Bombast only spurs rage and rejection
I SUSPECT many of the protesters in Platt Fields were not ‘...sticking two fingers up to our NHS heroes’ (M.E.N., May 18) so much as at the advice coming from the prime minister.
All the language of ‘must’ comes poorly from a government who, rightly or wrongly, are seen to have one law for themselves and to dictate another for the plebs.
Conservatives are perceived as driving around to second homes and demanding children go back to school while independent schools like Eton are reputed as closed until September.
The fact that the prime minister has a history of making things up as a journalist, marital infidelity, deceit in his politics, ignoring details that are inconvenient, posturing before his supporters, appeasing extremists to gain support, overlooking constitutional proprieties, assuming Irish, Scots, and Welsh sensibilities and legislatures don’t matter, and lying to the Queen (one could go on) hardly helps.
If we are honest, nobody can be expected to get it right all the time, and certainly not in times like the present for which nobody was prepared.
But that doesn’t alter the fact that many people reject the hypocrisy and cant sloganising of this government.
It wouldn’t harm the government to accept this truth and apologise once in a while.
But continued boasting and bombast, married to denial and deception (remember the PPE glove counting?) results in rage and rejection.
And of course it’s convenient for the Tories that people stay in and don’t gather to protest or get cross with each other.
It’s also helpful that Manchester politicians are preoccupied with the immediate crises and overlook the government’s international malarky!
Bill Price, Ancoats
No goodies or baddies
WHILST I accept that R. Snowdon (M.E.N. Viewpoints, May 19) raises some important points I think it is important to remember that there aren’t necessarily ‘goodies and baddies’ in the psyche of all those who are trying to offer leadership in order to deal with the massive problems involved in sorting out the coronavirus pandemic.
And even if Ann Longfield (Children’s Commissioner) is suggesting an inappropriate step in believing that it’s now safe for schoolchildren to go back to school, the issue is by no means totally clear-cut with opinion being divided on the wisdom of whether or not schools should reopen on June 1.
And in some ways it’s not really easy to follow the science in this instance because there is so much about this killer disease that no one knows exactly what it totally entails beyond the fact that it can be very deadly in certain circumstances.
But we are not even totally knowledgeable on all those situations where the coronavirus can be deadly because there is so much that we still don’t know about it.
So it probably boils down to the fact every person’s general instincts and common sense can be possibly equally as valid in some ways as the so-called experts – because we are dealing with something about which we have limited knowledge.
But I still think that if the daily rate of deaths from coronavirus does not form a definitely clear pattern of going down over the next week or so then it may well be needed for the government to rethink its strategy upon whether it’s wise to keep the date for the schools to reopen as being on June 1.
Howard Gardner, Sale
No one has to sleep rough
IN response to the coronavirus crisis, St Mungo’s has helped more than 1,600 people isolate safely in hotels over the last few weeks.
Across the country, more than 6,000 people found to be sleeping rough have been given accommodation.
This is a huge achievement, but the hotels are only a temporary fix while the lockdown is in place, and soon they’ll need the rooms back.
The government now has the opportunity to make sure that no one has to go back on to the streets after lockdown – but time is running out.
The announcement of a taskforce to work on this is a good start, but more still needs to be done.
To make sure no one has to return to sleeping rough we need to help people move into the right accommodation for them, whether that’s a specialist hostel or permanent housing.
And we need to make sure that everyone gets the support they need to leave the streets behind for good.
This briefing outlines what St Mungo’s, with over 50 years’ experience of working with people sleeping rough, think needs to be done to ensure no one returns to rough sleeping after the pandemic passes: https://www.mungos.org/ app/uploads/2020/05/St-MungosNo-Going-Back-policy-briefingMay-2020.pdf
Your help could make all the difference for people at risk of sleeping rough.
Can concerned readers please write to the prime minister to ask him to seize this unique opportunity to help thousands stay off the streets for good?
This can be done at the St Mungo’s homepage.
Andrew Wastling, Rochdale