Letters - Saturday January 30, 2021

It is possible that lockdown restrictions will be ended in just over a month and at some time our battered hospitality industry will be allowed to reopen.

It is likely that air travel will remain restricted for some time and is then likely to be more costly while travel to Europe, even when permitted, will face the new border restrictions and requirements.

This must surely mean that domestic holidays are likely to see a surge. In which case, it should not be just those directly involved in the hospitality and leisure industries that should be readying themselves but all of us.

We need to seize this opportunity to showcase our town so that our guests enjoy themselves to the point of wanting to return. Our leisure and hospitality industries are the backbone of our economy so we all benefit if they thrive.

We all have a part to play, even if small, by encouraging those in these industries, tidying our properties, perhaps with a lick of paint, clearing up litter and dog dirt and consciously adopting a welcoming smile for our guests when they come.

Let’s prepare ourselves to see our great town thrive and blossom.

Rev’d Canon Dr Simon Cox

Hon. Assistant Curate, ‘The Trinity Parish’

(St Mark’s Layton, St Luke’s Staining & Hope Community Church, Grange Park)

NHS

No plans to sell off the health service

Sadly there is still much scaremongering about the future of the NHS (Your Say, January 28). To clarify some facts, Conservative MPs did not vote against the NHS when the House of Lords tabled an amendment.

This was a pointless amendment to create a false narrative that the NHS is being sold off.

The NHS has never been ‘on the table’ and there are absolutely no plans to sell it off or hand it over to any other countries.

Voting down the stunt of an amendment is not a set-back for the NHS, the Government rightly rejected a pointless exercise to grab headlines.

The NHS is perfectly safe and I wish politicians on the left would stop treating it as a political football.

Coun Christian Cox

Blackpool

Virus

Disgusted by Keir Starmer’s behaviour

I am, together with the rest of our Island, am deeply upset at the sad loss of life due to this wretched pandemic.

Having seen our distraught PM, I am disgusted that during the Prime Minister’s Questions today the Opposition Leader was attempting to directly blame the PM for these deaths.

Anyone with any common sense will know that the Covid Virus originated in Wuhan (China) and if he wishes to lay blame at anyone’s door then China is extremely culpable for this pandemic.

Apparently this virus had stricken Wuhan for approximately one month before it was reported as a deadly virus.

Why does the Opposition seek to gain an advantage at any opportunity, instead of behaving with dignity and respect at such a time of great national sadness.

It would appear that having lost Jeremy Corbyn as Leader, the Party has replaced him with yet another publicity seeker. How can Keir Starmer lay such onus another human being?

Dismayed

via email

Virus

Dither, delay and dismiss

One hundred thousand and counting. What an avoidable tragedy. The history of the pandemic, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s response, has been one of dithering, delaying and dismissing.

His ‘best’ was not good enough.

He was ‘out of his depth’ from inception and sadly his Old Etonian, Oxford classics background was of no help.

The final toll, taking into account patients not presenting for cancer diagnosis, treatments and surveillance – I was such a patient – will never be fully known.

PM Johnson may claim credit for the vaccine, but do not be misled. The vaccine is the result of the world’s top university, Oxford, in collaboration with the manufacturer AstraZeneca.

Alan Sheraton

address supplied

Education

Vaccinate teachers before school

The reopening of schools is all very well – but only when all the staff are vaccinated should the children be allowed to return.

Jarvis Brown

via email