Where is the evidence for the Government’s lockdown threats and excoriation of young people?

sir – There is as yet no evidence that lockdown achieves any benefit. Where is the evidence to say it does? Without it the Government should not persist in using lockdown or threatening use of it.

The Government claims that testing shows an increase of infection in the young, despite there having been little or no testing until recently. Whether or not there is such an increase, where is the evidence that it would lead to a serious increase in the deaths among older people (those most at risk)?

And in the absence of such evidence why are thousands of hospital beds being kept empty for weeks? And why is the Government excoriating the young for behaving as the young always have done and always will do ?

Patrick Phillips QC

Long Melford, Suffolk

sir – The Swedish government has proposed allowing social gatherings to increase from 50 to 500 from October 1. From Monday in England no one will be allowed to meet in groups of more

than six. Who had the lockdown?

Paul Cardew

Cirencester, Gloucesteshire

sir – Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, has forfeited all right to be thought a libertarian. As a response to rising infections among young adults having mass gatherings, no rational or clinical reason supports making it a criminal offence for families to meet.

Dr Robert Walker

Workington, Cumbria

sir – Until this week, I believed that we lived in a liberal democracy which protected personal freedom.

The announcement that, from Monday, the law prohibits more than six people meeting socially restricts our freedom but has been brought in with no parliamentary debate.

Do we now live in a dictatorship where the attempt to eliminate one specific risk has to take precedence over all other rights?

Jonathan Mathias

Hartfield, East Sussex

sir – The plot has been well and truly lost.

Elizabeth Prior

London SW10

sir – What has happened to Boris Johnson? Where is the positive man I voted for, who encouraged personal freedom? Now, he seems to be waging psychological warfare: raising hopes one day, denying them the next.

We need encouragement not duress. Thousands of lives are being ruined because of the Covid measures.

Elizabeth Trezise

Brighton, East Sussex

sir – Since March the only people with whom I have socialised, mainly outdoors, have been my beloved family, including eight grandchildren. The Government is making it a crime.

Whatever the law, I intend to make the limited number of years left to me involve contact with my precious children and grandchildren.

Sheila Samuel

Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire

sir – The new ban on groups of more than six will kill village life. Village halls provide space for Women’s Institutes, Rainbows and Brownies, bridge clubs, tai chi, drop-in coffee mornings, Pilates, slimming, gardening clubs, youth clubs, craft groups and other regular hirings.

Organisers have spent much money on Covid protection. If the Rule of Six applies to them, they will die of debt.

His Honour Lord Parmoor

High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire

sir – If a policeman knocks on my door and asks to come in to count the people here, I shall tell him he can’t because there are six here already.

Philip Roe

St Albans, Hertfordshire

sir – Why not post a snooping busybody – I mean a Covid marshal – on every street corner? With an expected three million unemployed it would solve that problem overnight.

Anthony Annakin-smith

Neston, Wirral