SIR – When it takes weeks for civil servants to provide Covid-19 data to local health officials, and then the Department of Health and Social Care takes 12 days to react before imposing a local lockdown in Leicester (report, July 1), we have all the evidence we need to conclude that our Government is not prepared for any second wave of the virus.
With no tracing app and a wholly inadequate flow of information, any “whack-a-mole” strategy is going to come long after the event – even if, by sheer luck, it occurs in the right area. Public Health England has not just been sluggish: it has not even been at the races.
Kim Potter
Lambourn, Berkshire
SIR – While I sympathise with residents and businesses in Leicester, it isn’t the Government and local authorities who should be blamed, but those who continue to ignore the regulations and congregate in large numbers. If people carry on behaving selfishly, there will surely be more lockdowns, causing even more upset.
Fiona Macfarlane
Bath, Somerset
SIR – On the day Leicester was put into lockdown, Leicester Racecourse held an evening meeting. On Saturday Leicester City football club is due to stage a home match in the city centre.
The events are held behind closed doors but, even if these sports have robust Covid-19 measures in place, what sort of example do they set? Both events involve a significant number of people travelling to and from the city.
Beverley Carr
Rothley, Leicestershire
SIR – My wife being secretary of our church council, I have just read the Government’s newly issued guidance on the safe use of places of worship from July 4.
This consists of page upon page of self-evident, patronising guff, all in the name of regulating a small section of the community who are organising weekly gatherings of a few responsible adults in spacious buildings, usually for a period of less than one hour.
If the civil servants preparing the equivalent documents for the reopening of schools are of the same mindset, it is little wonder that the teaching unions are having a field day.
Edward Mason
Lancaster
SIR – Like Ray Ramsay (Letters, July 1), I have cancer in both lungs, but I do not seek advice from the Government on whether I should continue shielding.
I fail to see why the Government should tell me how to conduct my life. I intend to go out and about as I see fit.
D M Retallack
Dorchester
SIR – Four relatively small countries, all making their own laws and doing their own thing. Whatever happened to the U in UK?
John Maddison
Lincoln
Israel slandered
SIR – Why does the media persist in describing the allegation in Maxine Peake’s interview (report, June 26), shared by Rebecca Long-Bailey, as “an alleged anti-Semitic trope”?
It read: “The tactics used by the police in America, kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, that was learned from seminars with Israeli secret services.” The implication being that Israel developed the methods, taught them to US police, and further used them against Palestinians – so was ultimately responsible for Mr Floyd’s death.
The media (and, belatedly, Ms Peake) know these allegations to be false, invented to slander the state of Israel and, by inference, those who speak up for it. They are the very definition of an anti-Semitic trope; there is nothing “alleged” about them.
That Black Lives Matter should seek to conflate these issues with the debate as to whether it is right for Israel to apply its civil law to citizens living in communities in Judea and Samaria is unfortunate, as it drives a wedge between BLM – and its laudable aims – and the broader Jewish community.
Brian Gedalla
Deputy, Finchley Synagogue
London N3
Magistrate justice
SIR – Timothy Goss (Letters, July 1) says: “Ninety-five per cent of trials take place in magistrates’ courts, where three lay magistrates act as the jury. This seems to work, partly because magistrates are chosen for their common sense.”
When I joined the Metropolitan Police Service in 1965, almost all my court appearances were presided over by stipendiary magistrates, who as a rule dispensed justice in a far more insightful and efficient manner than the local lay magistrates.
The levels of recidivism from our magistrates’ courts are too high. The system has merit, as it gives ordinary citizens a say in the judicial process – but as a means of dealing with “lower-end” crime, it is a costly failure.
P A Feltham
Stoneleigh, Surrey
Ring in the beer
SIR – Lists of user-friendly bars (Letters, July 1) will always lead with Maurice’s Peacock Inn in Nottingham, during the swinging Seventies.
Bells on the wall would bring pints of Shipstone’s in a jiffy, delivered with banter from another era.
Roger Steer
Beauvoir-sur-Mer, Vendée, France
SIR – We encourage the Government, the London Mayor and the Culture and Creative Industries Unit to look into finding a space in central London for a fitting monument to honour those of Afro-Caribbean descent who played a part in making Britain great.
To make this happen, the charity One Voice For Freedom is launching a campaign, Our Plinth – already underwritten to the tune of £500,000.
