Don’t allow lost freedoms to be Covid’s legacy – Yorkshire Post Letters

THE Government’s manipulative, lying, behavioural propagandists aimed to frighten the wits out of the public. And to our collective shame they succeeded only too well.

Too many of the public – and too many MPs – were too gullible. At times it looked like a baying mob of curtain twitchers, ranting about “selfishness”, had taken over the country.

The Downing Street party-goers knew the truth: that Covid is a nasty respiratory disease only for the vulnerable, mainly the elderly, and not for the vast majority of healthy under-60s.

The No 10 civil servants and advisers showed they were not afraid of Covid. Yet they cynically condoned the imposition of the worse than useless untargeted national lockdown rules on the public.

Those who unnecessarily died alone, the children who attempted suicide or self-harm, the millions who were denied NHS treatment, the two years of lost education, the failed businesses, the arbitrary state annexation of our centuries-old and essential individual liberty, the damage to our economy, all those and more will be on this Government’s, and the official opposition’s, consciences. They can no longer cover up this debacle.

It is apparent that the state has become a dead weight. Caesar’s head is on the coins so I am obliged to pay the taxes, but recognise they are just a useless drain.

The state no longer fosters and protects individuals but is simply there to mould us in its image – it is no longer surprising that almost all governments around the world impose similar laws. We become serfs when too many of us put safety – and only the illusion of safety at that – above freedom.

From: ME Wright, Harrogate.

TOM Richmond’s designation of ‘lying’ as Boris Johnson’s middle name has been blindingly obvious for years (The Yorkshire Post, January 27).

During a recent yelling match in the Commons, the Speaker reminded us once again, that the use of this word is not allowed there.

Does this account for the failure of the current Downing Street cabal to recognise it as a predominant one of his numerous defects when electing him as Party Leader? Or are there times when we can justify tarring people with the same brush?

Tom Richmond states that Ministers and MPs “must now be guided by their constituents”. Jayne Dowle, in the same edition, claims that “this nation of shopkeepers should bring down the shutters on this government”.

I agree with them both, but am far from confident that this day is imminent.

From: Hilary Andrews, Nursery Lane, Leeds.

I FIND it really interesting that my local supermarket who never insisted on face mask wearing has suddenly started to ask people to wear one now that this requirement has been removed. It seems that advice from the Government always leads to mixed messaging or maybe deliberate awkwardness.

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