Letters: Conservatives can’t hide from one major finding of the Covid Inquiry

SIR – Regardless of the Covid Inquiry’s remit, one major, incontrovertible finding has emerged: the Conservative Party has put people into Parliament, No 10 and the Cabinet who lacked the competence, moral character and personality required to hold public office. 

As a life-long member, I find this is beyond depressing. Conservative Campaign Headquarters needs to restructure its recruitment and training urgently in order to raise the standard of politicians and officials. The Prime Minister must prioritise this or the party is finished.

Rodney G James
Brasschaat, Flanders, Belgium

SIR – It seems as if Boris Johnson is going to get a lot of criticism for his comment regarding Covid and old people (“PM said Covid was ‘nature’s way of dealing with elderly’,” report, November 1).

However, at nearly 80, I had many conversations with family and friends of a similar age who all agreed that the young should be the priority, not us oldies who had lived our lives.

David Statham 
Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire

SIR – I watched the so-called inquiry on Tuesday and have renamed it after a classic Michael Caine film: Get Boris.

Robert Ashworth
Alderley Edge, Cheshire

SIR – There were an estimated 50,100 excess winter deaths in England and Wales in 2017-18, caused largely by flu. Imagine if Boris Johnson and his team had been in charge at that time, had locked us down and made us chase our tails trying to avoid something we could not see, touch or smell.

Sadly, when Covid struck, no one in the Government listened to Professor Sunetra Gupta, who in June 2020 argued there was no way that lockdowns could eliminate the virus; that it would not be at all surprising if, once lockdowns were lifted, the virus flared up again; and that you could only lock down for so long unless you chose to be in isolation for eternity.

Mark Macauley 
Warminster, Wiltshire

SIR – The Covid pandemic is the only time ever recorded when a bill of hundreds of billions was incurred to protect the aged of one generation and placed on our national credit card to be paid by future generations. The additional vast cost of social disruption and the damaging effects on children have yet to be calculated.
It was collective madness. May it never happen again.

Tom Benyon
Bladon, Oxfordshire

SIR – One mystery again brought to the fore by the Covid Inquiry is why the public-school and Oxford-educated Dominic Cummings needs to resort to profanities to get his points across.

Phillip Pennicott
London E18

A Palestinian state

SIR – Andrew Roberts (Comment, October 31) eloquently argues that the Palestinians should learn from other displaced people and move on to build new lives and communities. Those he uses as examples were all given the chance to do just that – other than Stalin’s displaced minorities, who were kept under control by constant and brutal tyranny.

A two-state solution would offer Palestinians this opportunity. Unfortunately, Benjamin Netanyahu’s relentless programme of settlement building has reduced the West Bank to economically unviable Palestinian “islands”, separated by IDF-controlled roads. This has effectively ruined farming and commerce, and ruled out a viable Palestinian state.

Of course, America and Britain are right to speak out against the horrendous and barbaric attacks by Hamas – and to support Israel’s right to defend itself – but we must also address what comes afterwards. President Biden warned Israel not to make the mistakes America made after 9/11. Surely the worst of those was embarking on military action in Iraq, Afghanistan, then Libya, without any solid plan for the peace afterwards.

A better leader than Mr Netanyahu would be tackling Hamas in Gaza, but also starting to roll back settlements in the West Bank so that all Palestinians could see there was hope for a land of their own, where they could rebuild businesses and family lives.

Sir Julian Brazier
Canterbury, Kent

AI anxiety

SIR – How reassuring that Sir Nick Clegg, who removed our opportunity for energy security by failing to realise the future need for nuclear power, has advised us that AI is nothing much to worry about (report, November 1).

Keith Harrison
Morpeth, Northumberland
 

NatWest’s insights 

SIR – I recently investigated the new “insights” section on my NatWest banking app. It displayed detailed knowledge of my spending habits, suggested refinements, set me life goals and told me my carbon footprint was 25 per cent lower than average.

It had ways to improve this, however. I should reduce the number of short-haul flights I take – even though I have not flown since 2005. It also said that I should choose holiday destinations closer to home – yet I have had only one five-day break and three two-night stays away since 2014, all within 100 miles of my home. 

It suggested I save the planet by renting my clothes instead of buying them new. As a trained tailoress I make most of my clothes; they last and are enjoyed for decades.

What gives a bank the authority to dictate its “principles” to clients, particularly when it is supported by taxpayers? How much money was wasted on developing this intrusion into customers’ lives?

