Letters - Monday, March 16, 2020

It is for sure that Boris Johnson is no Winston Churchill.

He tells us that thousands will lose loved ones and thereby brings another dose of doom and gloom as if we hadn’t had enough through Brexit.

Churchill would have rallied us by invoking a fighting spirit in our war with coronavirus.

Not so Boris as he makes no move to ban large gatherings or close any venues.

We can only hope that we are not the ones to lose close relatives and we, ourselves, have enough Churchillian spirit.

Peter Hyde

Address supplied

I had been quite impressed until now with the way in which those governing us have dealt with the coronavirus outbreak and the response to it.

Restrained. Based on scientific evidence.

So why on earth has Boris Johnson now gone and spoilt it by speaking of “families going to lose loved ones before their time”.

That’s nothing but hysteria.

And it really doesn’t help.

And, by the way, can somebody remind us how many deaths there are from flu in a normal winter?

We don’t get hysterical about that.

Just pointing out a contrast, that’s all.

Michael Green

via email

VIRUS

Stuck with no way forward

As has been seen with first, Brexit, then the coronavirus outbreak, here and across the world, British Prime Ministers and the supporting Government get all too easily knocked off course by what one former premier, Harold Macmillan, identified as being the reason why the job is so difficult – “events, dear boy, events”.

The inescapable fact is that many of Britain’s pressing social problems that have been with us, certainly since the end of the Second World War, confront us now as never before, particularly care of the elderly, the crisis in mental health, not to mention a drastic housing shortage and the disparities in health provision based on a postcode lottery.

There is the devastation caused by the most recent storms that resulted in thousands of homes and businesses being flooded due to the level of the oceans, and the temperature of the seas, both rising.

Also dangerously high levels of pollution discharged into the air by industry and motor vehicles constitute our biggest headache if we wish to hold back and eventually deal with the full effects of global warming and climate change.

All of the major issues have confronted us for far too long, along with our inability to run a national railway network without having to believe that all our problems would be solved with the construction of HS2.

I have a feeling that, should I be here in 10 years time, I will still be reading about our seemingly insolvable problems which, as a nation, we seem either unwilling or unable to deal with other than for politicians to promise high amounts of cash on the back of much talk, without any real action, to get us out of the morass.

We now seem, by our own ineptitude, to have sunk without any meaningful and constructive way of moving forward as a united nation.

Edward Grainger

Address supplied

VIRUS

Sick pay for low income workers

As Frazer would say in

Dad’s Army – “We’re doomed!”

The Government has not got a clue how to control the spread of the coronavirus beyond telling people to wash their hands.

They tell us that the only people at risk are those who already have underlying health issues yet take people with coronavirus to hospitals where all the patients already have underlying health issues!

People with suspect symptoms are told to stay at home yet many people in work on low incomes cannot afford to stay at home as

they are not entitled to statutory sick pay, for example, people on zero hours contracts.

These people have been told to go onto Universal Credit if they are off work sick but they need to get a sick note from their doctor and then go through the benefits system so cannot stay in isolation.

They are then expected to wait for up to 10 weeks for any sort of payment.

By then they could have been evicted from their homes. Their only option is to risk going into work.

They are not to blame.

It is their employers and shareholders – the ‘fat cats’ – who refuse to provide the basics for their employees and instead want to line their own pockets.

Martin J Phillips

via email