Scrapping Covid restrictions is not a moment of pride – it’s monumental stupidity

Future generations will look back and describe the complete abandonment of Covid restrictions in the UK not as a moment of pride, but as a moment of monumental stupidity.

Sadly, there are huge numbers of people who believe the pandemic is over and that everything is returning to “normal”. They will be hugely disillusioned when they find an NHS that can only deal with those who are critically ill, A&E departments that have to prioritise genuine emergencies, and ambulances that take hours to reach their destinations.

Boris and his chums can just pop down to private hospitals instead – but perhaps they will get the same rude awakening when they realise that these hospitals are also unable to cope due to staffing problems.

What the general public don’t realise is that the same doctors who are required by the NHS also have their private clinics. Will they be asked to prioritise the NHS, or is this the perfect excuse for more backdoor privatisation of healthcare?

Brian Ferguson

York

What should be the response by Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance to the ending of all Covid restrictions without any consultation with scientific advisers? Your editorial hopes they may well make clear their own coded misgivings about the danger of complacency.

I very much hope that their response is not “coded” but blunt. Maybe resignations from the podium would be suitably forceful.

Alan Pack

Canterbury, Kent

I agree with Harriet Williamson (PM’s Partygate stalling will not impress the public, 21 February), I too watched Sophie Raworth’s trenchant questioning of the prime minister with respect. She inhabited an effective and stern headmistress persona, as if confronting a disobedient sixth former who was suspected to have flouted house rules.

I also felt that Raworth was trying to suggest that any leader worth their moral salt and found to have broken Covid rules would find their position untenable. This was a masterclass of obfuscation and desperately trying to shift the narrative.

Williamson is right that the public are not willing to forgive or forget, and to think otherwise is strictly for the birds.

Judith A Daniels

Great Yarmouth, Norfolk

Well done Connor Jackson for highlighting the utterly horrific and heartbreaking animal abuse that the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg believe should be protected, all in the name of “personal choice” for the consumer of fur and foie gras. He actually thinks the tastes of such consumers override the prolonged, dreadful suffering of the animals involved.

I have campaigned for animal welfare for decades and I found Rees-Mogg’s remarks literally breathtaking, so appalling, complacent and shocking were his stated opinions.

Labour – take note. Animal cruelty is loathed by most of the population. The vast majority want to make fox hunting illegal without exception. They want puppy farming eradicated. They want farm animals protected rigorously at the farm and treated with the utmost consideration at the ghastly slaughterhouse.

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The Tories are not fit to govern in any respect, but if you want to touch the public’s most sensitive nerve, forget the deplorable Partygate, it’s animal cruelty that arouses the most visceral disgust and anger. Rees-Mogg, and his like-minded colleagues are a disgrace and not fit to hold public office.

Penny Little

Great Haseley, Oxfordshire

Your article How your brain wrestles with the ethics of eating animals offers up a lot of food for thought. Most people who love animals such as dogs have never questioned why they eat certain other animals, such as pigs, and that’s because of carnism.

Carnism is the invisible belief system, or ideology, that conditions us to eat certain animals and to never question why. It enables compassionate people to support violent industries by accepting myths such as “eating certain animals is normal, natural and necessary” – beliefs that make little ethical or logical sense but which sufficiently disconnect us from our natural empathy toward these animals.

Most people were outraged when footage emerged of footballer Kurt Zouma abusing his cat. Many were also horrified when they learned – in some cases for the first time – how cows suffer for dairy by watching A Cow’s Life: The True Cost of Milk? It’s clear that we hate seeing animals suffer, because we’re naturally wired to feel empathy.

Carnism distorts our natural empathy. So we must try to connect the dots and keep ourselves informed about the industries that we’re supporting. By becoming aware of and exposing carnism, we can choose to reject it and make choices that align better with our core values of compassion, justice, and empathy. For without awareness, there is no free choice.

Nirali Shah

Fleet, Hampshire