Ridiculous rivalry should be quashed

WHO was it who said, there are lies, damned lies and then there are statistics?

While I believe the Conservative Westminster government was too slow to lock down, I do object to the rivalry that is being stoked by the other devolved administrations.

The figures in Wales and Scotland are in fact worse than England, if you look at the numbers proportionately. The English population has a nonwhite population of at least 15%. Sadly this section of the population is disproportionately affected and at least a third of deaths in England are from this grouping. In Scotland and Wales the non-white population is less than 5%. In Northern Ireland it is only 1%.

The contrary advice over face masks is also disquieting and upsetting.

All I can say is that as we are in a state of war against this invisible enemy, the devolved administrations should have been suspended for the duration of the crisis.

The chaos is of their own making, as Nicola Sturgeon tries to prove her statesmanship, and the unionists and republicans in Belfast compete against each other, while in Wales, we view active racism against our nearest friends and kith and kin.

Are Welsh police going to prosecute English people who shop in border communities, which are in many cases just across the road? I hope not.

As for our own Welsh Government, it is so sad that they have now called themselves a parliament.

A real parliament is of course an independent sovereign body, and Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales are not in this category. England still pays the bill, and the Westminster Government and sovereign parliament can at any time suspend these bodies.

Let our own nationalists (less than one in ten Welsh voters) remember, the self-appointed Welsh Parliament holds no sovereign power and in that respect has less power and authority than the Isle of Man Tynwald.

One can just imagine the creator of this chaos and nonsense, Tony Blair, sitting in his 35-bedroom Jacobean mansion in Buckinghamshire, and thinking of his next money-making lecture tour, the world after Covid.