It’s madness to spend billions on the Olympics during a pandemic that’s crippled economies and health services

Given the Covid pandemic, how can it be justified to spend billions of dollars to fly thousands of people across the world to gather together for a few weeks to skateboard and surf, as well as compete in traditional sporting events, with no spectators and diminished TV audiences prepared to watch what are mostly boring events?

Sorry, but surely during a health and economic crisis all this money should have been used to stem the virus and assist those who have suffered the economic consequences of the long shutdown. The Olympic Games in Tokyo are total madness. It is time they were reverted to their original sporting democratic ideals.

Peter Fieldman

Address supplied

During this pandemic the frontline workers have done an amazing job. Nurses, doctors and all NHS support workers, teachers, the police and so many more. However, they have had a stable income and in some cases received overtime.

That does not justify year on year pay reductions before the pandemic, but I would argue now is not the time for strikes and threats of strikes.

Politicians are keen to say we are all in this together and I understand unions are there to support their members, but there are others in many areas: hospitality, transport, the self-employed and more who do not have the support others can receive. There are those who have lost their jobs, had reduced hours, lost income and worse.

The furlough scheme has supported many, but not everyone, and sick pay in this country is appalling.

What we lack is leadership and a vision to look beyond tomorrow. If “levelling up” is to become a reality and not just a sound bite then there needs to be a real effort to make public service workers valued. A value is not something that can be measured in financial reward alone nor does it help when private and public sectors are pitted against each.

Without both contributing to our economy and being valued equally we will continue with an unequal society and “levelling up” will be a pipe dream.

Graham Jarvis

Leeds

I read your editorial with interest and agreement. Whatever possessed Sajid Javid to come out fighting with these ill-chosen words which he has apologised for? But as you state, it does flag up concerns that our new health secretary is anxious to keep on the gung-ho side of his libertarian colleagues.

Yes, he has recovered fully from his dose of Covid. Well, bully for him, but many people still haven’t or languish with long Covid. I appreciate he was making a link between the vaccine and a less serious attack of the virus, but a smidgeon of tact and compassion would not go amiss.

Yes, we do have to live with this virus but many of us are still wearing masks and are wary of the rhetoric emanating from the government. Matt Hancock, before his disastrous fall from grace, did intuit people’s concerns and was less bullish. Sajid Javid needs to take this on board and utilise more nuanced speech in the future or he will be on a collision course with perhaps dangerous consequences, which he won’t be able to delete quite so easily.

Judith A Daniels

Great Yarmouth, Norfolk

I have a problem with the neverending calls to spend more upon our National Health Service, because we do in fact spend pretty much the European average on health care. So if our system is worse than those others then it’s not the money which is the issue – it’s the system and how it’s run.

Yet we are continually told that the NHS is a more efficient manner of running health care than any other method. We are led to believe that by banishing the wastefulness of competition/profits and leaving only the cooperation not mediated by money, we have a system that maximises output compared to input.

If that is true then the NHS should be cheaper than other European health systems or we should get a better system for the same cash. Of course this isn’t what is said when the NHS budget is discussed. It’s always that more should be spent on the NHS because it’s so very special.

In fact our NHS is very special – just not in a good way. We should concentrate on its make-up instead, removing what makes it so “very special”. A de facto two-tier system providing a rump of core services while the rest is rationed unless one can pay would seem to offer scope for improvement.

Dr John Cameron

St Andrews, Scotland

I should like to show my “support” for the cut this government wants to make on the income of those receiving the massively generous universal credit. Losing the £20 per week boost it introduced last year obviously leaves more than enough to live off, right?

And in the spirit of such levelling up, may I suggest every individual and business is obliged to take a similar cut to their income before tax – not their salary, but to their incomes? Oh, lose 21 per cent, Mr Johnson? Not so happy now are you? Yet you and your colleagues could take the hit so much more easily than the people who are receiving universal credit.

See, we can solve the Covid debt so easily if we share it among us and not just kick those least able to survive.

Judith Marris

Bath

Will Prince Harry’s promised autobiography tell us much we don’t already know? Personally, I doubt it.

In recent years the royals have had a laser-like light shone on them pretty much non-stop. As a result, it seems unlikely anything very new will be revealed.

The Rev Andrew McLuskey

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