Letters: The new lockdown reflects a Government lost in short-term thinking

SIR – Lockdowns are like diets: they only work temporarily and, when they finish, the situation returns to what it was before, or perhaps a little worse.

Just as management of body weight is a lifelong issue, so it seems that Covid-19 is here to stay, certainly for this winter and possibly permanently. We need to find ways of living with it that do not wreck our society.

Roger H Helm FRCS
Doncaster, South Yorkshire

SIR – Someone should whisper in Boris Johnson’s ear: “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”

The current Covid strategy is failing. Applying restrictions based on individual risk is the only way forward – especially given the doubts about the likely effectiveness of any vaccine.

Mike McKone
Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria

SIR – It is now clear who is at greatest risk from Covid-19. The elderly need protecting, and others who are vulnerable should be advised to stay at home. Everyone else should get on with their lives (responsibly).

We don’t want a nanny state – and we certainly don’t want a police state.

Robert Wood
Edinburgh

SIR – In his address to the Cambridge Law Society, Lord Sumption stated that our fundamental human rights (such as those of free association) cannot be overtaken by the generalist rules of recent parliamentary Acts.

I look forward to the rest of the country catching up with him and our rights being returned.

Dr Alan Watt
Mill Green, Essex

SIR – The scientists advising the Government overstated the likely effects of Covid earlier this year. Now they have made further doom-laden forecasts for November and December.

However, many of us (including other distinguished scientists) do not believe them or their modelling conclusions. If they are proved wrong again, they should be dumped and others appointed to guide policy with a more realistic approach.

John Pritchard
Ingatestone, Essex

SIR – The idea of having a lockdown before and after Christmas, but lifting it during Christmas to let families mingle, does not appear to follow the science. This virus will not respect a Christmas truce, and numbers will simply flare up again in January.

Keith Appleyard
West Wickham, Kent

SIR – Is there any way of moderating the Prime Minister’s obsession with Christmas? Throw businesses into more chaos, reduce to destitution the poorest in society and incur eye-watering national debt – so that for just one day people can sit down for a meal with their families? Let’s have a bit more rationality.

Christina White
Rushden, Northamptonshire

Starmer’s judgment

SIR – In light of the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s verdict on anti-Semitism within Labour, what does it say about Sir Keir Starmer’s judgment that he served in Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet for three years during which the party was breaking the law?

Rhidian Llewellyn
London SW19

Welcoming refugees

SIR – Since the First World War, Britain’s refugee resettlement schemes have been a lifeline for tens of thousands of people escaping the world’s most brutal conflicts and regimes. Most recently, the Government’s Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme has seen nearly 20,000 Syrian refugees resettled.

This was made possible by collaboration with local authorities, plus the piloting of Canadian-style community sponsorship of refugees by civil society groups. Growing numbers of people in our congregations have joined hands with others to form such groups. However, we are concerned that, due to Covid-19, this safe and legal route to resettlement has been closed since March, and no individual or family has been able to seek sanctuary in Britain. We understand that similar programmes in France, Spain, Canada and Italy have reopened.

We believe there are around 60 sponsorship groups at various stages of the accreditation process, many with houses standing empty and no idea when resettlement will start again. We call on the Prime Minister and the Home Office to reopen the process immediately. We recognise the challenges, but know that many local authorities and groups are ready.

We also pledge practical support for those in our congregations who have become community sponsors. They have discovered that the experience of welcoming a refugee family into their community is mutually beneficial – and reminds us all that there but for fortune go you or I.

Rt Rev Paul McAleenan
Lead Bishop for Migrants and Refugees, Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales

Harun Khan
Secretary General, Muslim Council of Britain

Rt Rev Stephen Cottrell
Archbishop of York

Rabbi David Mason
Senior Rabbi, Muswell Hill United Synagogue

Major Nick Coke
Refugee Response Coordinator, Salvation Army

Rabbi Charley Baginsky
Interim Director, Liberal Judaism

Saving Chawton

SIR – It is disheartening to learn of the financial problems faced by smaller national treasures such as Chawton cottage.

Presumably Lottery funding is not available because Chawton is not a charity. Surely some organisation like English Heritage must have an interest in keeping Jane Austen’s history alive and thriving.

A E Luke
Ramsbury, Wiltshire

SIR – I was disappointed that you illustrated your article with the 19th-century portrait of Jane Austen, which depicts the her as a complacent, dull, matronly creature.

