Give me chance to save my pub from going bust

IF THE Government had advised all businesses and organisations to use common sense about PPE or social distancing to get back to work there would be a little growth and less unemployment.

By trying to make all and sundry snap to attention with such strict regulations is stifling to so many. One size fits all has never worked and people need to be a bit more inventive in ways to accomplish a back-to-work attitude.

Those who can operate inside the guidelines are sitting on their hands in frustration, as I am.

I run a micro-pub with a massive garden and all my customers live locally. Self- distancing would be easily achievable.

Pubs with no outside space will bleat about it being unfair, but a lot of them will never open again. I am about to pour £1,000 worth of real ale down the drain. HORACE JOHNSON,

address supplied. THE public have already shown what they think of the lockdown and businesses are finding ways of getting round it. People want it to end so they can enjoy the sunshine, go to the pub and watch and play sport. PAUL CHARLES COOK,

Huddersfield, W. Yorks. AS SOON as Boris relaxes the lockdown, I’m staying in . . . BRYAN HOGSDEN, Weymouth, Dorset.

Selfish day-trippers

I AM angry that people have crammed on beaches and in beauty spots, taking no notice of social distancing.

At some point we have to try to get back to some sort of normality with businesses re- opening gradually and safely, but these crowds are totally irresponsible.

It makes a mockery of the efforts of people like me who have been abiding by the rules and staying indoors, not only to protect ourselves, but also our family, other people and the NHS. I live in a flat and don’t have a garden or even a balcony. I feel like a prisoner, but if I can manage to follow social distancing during the lockdown, then why can’t others?

The restrictions on our freedom are hard, especially in sunny weather, but they are there for a purpose. Those who are flouting the rules are jeopardising the safety of everyone.

SUSAN RICHARDSON, Sheffield.

Never mind the children

IN HER attack on ‘ mucky’ children (Mail), Mary Bousted, the joint general-secretary of the National Education Union, reminded me of a teaching colleague of my late father.

He thought schools were a great place to work — apart from the kids!

Thankfully, I’m sure the overwhelming majority of teachers will vote with their feet to reopen schools and expose Ms Bousted as an oddity in the profession. TONY FLANAGAN,

Ripon, N. Yorks. BY STOPPING short of apologising for her disgusting comments about ‘mucky’ young children, Mary Bousted claims that being blunt is a Northern thing.

Is she saying that Northerners

are more likely to be tactless and rude than those from the rest of the country?

KENNETH MILLS, Hampton, Middlesex. WE ARE paying the price for a risk-averse culture. The resistance to school reopening is part of a negative mindset that results in stagnation. Quite how we can get out of this mess is a matter of conjecture, but I’m not optimistic. DAVID SALT, Bridgend, Mid Glamorgan.

Pointless inquiry

PREDICTABLY, there are calls for a public inquiry into the handling of the pandemic.

If past experience is anything to go by, it will take ages, cost a fortune and state the blinking obvious. No doubt, too, it will recommend lots of lessons — to be learned to add to an already sky high pile of them. I’ve lost count of the number of lessons the Government, civil service and public sector needs to learn.

By all means have an inquiry, but until we have accountability by highly paid managers of public institutions, nothing will change.

ANGUS LONG, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Talking shop

GIVEN the challenges the retail sector is experiencing, M&S’s results are not surprising.

As a shareholder, it is hard to swallow that dividend payments and the staff bonus scheme have been cancelled. Are the board taking a full salary and bonuses?

I always thought bonuses reflect good service and enhancement of the business, not failure.

R. WILSON, Boston, Lincs. ALEX BRUMMER comments M&S ‘can operate more flexibly with a smaller HQ, shorter lines of control and faster decision making’ (Mail). Oh, if only the Government thought the same way! JACK BUTTERWORTH,

Oldham, Lancs.

Sugar leaves sour taste

SARAH VINE is spot on when she says it’s not enough for GPs just to hand out a diet sheet or direct the obese to a Zumba class.

The NHS is being crippled by the obesity epidemic. The High Streets are full of takeaways peddling junk food at ridiculously affordable prices.

What is the Government doing about it? A minuscule sugar tax is making next to no difference. Until there is at least a 60 per cent tax on fat and sugar, the crisis will only escalate.

And why 60 per cent? That is the amount of tax levied on petrol.

MICHAEL YORK, Northampton.

Covid-19 know-alls

WHERE are the statistics relating to the ever expanding number of pandemic experts who have appeared out of nowhere?

According to themselves, they know everything there is to know about Covid-19, irrespective of the fact they disagree with each other.

At the present rate of the spread of expert-virus, one in three of the population will be a know-all on the subject; one third will be experiencing mild symptoms, believing they know some of the answers, but not all of them; with the remainder determined never to trust the opinion of an expert.

ERIC WATERS, Lancing, W. Sussex.