Boris Johnson should work with Labour to defeat this apolitical virus

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Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer at PMQs this week (Reuters TV)

I read with interest John Rentoul's column (Keir Starmer has to decide where he stands on coronavirus restrictions before asking questions, 8 October) about Keir Starmer's road map to expose Boris Johnson and his party over the confusing direction of travel on Covid-19.

Starmer is in the unenviable cleft stick position, where it is important to show a united front to the country, and at the same time interrogate this government's often inept handling of the crisis. But, really, this is not down to party politics. When people’s lives and livelihoods are at stake, it is far more important than that.

I fear that Starmer is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't because Johnson will always come up with the answer, “Well, what would you do?”, knowing full well that Labour's credible input will not, in the main, be sought or acted upon. This is where governance in this country falls down.

I tune in to PMQs every week to watch the “grown-up” in the room take on the often ill-prepared prime minister, supported by his braying MPs. Is this a serious crisis or not, because I really feel that the worried public would welcome a more consensual approach. Johnson should be made to elicit more proactive support from the opposition and defeat this apolitical foe together, not take predictable verbal lumps out of each other, thus leaving the public more frustrated and dissatisfied than ever.  

Judith A. Daniels

Great Yarmouth, Norfolk

Time for pensioners to pay up

Leslie Heale (Letters, 7 October) repeats the erroneous claim that “retired people have paid for their pension all their working lives” through national insurance. They have not. They have paid for the pensions of those then retired, while they themselves were working. It could not have been otherwise after the 1946 National Insurance Act, which introduced pensions before there was a penny in the “contributory” pot. It is also one of the plainest answers to Sam Goldwyn’s rhetorical question, “What has posterity ever done for me?”

Whether the current state pension is enough to live on is a matter for debate, but for those pensioners, myself included, who have other pension income, our continued insulation from the effects of a declining ratio of working to pensioned population, and the pain of economic crises, is a shameful abrogation of social responsibility.  

Philip Morgan

Audley

No more jam, please

Much like Don Quixote, that other deluded, ineffectual fantasist, Boris Johnson is tilting at windmills.

Unable and unwilling to live in the unpleasant present, he has mentally decamped to the sunny uplands of another country, a Jerusalem of the future, where the sun always shines, where the winds always blows and where everything will be just fine in this most perfect of worlds where Britain will be number one again!

Unfortunately for him, we desperately require a leader who will lead firmly and clearly with courage, compassion, insight and courageousness in the pessimistic present tense, not the optimistic future one. Sadly, for us, Mr Johnson possesses none of the qualities required, they cannot be learnt in short order and, worst of all, he has no idea how vital they are for our current, and future, situation.

Johnson is a man, I cannot bring myself to use the term “leader”, who is devoid of sensible ideas, workable policies, understanding, empathy, foresight, grasp of detail or of any planning and organisation. Like boosterish, political nonentities down the ages, he constantly repeats his defiant refrain of “jam tomorrow!” as an increasingly desperate talisman to ward off the reality of stale bread today.

Rather like Don Quixote, tottering around the windswept, battered plateau of La Mancha, Boris totters, usually in a hard-hat and high-viz vest, around this economically-windswept and battered kingdom and finds his only comfort in playing Let’s Pretend games. In politics, of course, most of your friends are also pretend and Boris will soon be forced to awaken to the chaos he is so expertly compounding.

Sadly, unlike the aged knight Don Quixote, Boris has none of the redeeming qualities: honesty, an essential decency, some leadership, the ability to inspire loyalty, a burning mission. All he has is the prospect of getting Brexit done. Economic and social catastrophe will be piled on economic and social emergency and underpinned by political ineptitude and failure.

The only redeeming feature of his premiership is, of course, that “jam tomorrow!” will certainly help with the country’s obesity problems.

Dr John Cameron

St Andrews

Come in, number two

There has been much discussion about the US election in the media concerning what happens if the next, elderly, president does not complete their term. From having watched both the disgraceful presidential debate and the better vice-presidential debate, it would seem obvious that both of the VP candidates could easily fill the role and perhaps better than the main candidates.

Dennis Fitzgerald

Melbourne, Australia

Time is running out for the planet

World headlines have yet again warned of the shocking and dangerous rate at which we are warming the planet, burning forests, and driving species to extinction – all of which will hit the most vulnerable people hardest.

So it is encouraging that more than 70 world leaders have endorsed a pledge to reverse nature loss by 2030 (Boris Johnson pledges to protect 30 per cent of UK land as world leaders sign commitment to act on climate crisis, 28 September).  

Nature loss threatens the global economy, and human health and wellbeing. The climate and biodiversity crises are inextricably linked: fail to solve one, and we fail on both. We need to address both of these complex challenges to reach a future that is nature-positive, carbon-neutral, and equitable for all.

In addition to reducing emissions, we need to retain and restore natural ecosystems, and halt the decline of biodiversity. A nature-positive economy includes reforming food systems and redirecting existing financial resources to ensure they work for and not against nature, for the benefit of people as well as the economy. And finally, we need to be able to measure what is working and what is not.

Collectively, we need a Global Goal for Nature to preserve the natural world we all depend on. At a time when the recent UN Global Biodiversity Outlook acknowledged that none of the 2020 Aichi biodiversity targets have been fully met, a science-based, measurable and inspirational Global Goal for Nature can help as we take on perhaps the most ambitious task of our civilisation: to rebalance our relationship with the natural world. This means we must stop losing and start recovering nature, so that by the end of this decade we have more nature than we do today.

As governments around the world develop economic recovery packages, now is the time to combine forces to tackle the triple crises for people, for nature, and the climate and turn ideas and pledges into concrete commitments and action.  

Marco Lambertini, director general, WWF International 

Jennifer Morris, CEO, The Nature Conservancy

Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, CEO and chairperson, The Global Environment Facility

Compassion for asylum seekers

Last Friday marked the start of Sukkot, a Jewish festival rooted in concepts of sanctuary and shelter. We have been disturbed at this time to read reports of deeply unethical Home Office plans for offshore asylum processing, and other measures that would cruelly create barriers to those seeking refuge in this country.

Priti Patel was correct to acknowledge in her party conference speech on Sunday that the UK’s asylum system is broken, and that current delays to asylum applications are unacceptable. The present reality reveals the vital need for the fairness and compassion promised in her address. 

Asylum seekers fleeing to the UK from conflict and war have found themselves housed in army barracks on arrival. Even more shocking is the Home Office’s resumption of evictions for people with negative asylum decisions, which recklessly pushes vulnerable people into homelessness and destitution during a pandemic which has disproportionately impacted black, Asian and ethnic minority communities.

If the government is serious about reform, it should step up and take its moral responsibility by providing safe and legal routes to the UK, reopening refugee resettlement schemes, which have been closed since March and supporting Lord Dubs’ refugee family reunification amendment to the Immigration Bill. It must also avoid its recent hardline rhetoric, which has attacked both vulnerable asylum seekers, and those defending their legal rights to protection under international law. During a time of national crisis and increasing tensions, avoiding such divisive, inflammatory politics is crucial.

Dr Edie Friedman, executive director, The Jewish Council for Racial Equality