Time to be more critical of Ministers
Baghill
EDITORIALLY, you have been generally supportive of the Government’s efforts to contain and control the spread of coronavirus infections; and you have rightly rebuked politicians who have appeared to want to make political capital out of the issue.
But I wonder whether it is now time for a change. Maybe you ought by now to be adopting a less tolerant attitude towards some of the nonsenses that are being perpetrated, and to be more critical of decisions being made which appear irreconcilable with the known facts.
I say this because, arguably, the decisions which have now been taken, and are still being considered, about the appropriate level of restrictions in various parts of the North of England owe little to practical common sense and much to blind dogma or, worse, blind panic.
And that’s without taking into account the sort of arrogance embodied in the recent claim by the Prime Minister that he is having to act in order to save the lives of the citizens of Greater Manchester.
One thing particularly concerns me. The rate of infection is increasing in some areas. But, by and large, on current information, it is increasing because of the unwillingness of some sections of the community to obey sensible advice. Worse, their unwillingness to obey the law.
There is a word for people who break laws like this. That word is “criminal”. Yet the Government sees as the solution not the identification and punishment of the lawbreakers but the imposition of more severe restrictions on everybody.
Those who are ignoring the law now, ( whatever their reasons, good or bad), will most likely go on ignoring it. So the consequence of imposing greater restrictions is simply to take it out on the majority who are trying, often at some personal cost, financial or emotional, to do their best.
Does this Government want to be remembered as the one which decided that the right way forward was to victimise the victims? In a democracy, any government rules only by consent. Perhaps you should be warning the Government that the boundaries of consent are already very fragile, and ought not to be stretched any further.
From: Richard Saberton,
Whitby.
THE country is on its knees, millions are, or soon will, be out of work and the economy is tanking.
The Chancellor has done his best but it is futile to pump money into areas that just won’t recover and it is unrealistic to assume life will return to what it was pre- Covid.
The Prime Minister has outlined his plans for the future but, to be fair, I think he’ll just end up following the same old recipe of ‘ overpromise and underdeliver’.
He seems to be using the same ABC book of government as Donald Trump, where everything is ‘ world- beating’ or ‘ the very best’. Personally, I’d settle for something that works.
From: Neil Cullinane,
Leeds.
LAST week Sky News reported that the Government’s bill for hiring private consultants in various roles during the Covid- 19 pandemic – including track, trace and testing systems – comes to £ 175m so far.
It is reported that some of these individual consultants can charge up to £ 6,250 per day. This is the same government that tells furloughed workers that they cannot afford to pay them more than two- thirds of the minimum wage. That says everything we need to know about Conservative Party values.
From: Jason Richards, Leeds.
I DON’T get this negotiation with local leaders about money versus Covid. Come on, people, you are negotiating with actual lives, it’s not about money.