Faith Scott
Farnham, Surrey
 

Pink-tie phobia

SIR – I agree with Lutena Yates (Letters, November 1), who expects politicians to wear ties. 

I used to love them in any colour, but could Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle add a proviso: no pink ties? In my mind, they will forever be associated with Matt Hancock and his look of wide-eyed innocence and sincerity during the daily briefings from Downing Street during the pandemic.

Christine Tomblin
Cotgrave, Nottinghamshire

Scotland’s NHS crisis 

SIR – In the first six months of 2019 the number of Scots who had spent more than 24 hours in A&E was 15. Last year, for the same period, this figure was almost 4,000 – a 250-fold increase. 

While Michael Matheson, the Scottish health secretary, has tinkered around the edges, pledging additional funding to the ambulance service, hospital doctors are warning that this is not enough. 

We need more available beds on wards and more facilities to enable people to return home quickly, with a support package in place. Simply throwing money at a problem does not solve it. Listening to those who work in the health service might. The

 SNP should try it.

Jane Lax
Aberlour, Banffshire 

SIR – If you live in north Wales, travelling 100 miles for NHS treatment is the norm, not an outrageous exception (Features, November 1). If you need much more than an aspirin you are shipped off to the excellent critical centre in Stoke-on-Trent. Referrals to Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham are common.

There are three general hospitals in north Wales, but after 25 years of Labour control, they are in a dire state financially and operationally. For example, Ysbyty Gwynedd in Bangor used to have a world-class vascular service. In 2019 this was moved to another hospital, which is failing so badly that even routine procedures can’t be performed and patients are sent on to England.

Simon Dorey
Bangor, Caernarfonshire
 

Petulance on court

SIR – Andy Murray’s racket-smashing petulance is appalling (Sport, October 31). As a parent, how can he explain such vandalism to his children? As a role model to countless aspiring players, how can he justify his behaviour?

Bryan Jarvis
Great Bookham, Surrey
 

Anti-wrinkle sleep

SIR – You report that sleeping on your side or front can make you look older, and suggest what to do about it (Features, November 1). 

I sleep like a log and have always done so on my front, so I am not going to change the habit of a lifetime just so I don’t get more wrinkles – of which I already have plenty.

Robyn Maitland
Sherborne, Dorset

A move to encourage fledgling ornithologists

SIR – I applaud the RSPB’s recent move to offer free entry to all its reserves for under-24s. The British Trust for Ornithology is also actively engaging with younger age groups. Certainly, my local natural history society and bird groups never charge admission for young people. 

No one of any age wants to pay £6 to go for a walk, but to go for a walk and maybe buy a coffee at the end appeals to, and is good for, everyone. On any afternoon at an RSPB reserve, one will experience the thrill of spotting raptors, or, at this time of year, a spectacular murmuration. No binoculars needed. 

Many young people at school and at work actively want to engage in voluntary work. At a time when all our major charities are struggling to recruit volunteers, this effort to reach out to younger people is surely going to boost the RSPB and will ultimately be to all our benefit.

Julia Churchley
Kingsbridge, Devon
 

The trauma behind debilitating drug addiction

SIR – I used to be one of those who, though sympathetic, would look down on people who had “allowed” themselves to become addicted to alcohol or illicit drugs. 

Yet I – albeit not in the hard-drug category – have suffered enough unrelenting, PTSD-related hyper-anxiety to have known, enjoyed and appreciated the great release upon consuming alcohol or other drugs.

The greater the drug-induced euphoria one attains from its use, the more one wants to repeat the experience. By extension, the greater one’s mental pain or trauma while sober, the stronger the need for release from reality, and so the more addictive the euphoric escape will likely be.

Serious PTSD trauma is very often behind a substance-abuser’s debilitating addiction. The lasting mental pain resulting from the trauma is formidable, yet invisible because confined inside. It is suffered in solitude, unlike an openly visible physical disability or condition, which tends to elicit sympathy or empathy from others. It can make every day a mental ordeal.

A point typically overlooked by society is that intense addiction usually doesn’t originate from a bout of boredom, where a person consumed recreationally but became heavily hooked.

While I can’t say what the actor Matthew Perry suffered and felt (Obituaries, October 30), it is a most tragic fact that many chronically addicted people wouldn’t miss this world if they never woke up. It’s not that they necessarily want to die; it’s that they want their pointless corporeal suffering to end.

Frank Sterle Jr
White Rock, British Columbia, Canada

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