Letters - Thursday, November 19, 2020

With the lockdown and all the current Covid restriction some have predicted that Christmas is cancelled this year.

Well, Christmas was never going to be cancelled. It will take place on December 25 as usual.

Just as Easter, Eid, Rosh Hashanah, Diwali and all other religious festivals have. The main difference is the huge commercial interest in Christmas.

The fact that some of the restrictions/guidelines will still be in place is something that can be worked with.

How many millions of people have celebrated their birthday on their own?

The situation that we are in surely gives us the opportunity to reflect on the true meaning of Christmas. Christ came to serve us and give the lead on how to love God and love one another.

Has the fantastic community spirit that grew so quickly at the start of pandemic started to wane? Churches are preparing to celebrate Christmas the best way they can.

Some, we hope, will be open for public services. The number of attendees will be limited but many of the churches ‘live-stream,’ giving many people the opportunity to give praise to God and ask him to continue helping us through this pandemic.

Christmas is definitely NOT cancelled.

Chris Barwise

address supplied

Virus

Use of Army should be rolled out more

With Defence Secretary Ben Wallace in Liverpool and Col (retired) Barry Clayton telling The Gazette troops should be used to tackle the virus (Your Say, November 16), this is to be welcomed as it is a good use of the military rather than taking part in US-led wars for oil, as in Iraq 2003.

But why not bring troops home from places like Germany, Cyprus and Northern Ireland to help with mass vaccination programme and close the bases in those foreign outposts once and for all?

That way we will have even more trained personnel to give the vaccine and the costs saved from maintaining those bases abroad will be diverted to more socially useful projects.

Royston Jones

Anchorsholme

USA politics

What now for Trump?

I watched the recent President Obama interview and remembered what was and then looked forward to what could be with the new presidency. One minor story amused me. After the completion of his term, President Obama was doing some reading while being driven somewhere and the car stopped. The reason the car had stopped was because there was a red light and for almost all of the last decade there had been no red lights in his way. He was back to facing parts of a normal citizen’s life, although still realistically being in a privileged position.

Most ex-presidents have continued to live a public life and kept working in roles that helped to make the country better. The job is really for life although it is uncertain how President Trump will contribute after his retirement, apart from supporting the golfing community.

What many people fear, especially probably Republicans although they might not admit it, is that he will have a significant role and maybe control of the Republican Party, its nature and direction. The Republican Party needs to lick its wounds and start to look at how it can return to its true nature and ignore the worst of its voices.

Accept the 2020 decision, look to work with the other side, especially in regard to the Covid-19 pandemic, as so many are dying, and the social and economic environment, which needs to be helped.

Dennis Fitzgerald

via email

Politics

Could MPs vote via an app?

Lockdown has shown that taxpayers are paying more than we should for accommodation for our MPs.

Businesses are using Teams or Zoom for meetings, why not MPs? I accept they may need to be in Westminster for Prime Minister’s Question Time but they can stay in a hotel the night before or catch the early train to London and travel back after Question Time.

In today’s age of technology, no-one needs to be in Westminster to vote.

We now do many things using apps. MPs could vote using an app. As long as they have Wi-Fi, they could vote from any part of the country.

David Speight

via email