Pandemic used as an excuse to force law

A MEDICAL doctor writing for a national publication says that there is little evidence that mass public gatherings like peaceful masked protest marches leads to a spike in infections. Sir Patrick Vallance, chief scientific officer, supports this view.

So there’s been little real risk of rising infections from the many local marches against the bad legislation the Government is trying to force through Parliament to restrict people’s ability to protest. The Government is clearly trying to use the pandemic as an excuse to ram through this bad law, and it then criticises people for gathering to protest peacefully and lawfully.

Covid-19 should not be used by an authoritarian government to push through its draconian law.

Separately, did you know that the UK spent £375m on consultants for the failing Test and Trace programme? The average day rate for these Deloitte “experts” was £1,100 per person. Yes, you read that right – £1,100 a day of taxpayers’ money per consultant and they STILL couldn’t develop a working system. Nice if you can get it, eh?

Meanwhile our NHS wards are under-staffed and our NHS teams need more people but are starved of cash. The Government has promoted “consultancy dependency” and pretends this is the natural order of things. No it isn’t, it’s a gravy train for Tory Party friends, and us taxpayers are being milked and treated with contempt. We’re not so stupid that we can’t see through the Government’s repeated lies. This really is a covishambles.

John Wood Bristol