The things they say

Bruce Springsteen, Jay Kay and Gavin Williamson

■ “Let’s be clear, this is a national challenge on a scale like nothing we’ve seen before and it will require an unprecedented national effort”

– Boris Johnson on delivering

Covid-19 vaccines.

■ “If you sneak into a hospital in an empty corridor at nine o’clock at night and film that particular corridor and then stick it up on social media and say ‘This proves the hospitals are empty, the whole thing is a hoax,’ you are not only responsible for potentially changing behaviour that will kill people, but it is an insult to the nurse coming home from 12 hours in critical care, having worked her guts out under the most demanding and trying of circumstances”

– NHS England chief executive Sir Simon Stevens.

■ “You cannot simply wish away friction and administration when you implement customs controls anywhere in the world,”

– Seamus Leheny, Northern Ireland policy manager for Logistics UK, says hauliers are being “overwhelmed” by

post-Brexit paperwork.

■ “I have no political agenda, I am not employed by the Government, I do not work in PR, I am just an average mum at home trying to cope with the lockdown situation”

– Annemarie Plas on online abuse she received over its relaunch as Clap for Heroes.

■ “Rock and roll is the only business where the people you were in high school with, 50 years later you are working with those exact same people”

– Bruce Springsteen, 71, on the longevity of the E Street Band.

■ “Good morning world. Now some of you may be thinking you saw me in Washington last night but I’m afraid I wasn’t with all those freaks”

– Jamiroquai frontman Jay Kay responds to fans who compared him to a member of the violent mob who stormed the US Capitol wearing horns and a fur.

■ “I will not apologise for being enthusiastic to ensure that we had been able to be in a position to roll out exams – but we do recognise where we are as a result of this pandemic, we have to take a different course and that is why we’re taking the route we are”

– Education Secretary Gavin Williamson announces GCSE, AS and A-level exams in England will be replaced by school-based assessments.

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