Welsh people are being used as political pawns

ACCORDING to the First Minister the polls suggest that the Welsh Government has the support of the Welsh population. Really! He didn’t produce any data confirming the details and I’m sure he wouldn’t mislead us.

I would be the first to support the Welsh Government if their draconian rules had been a resounding success but it’s the complete opposite. To date there have tragically been more than 1,250 deaths (that’s 10 times the amount compared to Australia and New Zealand put together!), one of the worst amounts per capita in the UK.

On Friday in the daily conference he was asked to apologise for some of the Welsh Government’s failings for not testing all persons in care homes, following scathing criticism in an investigative programme on BBC television. He did not apologise and did his long rambling answer, basically saying how much he and the Welsh Government cared about everyone in care homes. Instead of pressing home the lack of clarity to answer the allegation the BBC reporter then went on to the next question. Pathetic investigative journalism.

During the same coronavirus conference he was asked about what the R rate was in Wales. He confessed he hadn’t checked the R rate for two weeks. Again the journalist didn’t follow up, why? This is the very rate the Welsh Government is relying on for its strategy for children to return to school and all the many petty and unnecessary draconian rules it is still imposing on the poor Welsh nation. We are being treated like children.

I, like a large number of people, am so angry and frustrated that we are being used. I fully support social distancing rules but surely common sense has got to come into this?

Unlike in England, I can’t at present speak to my grandchildren from a safe distance outside their home. I can’t play golf with my mate. I can’t travel more than a short distance to have a picnic with my wife. I can’t even travel to Pencoed cemetery to tend to loved ones’ graves. Yesterday an elderly lady sitting reading a book on Penarth beach was warned and removed from the beach by a PCSO for breaking the exercise rule. This is despite literally hundreds of people on the beach and the esplanade, some sitting on benches for long periods quite clearly breaking the more than one exercise a day rule. What are we coming to when this kind of thing happens? It’s unbelievably sad.

Please, Professor Drakeford, stop using the Welsh people as your political pawns and show some unity with the UK Government. It’s imperative we fight this horrible virus together.

Paul Fenton

Penarth

Did we really vote for this to happen?

HOME Secretary Priti Patel is three months too late in imposing quarantine on new UK arrivals. If quarantine had been imposed on March 8 when we had the first death from Covid 19 in the UK, together with testing and tracking as in most other countries, we would have avoided thousands of unnecessary deaths.

This Government has failed in the fundamental duty of any government to safeguard the lives of their citizens and they should go, and go now.

Their only raison d’etre is their supposed “oven-ready Brexit” which turns out to be nothing of the sort as they make no attempt to negotiate. Clearly, they intend to bury a disastrous no deal under the economic damage caused by their too little, too late response to this pandemic.

Wales will suffer the most from the destruction of British farming that will follow from the loss of export markets in Europe. The dumping of inferior American surplus food production will result from a Trump trade deal.

Is this really what we voted for either in the Brexit referendum or in December’s general election? Margaret Phelps

Penarth

Save us from green energy dreamers

TODAY in SE Queensland (the “Sunshine State”) it is windless, cloudy and cold.

We need electricity to brew coffee, cook dinner, warm a cold house and pump water.

There is no solar or wind power being generated and no giant batteries releasing stored energy. Where does our electricity come from when we need it most?

It comes mainly from the old reliable, King Coal, with maybe a bit of hydro and gas.

Lord save us from green energy dreamers who would have us freezing in blackouts when stoves, heaters and TV’s switch on tonight.

Viv Forbes

Washpool, Queensland, Australia

Spoils of war ended up in pawn shops

ANYONE watching TV regularly will have seen these shows where items are traded for cash or pawn.

In the US “pickers” are people who travel from place to place either by arrangement or chance (ie, simply going on the knocker) to buy items which are later traded at a profit. The US pawn shops operate on the same lines as here in the UK. Many of the items offered are war booty from either Germany or Japan, with some being extremely bulky and where possession in the UK would not, in any case, be permitted.

Any viewer might be puzzled as to how the Yanks got around this. It is simple, they had built up vast supply lines to provide their troops with all the accoutrements of war and this was crossing both the Atlantic and Pacific in massive quantities.

Those same supply lines of planes and ships were returning to the US virtually empty. Any GI in any war zone who had grabbed anything of value simply had to slap a label with his home address on it on to any truck going back to any port or airfield and it would, eventually, get delivered at that address with no customs check.

Some GIs also stole the Bavarian crown jewels, broke some up to be sold in Switzerland and sent the rest home. Wish I had been there. To the victor the spoils.

David Prichard

Rumney, Cardiff

I, like a large number of people, am so angry and confused that we are being used Paul Fenton Penarth

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