Don’t forget the millions of us who aren’t online

I CONSIDER the suggestion of a “massive litterpick this Saturday” to be a great idea from Friends of the Earth (Echo letters, July 22) and intend to do my bit to help.

However, I am saddened that my (and others’) efforts will not be taken into account when the grand total of bags (of litter collected) is totted up. Why not? Simple – to notify one’s success via Twitter, Instagram and/or Facebook, one needs personal internet access – which I (and others) don’t have. Why did this otherwise very good article not also include either a phone number (landline) or a postal address to which to send results?

My letter now is to reinforce the message to all organisations that there are still about nine million people in Great Britain who do not, for various reasons, including the availability of broadband, the cost of buying and servicing “devices” and the desire or otherwise to use this medium, have internet access. We are presently treated as though we are either second-class, vulnerable citizens, or fuddy-duddies who “ought to keep up”.

If and when a future law dictates that I must communicate only by electronic means, and at my own cost, I will decide whether to comply or risk prosecution. Until then, I will communicate as I choose, not as others choose.

Mrs J Delgado

Rumney, Cardiff

Drakeford gives us little to smile about

MARK Drakeford’s a ray of sunshine, isn’t he?

There was PM Boris Johnson trying to lift the mood of our Covidravaged nation by suggesting we may be back to some form of normality by Christmas.

Yet Drakeford, the Eeyore of British politics, was quick to pour cold water on such an outlook, countering that “you have to take a pretty optimistic view of the advice we have had to think that’s a realistic proposition”.

Well after months of negative headlines and lockdown misery what’s wrong with a bit of optimism? Isn’t leadership, in part at least, about offering hope?

Thank God Drakeford wasn’t in Winston Churchill’s shoes during World War II. No stirring rhetoric like “we shall fight on the beaches” or “blood, toil, sweat and tears”, more a case of “Gosh, the German military is pretty scary, no wonder they swept through Poland so quickly.”

Throughout the pandemic our technocrat-in-chief has never been happier than when micromanaging our lives. Take the guidelines for public transport in Wales: no newspapers, no singing, no running for the bus. Is this what it’s like in North Korea?

Surely now is the time for Drakeford to flex his devolved muscles and take it further by banning smiling on the train. There must be a scientist who has evidence that this cheerful act of facial realignment increases the chances of Covid-19 transmission by 0.001%.

You can’t be too safe after all. Brendan Jones

Bridgend

Let’s flag up issues with RSE content

RELATIONSHIP and Sex Education (RSE) is becoming compulsory in primary and secondary schools starting from September and must be implemented in the curriculum by this time next year.

In this new curriculum children will be indoctrinated into ideas about gender ideology that contradict the science curriculum and being exposed to explicit adult content which prematurely sexualises them.

Decency forbids me from describing the type of material which is being introduced to children in schools, under the guise of Relationships and Sex education. A minority of parents have been objecting for many years, and speaking up against the introduction of gender ideology and pornography in the classroom.

While we cannot do anything to halt the introduction of RSE in Welsh schools, we can do something to put parents in the driving seat in Wales by making our objections to the content of RSE known to the Welsh Government’s Education Minister and the minister for children.

The Welsh Parliament, if they care about children, must set up an independent watchdog committee regarding the RSE curriculum and its influence throughout the school, with a protected whistleblowing process. Inappropriate resources and providers must be blacklisted. Norman Plaisted

Newport

Decency forbids me from describing the type of material which is being introduced to children in schools...

Boycott Your Bed to help vulnerable kids

EVEN before coronavirus hit, more than four million children were living in poverty in the UK. Now our most vulnerable children and families have reached breaking point, as the financial and emotional impact of this horrible pandemic truly hits home. Action for Children, an amazing charity I’ve worked with for many years, is determined not to let this generation of lockdown children become a lost one.

I’ve always felt a connection with the cause of Action for Children because their existence has given me hope that our society will not collapse in these uncertain times. Playing a mum with a disabled child in There She Goes has also made the importance of the support they give to vulnerable families hit home even