The Victorians, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of an unmarried lady writer, added a wedding ring. I can only imagine how Austen would have laughed at her portrayal.

Roger Askew
Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire

Justice for soldiers

SIR – This week the Overseas Operations Bill will be debated in the House of Commons. It is designed to give service personnel and veterans stronger legal protections against vexatious claims that undermine their service and subject them to repeated investigations. But it has become susceptible to misrepresentations – such as the recent claims that troops will somehow escape justice when it comes to allegations of torture.

This is categorically untrue. Our troops are not and will never be above the law. Whenever the Armed Forces embark on operations outside the UK, they are bound by domestic and international humanitarian law. The Bill does not prevent crimes being prosecuted and certainly does not decriminalise torture.

To make sure that those voting on this crucial legislation properly understand what the Bill will and won’t do, I have today written to all MPs. As I say in my letter, the reforms we propose will recognise the unique burden and pressures placed on personnel during overseas operations. In the past, some of these brave veterans left a period of distinguished service only to find their lives blighted by long and repeated investigations into increasingly historic events. Hard-won reputations were destroyed. Families were torn apart. Mental health was shattered. We don’t want to repeat the mistakes of the past.

We’re coming up to Remembrance Day. It’s a time to remember what our veterans have done for this country. But it’s also a moment to reflect on the way we treat them now. In 21st-century Britain no one should have to wait decades for the wheels of justice to turn. So our Overseas Operations Bill will make sure they get the certainty, fairness and justice they deserve.

Johnny Mercer MP (Con)
Minister for Defence People and Veterans
London SW1

Slow-coach DVLA

SIR – The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency is clearly behind with its work – a situation presumably made worse by the Welsh lockdown.

Could I suggest that it introduces a six-month moratorium on driving licence renewals for 70-year-olds, as it did for MOT renewals in the spring? This would allow it to catch up, while removing a source of worry for drivers approaching 70. Alternatively, the DVLA could move temporarily to a lower-risk area – Norwich, perhaps?

Paul Blundell
Daventry, Northamptonshire

Fighting fictions about the Unknown Warrior

SIR – How sad that, as the centenary of the burial of the Unknown Warrior approaches, it has been suggested that there may have been “unconscious bias” in the selection of the body.

The facts discount any such possibility. The aim was to choose an unidentified body of someone who had served in the British Armed Forces; four were exhumed. There was no examination by a forensic pathologist, so the identity, rank, race or, indeed, gender of each of the bodies was unknown. How could there have been any bias, unconscious or otherwise?

In 1931, Chaplain David Railton, one of those who proposed the idea, wrote an article called “The Origin of the Unknown Warrior’s Grave.” He said: “No-one knows the Unknown Warrior’s rank, his wealth, his education or his history. Class values become vanity there. Many people have not yet grasped the fact that he may have come from any part of the British Isles, or from the Dominions or Colonies. And there are still a good few who do not realise that he may have been a sailor. No-one knows what his profession was. He may have been – until his country called – one of the ‘idle rich’. It is quite likely that he was a communicant of the Church, or a Roman Catholic, a Jew, a Salvationist, a Wesleyan, a Presbyterian, or a member of any other or of no religious denomination.”

Rev Dr John R H Railton
Swindon, Wiltshire

HS2 will do nothing to level up infrastructure

SIR – Boris Johnson’s decision to proceed with HS2 shows that his pledge to “level up” infrastructure investment is a non-starter.

Since he gave the go-ahead to the project, around £1 billion has been spent each month. In return, we get environmental damage on a large scale to make way for this unwanted railway, the high speed aspect of which has been quietly dropped in favour of “increased capacity”, despite a predicted 27 per cent fall in rail travel.

Tory MPs in the North will have their work cut out to retain the “red wall” seats – as will those in the shires after their constituents have suffered a long period of construction blight.

Ian Simcock
East Grinstead, West Sussex

SIR – Those lamenting the partial destruction of woodland by HS2 ignore the major mitigation measures being taken.

They also perpetuate myths. HS2 is designed to increase capacity, and starting construction in the North would not make sense, as the worst congestion is at the southern end.

Using Covid to argue that the scheme is not needed – when the first phase will not open for another 10 years – assumes that travel will be permanently subdued. Yet road traffic has almost returned to pre-Covid levels. And for the sake of our air, we should be trying to move towards electrically powered travel.

John H Brook
High Peak, Derbyshire