Letters - Saturday January 23, 2021

Just three weeks into 2021, Boris Johnson’s suggestion two months ago that he’s really a ‘green’ Tory has hit the skids.

While Trump’s mob stormed the Capitol on January 6, Secretary of State Robert Jenrick quietly announced that he wouldn’t be calling in plans for a new coal mine in West Cumbria.

The mine, the first on British soil in over 30 years, was previously approved last year by Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors on Cumbria County Council.

It now looks set to go ahead despite condemnations from every major environmental organisation in the UK, and even Greta Thunberg.

Now we learn that Environment Secretary George Eustice has given farmers approval to use the bee-killing pesticide, neonicotinoid thiamethoxam.

The pesticide was banned by the European Union in 2018 due to the fatal effect it has on bees, and the Government pledged to keep pesticide restrictions after Brexit.

In fact, we were promised greater environmental regulations post-Brexit by Michael Gove when he was Environment Secretary.

The Wildlife Trusts have launched a campaign to the Prime Minister to urge him to overturn this decision.

To sign their petition and send a letter to your MP, visit: wildlifetrusts.org.

Jack Lenox

address supplied

Virus

Consider all the options

There has never been a time like this in all history.

The availability of information on the internet is truly staggering.

There is no excuse to not research a subject from differing angles and to never trust just one source of news.

Science is a constantly changing subject with a jostling of hypotheses for viability.

It was the work of one man to prove that blood flowed round the body; William Harvey in 1628 in London.

It was to be a long time before this fact was accepted and used to cure patients.

Sometimes vested interests by an elite group of ‘experts’ block progress.

Ignatz Semmelweiss was banned from being a doctor in Vienna in 1850.

He had the audacity to prove that doctors using hand disinfectant were more likely to prevent patients dying after an operation.

One of the key factors here is open debate and a preparedness to learn and think outside the box.

The World Health Organisation issues daily updates on the rolling total of deaths per million from Covid-19 by country.

At the time of writing, the figures indicate 1,307 for the United Kingdom.

Compare this with the following countries: Denmark 301; Belarus 166; South Korea 24; Taiwan 0.3.

Can we learn something from these ( and other countries)? I would suggest we can.

I suspect that the UK Government quite likes the power they have abrogated to rule us.

I also suggest that the ‘experts’ on Sage are not prepared to consider they have made mistakes.

I have no medical training, but have taken the effort to study the subject via the internet.

What fascinates me is the methodology in Taiwan, where they are using massive booster prescriptions of vitamins, especially C and D3.

Why does the media not report from Taiwan?

I have only one interest in the subject.

That is to see more lives being saved. Our politicians are not offering the leadership we need to end this crisis.

Edward Johnson

address supplied

Post

Ironic stamps

Having been a keen stamp collector in the 1950s, I was interested to see the imaginative new designs for postage stamps.

However, as a keen Boy Scout at the same time, I was taught that, when flying the Union Flag, the broader part of the white diagonal stripe should be above, not below, its inner stripe, as pictured in these designs.

This was so instilled in us that I cannot help these days looking at any Union Flag to see if it is being flown the right way up.

Often our athletes, when wrapping the flag around their shoulders to celebrate success, get it wrong.

I also remember it being said (somewhere) that to fly the Union Flag upside down is an indication of distress.

If that is true, then perhaps in our current situation, these stamps are the supreme irony.

Garry Swann

via email