Right-wing rant was insulttofrontlineheroes

After weeks of lockdown, it had to happen - a new right-wing rant from Mr McMillan (PA letters, June 2).

Anyone or anything which does not conform to the world as Mr McMillan sees it through his right-wing tinted specs must be wrong.

The lockdown is due to the opinions of scientists who have left leaning views? Does that mean that a scientist who has right leaning views will then be guaranteed to be correct?

Left-wing bureaucrats get a dishonourable mention.

Goodness me, I thought that over the past 10 years our esteemed English friends have imposed upon us Tory governments under various ineffective leaders throughout that entire time, all of which they and the governments they ran seemed to me to be somewhat right of centre?

Does Mr McMillan mean the civil servants who administer the country? Does he have a magic formula to see inside the heads of each and every civil servant to accurately define his or her political views or their voting intentions?

The usual Churchillian comparisons get trotted out.

Those whom Churchill lauded in 1940 when he said that so much was owed by so many to so few, were the pilots of RAF Fighter Command who flew the 400 Hurricanes and the 250 Spitfires we had against the might of the Luftwaffe.

The equivalent of these pilots 80 years later are the staff in the NHS, the staff in care homes, the delivery drivers, the postmen, the garage workers, the shop workers, the teachers dealing with key workers children, and countless others who have kept this country going over the last 10 weeks.

Now the many owe so much to these people. They are the salt of the earth, a lot of them earning a pittance by comparison to the stock brokers and merchant bankers, the others of the Tory elite, all those whose contribution to this country in keeping it going since late March certainly appears to be negligible.

Mr McMillan effectively reckons that COVID-19 is overstated. The thousands of deaths the virus has caused, not only in this country, but world wide in the hundreds of thousands are a myth?

Mr McMillan offers no comfort or sympathy to those who have lost loved ones. Does he much prefer to sit in his ivory tower and regard himself as omnipresent and invulnerable, expecting others to carry on regardless of whether they are at risk, just doing their job?

Seems like he doesn’t want to be inconvenienced or have reality go a separate way from his own ideas.

I suggest Mr McMillan has a dialogue with some NHS staff who have been at the sharp end of dealing with this pandemic. See if they are dismissive of it.

The lockdown was and still is a severe restriction of the liberty we have all got used to, of that there is no doubt.

It certainly was a necessity. Easing of it gradually, not least to alleviate financial hardship and get the economy back on track, is a must. But it has to be done in a realistic and timeous manner.

To do otherwise risks the return of the virus anew and another lot of bereaved and grieving relatives.

It doesn’t matter whether a scientist has right or left leaning views, if a majority says there is an issue, then there is an issue, and it behoves any government, of any colour to take on board the advice offered.

All those who have lost loved ones to this virus should have our condolences.

All who have been working on the front line deserve our utmost respect and admiration.

I for one certainly hope that once all this is over and things get back to normal, or whatever that normal will be, that a grateful government will award them the decent pay rise which they richly deserve.

Certainly in the case of the nurses, I do not want the abhorrent sight of ecstatic Tories waving their order papers in the air upon hard working nurses being refused a pay rise as has happened in the past.

If I was a Tory, and I most certainly am not, I would be hanging my head in the utmost shame at recollection of that incident.

Finally on lockdown, of course if Mr McMillan is unhappy about it, or any fresh restriction being imposed if that should become necessary for the greater public good, he can always jump into his car if he has one, and take a drive to Barnard Castle to get an eye test.

But that would be breaking lockdown rules, or would it?

Allister Band

Hermitage Drive

Perth