.

I LOVE Phillip as much today as I ever have and always will. – Phillip Schofield’s wife Steph after the TV presenter, 57, announced he was gay.

SHE’S got the most amazing skin. This is the first time I’ve ever held a snake like that. How cool is that? – The Duchess of Cambridge got to grips with a corn snake.

I WILL drink until next morning. – Bong Joon-ho, the director of South Korean dark comedy Parasite, after his film won four Oscars.

LONG-SIGHTED and ambitious. The country first without the political benefits. – Transport Secretary Grant Shapps on HS2.

WE’RE the London of the North. –