Let’s praise actions of our government

May I suggest that those subscribers to the Bath Chronicle letters pages who currently trade endless excuses for the EU getting its Covid19 programme wrong, instead acknowledge the UK post Brexit government’s success in getting Britain’s Covid-19 programme right.

And should critics wish to know what is happening in the EU regarding its own Covid-19 strategy, then they could hardly do better than ponder the recent report in Bild, Germany’s top selling newspaper, explaining the reality of events at the ‘sharp end.’

Bild states thus: “Dear Brits, we envy you, and here [in the EU] there’s no hope.”

Harry W. Barstow

Box

Last week, Cllr Liz Hardman called on local schools to take a pragmatic approach to school uniform from March 8.

Our schools have been brilliant this year - can we ask them to do one more thing and agree that just the basic uniform is enough till September?

This weekend, I had the gloomy job of trying to replace my primary age child’s school shoes.

Nowhere is open, so I’m pushed online. “Buy two pairs and send one back” is the general advice, to tackle the difficulties of getting a fair fit. Double costs, double time? Who has that? Even one pair can be £40. For just a few weeks.

And as I’m guessing the new size, I’m risking school censure if I guess wrong and we’re without uniform shoes. Perhaps supermarkets are selling cheaper school shoes. But I don’t have a car; they’re not within my reach in pandemic times.

Ideally, primary children wear well-fitting shoes.

These days, we’re well past enforcing ideals: furlough for the “lucky”, unemployment for so many, and here in BATHNES, so many self-employed (like me) not qualifying for any government support at all.

Schools, academy trusts: please reach a compassionate arm around families for this next term and a half, and loosen your requirements for expensive pieces of uniform shoes, blazers etc.

The basics, in times like this, are surely enough.

Gill Kirk

Bath