A shop ban that takes us for fools
CAN anyone explain why Mark Drakeford, the First Minister of Wales, decreed that during the Covid ‘firebreak’, I can go to the supermarket to buy food, but God forbid I should need a pair of socks, underwear or a winter coat? We’ve been informed it is to protect small retail businesses that have had to close during the lockdown. A noble thought — but hang on, you can still buy as much alcohol as you desire, so what about protecting pubs? Am I alone in feeling the Welsh government is running an experiment in social engineering? To Mr Drakeford and his pontificating cohorts, I say stop treating law-abiding citizens like criminals and fools. WEnDY COOK, Barry, Vale of Glamorgan. APART from locking down the whole country, including rural areas where infection rates are low, Welsh ministers decreed that supermarkets can sell only essential items. Who should decide what is essential? My local Tesco blocked off its clothing aisles and banned the sale of electrical goods. But if your kettle breaks during the next two weeks, surely it is essential it be replaced? What will happen is people will shop online, though I am sure if Welsh ministers had the power to stop
Amazon deliveries, they would do so. Wales has entered a dangerous new era where politicians are making decisions that affect how we live our lives.
JAYNE ISAAC, Maesteg, Bridgend. CLEARLY Mark Drakeford has never been shopping or he wouldn’t have banned supermarkets from selling ‘non-essential’ items such as clothes. When I go shopping, I always wear clothes! He also misunderstands the alternative to buying such goods in a supermarket: people will go online rather than wait weeks to buy socks at a local store. And that assumes High Street shops will still exist after this pointless showboating.
ROYALL, Eastbourne, E. Sussex. BANNING the sale of non-essential goods in supermarkets won’t create a level playing field for small retailers. Hasn’t the Welsh First Minister heard of the internet and Amazon?
LAURENCE PRINCE, London nW3. WELSH shoppers can go into Tesco and buy as much alcohol as they like, but not a kettle to make a cup of tea. Wales will contribute more money to Amazon boss Jeff Bezos and put another nail in the coffin of the High Street.