Boris Johnson must do the right thing and delay lockdown easing

Boris Johnson must do the right thing and delay lockdown easing at the end of June, if the scientific evidence says so.

The Indian Covid variant is more transmissible than the Kent variant and lots of young people, who were the main ones spreading the virus last September, are yet to be vaccinated.

Add to this the fact that under-fifties are still only starting to get the second jab, surely the prime minister needs to seek the right advice and take a more cautious approach, if advised?

In my opinion, Johnson is doing a great job, along with Matt Hancock, even though some love to criticise from the sidelines with the benefit of hindsight.

So please Mr Johnson, if you have to, play it safe, delay easing, and save lives because, in the long run, you will gain more respect.

Geoffrey Brooking

Hampshire

Patrick Cockburn rightly draws parallels between the current leadership’s mishandling of the Covid crisis and the generalship of the First World War in the battle of the Somme. He points out that in both cases they are not held to account because, if things improve, people, in general, prefer to focus on the later good news and not the preceding bad news.

Amazingly, a sizeable proportion of the population still has faith in the Boris Johnson administration despite the thousands of unnecessary deaths that could be attributed to a lack of any coherent plan for dealing with a pandemic.

Patrick Cockburn also makes a comparison with other populist leaders such as Donald Trump, Narendra Modi and Jan Bolsonarol all of whom adopted a casual approach to Covid with disastrous results.

Another analogy that could be used is that so many people are hooked on reality tv shows that bear no relation to real life but act as an escape route from the everyday tedium that is their lot.

This could explain why Boris Johnson et al keep a strong base of support. A boring competent administration that just gets on with the task has less appeal than an incompetent government led by a cuddly teddy bear.

Patrick Cleary

Stonehouse

The reason that insurers, and probably the government, are reluctant to provide insurance cover for the possibility of cancelling festivals due to Covid is regrettable, but understandable.

Most insurance operates on the principle of shared and distributed risk. For example, an insurer will cover the risk of a house burning down, because the probability of any one house burning down is finite, but fortunately very small. Therefore they are able to price the insurance premium on the basis of this low and fairly predictable probability.

Insuring against a delay in the relaxation of lockdown measures is a very different proposition. If the next step goes ahead on 21 June, all the festivals will take place. If it's delayed, a large number will have to be cancelled. That makes it impossible to calculate a premium that is fair and reasonable for both the festivals and the insurers. Either the premium is set at a level that can be afforded by the organisers, but might bankrupt the insurers, or at a much higher level that covers the risk but would be unaffordable.

John Coppendale

Cambridge

So Boris Johnson didn’t know how the No 10 refurbishment was being paid for. So Mr Hancock didn’t know there was a ministerial conflict of interest with shares in his sister’s company. So they are both being let off the hook. Is this the new defence to be deployed in future Boards of Inquiry? Such an alibi would mean there wouldn’t be a single miscreant in the land. Is this what is meant by levelling up the country?

Lesley Salter

Stockbridge

Once again it seems that the government is being distracted from making the right decisions to combat Covid-19 and give us back our freedoms.

The scientific evidence is that any of the current vaccinations against Covid-19 will also provide protection against the Indian variant of the virus. So, instead of wasting energy arguing about the rights and wrongs of delaying the relaxation of restrictions in June, the government should surely be using all its energies, and more, to get everybody vaccinated in the shortest possible time.

Jerry Wallwork

Leicester

Who better to implement a grand levelling up agenda than one so in tune with ordinary lives that he thinks it appropriate to allegedly spend £30,000 of taxpayers’ money plus tens of thousands more of other people's money on the unnecessary redecoration of a property with such a short (hopefully) lease?

And now, it transpires, he has allegedly been in receipt of £27,000 worth of takeaway food. That's probably more than the annual income of many recent Tory converts in the red wall seats. What is stopping them from seeing this man for what he is? 

G Forward 

Stirling