Letters - Wednesday, October 21, 2020

When our nation is threatened, as in the current Covid crisis, it appears the Government can make available as many resources as necessary to tackle it.

However, with Covid, once the virus has been controlled, it will leave in its aftermath an economic legacy which will affect large swathes of the UK.

This will again require the necessary resources as well as some ingenuity and ‘blue sky’ thinking from Dominic Cummings and his colleagues in order to prevent long-term permanent damage to our society.

The legacy in question will be the spectre of boarded-up ghost towns, many, still to this day, struggling from the impact of the neo-liberal economic policy advocated by Margaret Thatcher’s favourite economist, one Friedrich von Hayek.

Covid, or more accurately, the control policy of lockdowns, has created a fundamental shift in the nation’s shopping habits. Changing from that of a personal / sociable, touchy feely bricks and mortar experience to that of online shopping from the comfort of your bedroom but socially isolated.

This has benefitted some, such as Amazon, and decimated others, such as the fashion, hospitality and entertainment industries, the very backbone of our culture.

To avert this, I would suggest the following:

. Convert the town centres into a mixture of residential property, bars, clubs and restaurants serving a variety of world cuisine.

. This creates much needed jobs for tradesmen and their apprentices, whilst boosting the building material supply and house furnishing sector. This may involve compulsory purchases by local government, but will take some load from green belt land.

. Pedestrianise as much of the area as possible, creating a greener, more pleasant space.

. Provide extensive all-weather outside dining areas, much like Spain in the winter, and creating a more Covid-safe environment.

Funding for this could be augmented by a Covid windfall tax on the UK’s billionaires, who have done quite well from Covid.

Over the long term, the increased economic activity thus generated and tax paid would feed back into the Exchequer.

R Spreadbury,

Address supplied

Virus

More help needed in the county

The new tier three restrictions affecting people across Lancashire are unfortunately necessary due to the rising infection rates in the region.

However, it is clear they will have a devastating impact on people’s finances and the Government’s handling of this crisis in this region has been nowhere near sufficient.

People are confused and no longer have any trust in what the Government is advising them to do.

We need our communities to trust and support measures in order to keep everybody safe, but for this to happen, communities must also feel supported.

A universal basic income would help people to do the right thing during lockdown and prevent anyone from falling through the gaps this winter.

Gina Dowding

Lancashire County Councillor and former North West MEP

Politics

Bullingdon Boris the insensitive oaf

Recently we have seen the news that Bullingdon Boris is tipped to quit in six months because he is struggling to manage on £150 402 per year as the PM.

Reports state that he has at least six children to support, this hardly inspires confidence when he can’t be sure as to how many children he has, let alone run the country.

He has seen that Theresa May has earned more than a million since quitting as PM and he believes that he could easily double that.

It appears that people will pay quite a lot to see how to lie your way to a fortune.

Has he paused even for a moment, to think how people who are existing week to week on what amounts to £10 000 a year or less, people on 67 per cent of the minimum wage or unemployment benefits, feel about his ‘struggle’? Clearly not.

This insensitive oaf thinks that by then he will be able to say “I got Brexit done” and then he’s hoping that the worst of the virus will have passed so that he will also claim “I’ve beaten Covid”. I hope he does go but I’ll only remember him as the Bullingdon Boy who could put “Billy’s Weekly Liar” to shame.

Terry Bennett

Blackpool

Virus

University error by the Government

Surely the time has come for a national lockdown to get Covid-19 back under control.

One thing preventing this could well be the Government’s reluctance to admit that sending schools and universities back at the same time was a huge error of judgement. They ignored a risk which only a fool could not have seen coming.

On September 21, a meeting of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) advised the Government “all university and college teaching to be online unless face to face teaching is absolutely essential.”

If this has been implemented, it would have meant that all course fees and accommodation charges would have to have been reclaimed from the Government by any student who asked.

Boris Johnson and his gang of incompetent Brexit fanatics are interested in only one thing. When will they be held to account?

John Prance

Lancashire