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Your support makes all the difference.Having just read the article claiming Boris Johnson is finding it difficult to afford a nanny on his salary of £150,000 a year (Boris Johnson’s friends believe he is worried about affording a nanny after taking pay cut: ‘He doesn’t have a housekeeper’), I can only say my heart bleeds for him.
Are we supposed to feel sorry for him? There are people on minimum wage, doing more than one job; masses of people worrying about being made redundant due to the pandemic; families who have to use food banks just to survive; the homeless; women born in the 1950s who have to wait longer to access their pension; households on the verge of eviction who for no fault of their own cannot pay their rent; people who cannot afford the funeral costs for loved ones lost due to the virus; over 80s who cannot afford a television license.
This prime minister is not only self-centred and, in my view, morally bankrupt, he doesn’t seem to have any idea how people have to manage on a fraction of the income he is paid.
R Wells
Portland
Time to look for work
It must be tough struggling along on £150,000 a year plus presumably very generous expenses, free accommodation, free transport, free Caribbean holidays and lots more besides.
It would be extraordinary to imagine that the prime minister had no other savings from his previous £350,000 a year income, or any inherited wealth, but he and he alone decided to take on the job and to father a new child, and if he is anywhere near as successful as Tony Blair in cashing in in his time as prime minister, he’s unlikely to ever have any money worries. Besides, his partner doesn't work, so why does he need a nanny anyway? If Boris Johnson is really strapped for cash, maybe (like so many families in the UK) his partner needs to go out and get a job.
G Forward
Stirling
Boris Johnson’s analogies
It's a small, small fish in the ocean of his incompetence but the PM cannot even get his analogies right.
A pandemic most definitely does not require a “circuit break”, it requires a fire break. The latter has a chance of preventing further spread; the former just halts proceedings for exactly the time that the circuit is broken then starts up as before...
Amanda Baker
Edinburgh
Recruiting nurses
This weekend, you published an interview with Ruth May, the NHS chief nurse, in which she talked of the need for more nurses and revealed that 6500 “international” nurses are being recruited. She believes that this recruitment is being carried out in an “ethical” manner (NHS chief nurse sets out £180m plan to boost nursing workforce ahead of winter).
The main sources of trained medical staff are India and the Philippines. These two countries provide people who have good spoken English, are trained to a high standard, and have a strong work ethic, which is why they are so attractive to this country and the USA.
At the last count, there were around 15,000 nurses from the Philippines in the NHS. Meanwhile, back in their home country, the health service is struggling with coronavirus and one of the main problems is a lack of trained nurses.
The reason nurses come to this country is superior pay and working conditions. We can afford to give them something better than their home country can afford. You cannot blame the nurses for wanting to provide for their families.
The NHS appears to be unable to recruit nurses domestically, a problem which stretches back decades and includes large scale recruitment in the Caribbean in the 1950s and 1960s. It seems the easiest solution is to take nurses from other countries that can ill afford to lose them. But how this can be in any way ethical is difficult to comprehend.
Bernard Cudd
Morpeth
Stop blaming young people
Janet Street-Porter, stop blaming youngsters for going out (The thought of a second nationwide lockdown fills me with dread). The government told us all to do just that and I am surrounded by middle-aged and older Covidiots who did just that and surprise, surprise, they too are getting ill.
We are all in this together, coronavirus can kill anyone it chooses.
Stop with the arguably ageist arguments and encourage everyone to act responsibly, signed, a middle-aged, overweight asthmatic with a daughter at Newcastle uni who is trying to behave responsibly when she has already lost half of her first year.
John Sinclair
Pocklington
Stag hunting
It will be interesting to hear the government’s explanation for why no Covid-19 rules have been broken by its mounted chums’ attempts to rid the world of these despicable animals, stags that is of course (Coronavirus: Over 120 people meet for stag hunt 'making mockery of social sacrifices by others).
Eddie Dougall
Walsham le Willows
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