Our politicians simply can’t grasp the complexities of coronavirus

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The ability of the German government to react appropriately to the Covid-19 crisis and the mistakes made by others such as the UK and the US says a lot about listening carefully to experts. However, another important factor is the ability of politicians to manage urgent complex issues. The assumption that our leaders are competent by virtue of their position is dangerously flawed, whatever their political views. Interesting that people like Trump don’t bother with even trying to understand, and just rule by bluster and arrogance.

In my career in the NHS, we were visited by many ministers. By and large, I was disappointed by their grasp of the current issues for the NHS. Often the accompanying civil servant (or “minder” as we called them) would answer for them. It really seemed than many were not just uninterested or ill-informed, but unable to grasp the issues. Politicians like Angela Merkel and Jacinda Ardern seem much more able to.

James Foyle
Southeast London

Foreign farmworkers

The news that farmers have decided to fly in seasonal agricultural workers from eastern Europe has, once again, prompted many people to vent their indignation and some to propose their solutions to this problem. Unsurprisingly many are on social media, but I have also seen letters in other quality newspapers.

Everything I have read is quite simply the same nonsense which has been periodically regurgitated since 2016: the most popular idea is to let children pick fruit and veg and with the schools closed it is apparently a perfect opportunity.

For all readers that still do not get it, I shall try to explain: I shouldn’t have to point this out, but we are not in the middle of a giant national holiday. My daughter is back from university and has a huge amount of studying; frankly, it puts me and my contemporaries to shame in our scholarly endeavours back in the Seventies. My son likewise has to undertake a full day of learning from home. Also, it must be pointed out that anyone advocating teenagers to work on farms either has forgotten being a teenager themselves or has never had one living under their roof.

I have resisted the urge to take to task the even stupider ideas: old people, convicts, and the unemployed on an obligatory basis.

Robert Boston
Kingshill​, Kent

Lessons from lockdown

While China was slow in containing its epidemic and the WHO was slow in containing the pandemic, both published the progress of Covid-19 when the Chinese lockdown started on 23 January with 830 cases. In four weeks it increased to 75,465 but the exponential growth had been stopped with new cases decreasing dramatically. Those facts were known to every government around the world in February. They did not pay attention and well over 100,000 people have died as a result.

The proof that without lockdown the transmission rate is exponential, and with stringent lockdowns it can be virtually nil, has been available since mid-February.

It has also been known since February that the vulnerable are the elderly and those with underlying health conditions, yet no government has acted to eliminate the possibility of the virus getting to vulnerable people through the care system.

Lockdowns will be eased, the transmission rate will go up and vulnerable people will die unnecessarily because no one is taking responsibility for the vulnerable.

Jon Hawksley​
France

Policing by consent

It is generally recognised that we are a nation that is policed by consent. In these times anything that can lead to a breakdown of that consent between the public and the police forces will only cause significant resentment and a breakdown in the trust that currently exists between those policing and the policed. So the latest guidelines from the CPS, enthusiastically and predictably adopted by the NPCC and College of Policing, are a recipe for disaster.

For example, the government has specifically referenced B&Q as a store that provides essential services to people during the period of lockdown and therefore allowed to remain open. As a result, people have been flocking to use the company’s Click & Collect service, buying DIY goods online in record numbers as the stores are physically closed to the general public.

How are the police meant to determine whether someone’s collection from a car park outside a store is for essential maintenance and upkeep (allowed) and not renovation and improvements (not allowed)? Are the police going to have to follow each customer who calls at a B&Q store back home to ensure that the goods are for “essential maintenance”? Or will they try to head the purchase off at the store, setting up roadblocks at access points to quiz customers arriving to pick up material on the reasons for the purchase? How is your average constable going to discriminate between maintenance and renovation?

The guidance from the CPS is at odds with state support – who is right? By trying to micromanage via specific examples, the CPS has, wittingly or unwittingly, introduced yet more potential flashpoints in these fractious times. Where is the common sense in all of this? Why are the police being forced into an impossible position where one constable’s essential maintenance is another’s renovation?

Consent is a precious commodity. These “clarifications” are a prodigious waste of this asset.

Robin J Bulow​
Clacton-on-Sea

Today Sadiq Khan announced additional protections for bus drivers and passengers.

Remember the original London Transport Routemasters (and previously all the RT series)? Separate self-contained cab for the driver, no possibility of any contact with infected passengers. Such a shame most of them went for scrap.

James Mason
Address not supplied