Demand for changes in how to care for others
FEW will disagree that 2020 has been a dreadful year. In the face of the calamity of Covid-19 there has been a tremendous upsurge of compassion and helpfulness and even heroism in the struggle against this awful pandemic which has affected us all.
Coincidentally 2020 has seen the ending of the Brexit negotiations. Those who voted to leave will be pleased, the remainers less so, although with relief that we have not completely divorced ourselves from our friends and allies in the rest of Europe.
Boris Johnson has achieved his aim and taken us with him into a new era. Having brought us this far Mr Johnson is faced with the task of proving that he was right and that we, as a country, will benefit from ‘taking back control’ and that we will be better off on our own.
Our hopes are pinned on the vaccine with its promise of a return to normal life for us all. But the new normal is unlikely to be the same as the old one. The pandemic has brought a breathing space, a time for thinking about the way we have to go, our nation and the world at large. We have to mend our ways if the planet is to be saved for future generations, whilst at the same time we have to look at our own society.
It is shameful that some people are having to take on two or more ill-paid jobs in order to make ends meet and even then many have to rely on food banks. This has been highlighted by Marcus Rashford with the heartbreaking story of his own childhood and his dogged persistence in persuading the Government to take greater responsibility for the welfare of the disadvantaged in our society. The progress he made in the special circumstances of 2020 must not be wasted, structural changes are needed in the ways we look after the disadvantaged and those less able to look after themselves, this must be a priority in any government planning.
Rod Slater, Lymm
I don’t want dictatorship
SARCASM is the lowest form of wit and Michael Baldwin’s sarcastic ridicule of winning British sovereignty to fulfil a democratic vote is sheer witless comment, (Look at the sovereign state we are now in, Viewpoints, M.E.N. December 28.)
Equating Brexit as the cause of national debt, while ignoring the cost of the worldwide virus pandemic, is pure nonsense.
Especially since EU countries are suffering similar rising debt and will lose 20 percent of their annual budget as the UK saves £32bn membership fee every year, plus having £660bn worth of trade with the EU as agreed.
The EU has a bankrupt bureaucracy and crippling cash crisis with negative interest rates, which will cause economic collapse when inflation hits: as it surely will!
Neither is the EU as united as it pretends to be, with infighting over who will pay for the rising debt and how the EU’s €750bn recovery fund is to be divided up 27 ways and with what strings attached!
The likes of Michael Baldwin may mock our fight to regain national sovereignty but I prefer living in a self determining democracy and not an unaccountable authoritarian dictatorship.
Now that our much maligned Prime Minister has succeeded in leading the escape from a failing institution, the constant whining must stop, to concentrate on defeating the virus and putting our country back together again.
Bill Newham, Worsley
Keep out the southerners
JUST as many nations around the world are stopping anyone from the UK visiting their areas, we must treat the South/South East of the UK the same way.
The South/South East of the country is experiencing a severe outbreak of the coronavirus, we must not let it come here!
London wouldn’t hesitate to close us off from them, so that’s what we must do to them, we cannot allow their coronavirus to reach here, ever!
Like with any infection, you would do whatever it takes to prevent its spread, we must act to prevent that version of the coronavirus reaching us.
Don’t think for one minute they wouldn’t think and do the same to us.
Ged Jarvis, Gorton