One Voice for Freedom was created to raise awareness of the extensive abuse of human rights worldwide suffered by Afro-Caribbeans during the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Britain needs a fitting memorial to such abuse: one to commemorate the slaves who helped to build the country but whose contributions go without reward or recognition. Britain also needs a place where Afro-Caribbeans and the diaspora can connect with their ancestors.
Currently, the country lacks any prominent physical representation of this significant and very real chapter of its history. We hope that this gesture towards this specific community will also help us all to consider and condemn injustice – regardless of a person’s race, class, or religion – worldwide.
Anthony Joshua
Charles Dance
Eunice Olumide
Lord Oates (Lib Dem)
Nick Westcott
Director, The Royal African Society
Ozwald Boateng
Amanda Mealing
Ashley Walters
Chris Cleverly
Clarke Peters
Dr Mark Sealey
Hugh Quarshie
Noel Clarke
Paul Gladstone Reid
Prof Kevin Bales
Rama Gheerawo
Director, Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design
Reggie Norton
Former Chair of Anti Slavery International
Vanita Patel
Zeinab Badawi
May’s appointments
SIR – In 2012 the then Home Secretary, Theresa May, appointed, for the first time ever, a National Policing Adviser (Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary) who had no previous policing experience whatsoever.
Is this the same Theresa May who this week criticised the appointment of a National Security Adviser on the grounds of lack of relevant experience (report, July 1)?
Sir Keith Povey
HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary 2002-05
Sheffield, South Yorkshire
Waiting for the dentist
SIR – I still can’t get dental treatment in Coventry.
On Tuesday, I was told that if my severely broken tooth became too painful, I would be referred to an emergency centre to have it extracted.
This is unacceptable. Nurses and doctors have cared for coronavirus patients throughout the pandemic, yet some dentists still appear to think it’s too dangerous to treat their patients.
Muriel Allen
Coventry, Warwickshire
Don’t fire up the BBQ
SIR – The call for a ban on portable barbecues in some parts of the country (report, June 4) is understandable, following the fires in the New Forest.
However, this should surely extend to a nationwide ban on the import and sale of these unnecessary objects. No one needs to cook food outdoors in the countryside. Those who do and then leave used barbecues for someone else to clear away should realise that not only do these pose a fire risk; they are also not recyclable.
Barbecued food is often frequently very unhealthy as it can beis often either undercooked or burnt on the outside. Those who wish to cook in this way should do so at home withon proper equipment.
Bob Kingsland
Stroud, Gloucestershire
Cold War diplomacy that ruffled feathers
SIR – The pelicans in St James’s Park, which featured in a photo-story (June 16) in your paper, have an interesting history.
Pelicans were presented to Charles II by the Russian ambassador in 1664, and since that time the Russian embassy has continued the custom.
At some point during the Cold War, the US ambassador decided to make a similar gesture, but the story goes that American birds did not get on well with the Russian ones. A diplomatic spat ensued until it was discovered that the American birds were the wrong type and they were replaced. Diplomatic calm was restored.
I hope that the birds look both ways – left and right – when crossing the Mall.
Paul Loxton Edwards
Petham, Kent
Quick building mustn’t compromise on quality
SIR – Boris’s Johnson’s “new deal” (report, June 30) to get the economy moving appears to abandon planning permission so that offices can quickly be converted into housing – but the regulations are there to make sure that buildings are safe and fit for purpose.
Building any old thing fast may be good for a quick profit, but it will lead to problems in the future. If Mr Johnson wants to speed anything up, it should be the planning. Surely the Grenfell Tower fire showed that planning and building control needs to be rigorous and properly applied.
Sarah Dinsdale-Young
Giffnock, Renfrewshire
SIR – Here in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, the head of planning submitted evidence on an application for a large development that the flats were “too small, the tower blocks too close together … set side by side west to east minimising sunlight to between 11am and 2pm, making them very dark”, and concluded that, if allowed, they would be “the slums of the future”.
The councillors still voted them through. Just think what a relaxation of those rules could allow.
Charles Hollingsworth
Maidenhead, Berkshire
SIR – Franklin D Roosevelt’s New Deal included numerous life-enhancing arts projects such as the Mercury Theatre, an independent repertory company founded in New York City in 1937 by Orson Welles and the producer John Houseman. The Prime Minister has offered only further employment prospects for the largely unaffected civil engineering sector.
How can his unimaginative Government ignore a multibillion-pound, profit-making arts industry?
Stephen Brickley
Sheffield, South Yorkshire
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