Eton education hasn’t taught Boris Johnson plain English - Yorkshire Post Letters

I HAVE just read that our Prime Minister said “We have two boxing gloves to pummel this disease in the weeks and months that follow” (The Yorkshire Post, November 12).

What does that mean? Is he referring to two possible vaccines, two different strategies to deal with the pandemic or that we all should don boxing gloves along with face masks?

Is it any wonder the whole country is confused? An Eton education seems to have been wasted on Boris Johnson when he can’t speak plain English.

I well remember that, as a teenager, along with fellow students, we decided that with the next essay we would trawl through the dictionary and find the longest and most obscure words.

Luckily our wonderful English teacher enjoyed the joke but made the observation that the shortest, most direct plain speech made for easy understanding. I have never forgotten that.

Oh, that Boris had attended the same Windsor school.

Whatever we may think about Nicola Sturgeon and her politics, whenever she speaks we understand every word and meaning.

From: Penelope Helbest, student, University of Leeds.

THE inevitable consequence of opening up universities to over a million students has finally come to a head with the holidays.

The Government is telling us they’re going to get us back home in time for Christmas, with an “evacuation”-style response.

Obviously, I can’t help but feel there’s major bias involved here. Other faiths had to make the sacrifice of forgoing their family get-togethers, in the case of Eid, told to do so only two hours before. But for Christmas, we’re willing to put families in danger?

It would be another thing entirely if the Government truly cared about student mental health and reuniting vulnerable students with their families but it really is just a “keep calm and carry on” style, peacocking about their competency, and a cash grab on the Christmas economy.

If wellbeing was so important, there would be national plans in place to help the students staying at accommodation and the ones who were struggling at home too.

From: Roger Backhouse, Orchard Road, Upper Poppleton, York.

GRISELDA Togobo of Forward Ladies suggests that female-led countries have lower coronavirus death rates (The Yorkshire Post, November 10).

Both Germany and New Zealand with women leaders have done well keeping death rates down for the moment but look north to see that isn’t always the case.

Scotland had until recently the third highest death rate in Europe, trailing only slightly below England.

Yet Nicola Sturgeon is First Minister presiding over a shocking loss of life to coronavirus.

Strangely enough, she manages to have a high but undeserved approval rate. I suppose Ms Sturgeon has the advantage of not being Boris Johnson, whose inadequacies grow more apparent by the day.

Ms Togobo’s suggestion is interesting but remains unproved.

From: Michael Green, Baghill Green, Tingley.

I VERY much agree with reader Malcolm Smith (The Yorkshire Post, November 12) about the need to enforce the lockdown rules, which many people seem to regard as optional.

The Government has decided that certain things (like prohibition of gatherings and the wearing of face coverings in shops) are so important that non-compliance should be illegal rather than just discouraged.

Yet when it comes down to it, the Government hasn’t got the guts to enforce the rules.

Why not?

Because it would make them unpopular? Because they know it won’t do any good? Better that, than their current option of continually tightening the rules that only the conscientious are going to obey anyway.

If they’re not prepared to enforce the rules they shouldn’t make them up in the first place.

It is also, in my view, essential to know why increases in infection rates are occurring, as well as where.

Only in that way will they have the ability to do the sensible thing by targeting the causes.

But there is no evidence this is happening any more. And when I asked my MP to find out from the Minister the answer to this, I simply got a brush-off.

This from an MP whom I generally regarded as one of the better ones.

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