“The entrance was like a sea of mud and the water in the boiler room was about head height. There were branches and debris everywhere.”

Sheila Gordon, janitor at Dunnottar School in Stonehaven, recalling the flood damage on Christmas Eve

“The government is indulging in family bashing by its decision to withdraw child benefit from those families with somebody earning more than #163;50,000 ... It is probably the single most incompetent change to the benefits system since the Second World War.”

Philip Booth, of the Institute of Economic Affairs, on the government’s child benefit cuts.