Media should show loyalty over pandemic coverage – Yorkshire Post Letters

AS a reader of The Yorkshire Post for many decades, and indeed an occasional contributor to your letters page, I am writing to express my disappointment at your recent editorial comments on the Cummings/Johnson issue.

I do hope that you have not decided to join the baying media mob with their not so hidden agendas. It was surely a case of a man doing his best for his family in the circumstances in which he found himself and also it was within the law as it stood at the time. The local constabulary would seem to agree.

Our country is at war with an unseen enemy, and we have a huge economic challenge ahead, so surely these ‘‘journalists’’ should bury their political hatchets for now and at the very least be constructive in their criticisms? It is not helpful either when Church of England senior clergy and some lesser clerics join the rabid throng.

Perhaps they should be reminded of the words of Jesus, ‘‘Let him who is without sin 
cast the first stone’’, and I have been led to believe too that forgiveness is a Christian virtue, so a little more support from the Lords Spiritual would not come amiss.

From: John Van der Gucht, Clayton Hall Road, Cross Hills.

WHAT comes across clearly in the aftermath of both the PM and his adviser being seriously ill due to Covid-19 is just how centralised power is in 10 Downing Street.

Without the PM at the helm during his treatment and recovery, let’s face it the rest of the Cabinet were not an impressive bunch. The PM, himself, has hardly been impressive, and is clearly 100 per cent dependent on his adviser and a tight Number 10 cabal.

Led by his ‘‘adviser’’, they continue to come up with new slogans – the latest – ‘‘Move on’’. In common with other Tory governments of the last 10 years, both ‘‘testing’’, and now ‘‘track and tracing’’, have been outsourced to the usual massive companies with at best, patchy records and employing workers at the lowest wages. It doesn’t fill me with confidence.

From: Nick Jenkins, Albion Terrace, Hebden Bridge.

PREDICTABLY, Bill Carmichael (The Yorkshire Post, May 29) joins your other correspondents in attempting to defend the indefensible Dominic Cummings. “In his shoes, I would have done the same,” he says.

What, go home to an infected wife, then return to Downing Street to spread the infection? Drive hundreds of miles to risk spreading the infection further?

Deliver a sanctimonious speech in the garden of No 10, suggesting that his physical presence was so vital that he couldn’t work from home, like all other office-based workers? The tragedy is that the new test and trace system, that should have been introduced months ago, is now a dead duck.

Thanks to Dominic Cummings, no one is going to take a blind bit of notice. It seems that holding on to one unelected official is more important to our Prime Minister than protecting the health of the British people.

From: Mrs S Galloway, Stirrup Close, York.

ALREADY the Government’s test and trace system has run into problems surrounding its execution and reliability. In addition, people are saying that they will not use it.

I am baffled as to why this test could not be carried out by individual GP practices asking key workers first and then opening it up on an alphabetical basis to other patients?

Surely there are sufficient private UK laboratories who could then carry out the test analysis within 48 hours at the most?

Even if this means paying GPs a sum for each patient, it would surely be cheaper and have a higher compliance rate among the population than the current muddle.

From: John Riseley, Harcourt Drive, Harrogate.

MICHAEL Gove has quite rightly sought to qualify the term ‘‘safe’’ as applied to the reopening of schools. To allow the interpretation that safe means absolutely safe would be to mislead.

This should not be acceptable, even if the great majority of families will not see any practical difference.

One daily newspaper devoted its front page to demanding a simplistic yes or no answer from Mr Gove. This gives a strong indication of the view it takes of the mental capacity of its readers, and its preference for a society in which no understanding or decision taking is expected of the individual. The sort of nuanced thinking which Mr Gove was calling for is essential if we are to negotiate a way out of lockdown through safety precautions.

From: Allen Jenkinson, Milnsbridge

THE old adage, “rules are guidelines for idiots”, seems to hold true of Boris Johnson.

He certainly regards those of us who abided by the rules of lockdown as such with his retrospective changing of what were, only a few days earlier, rules to merely guidelines.

I doubt there would have been a change if his mate Dominic Cummings hadn’t been caught out – literally.

From: David Buick, Northallerton.

FORMER Siemens boss Jurgen Maier (Tom Richmond, The Yorkshire Post, May 30) is, in my view, the type of engineer and industrialist that any government should be using to develop policies from Covid-19 testing to Brexit and the North.

Editor’s note: first and foremost - and rarely have I written down these words with more sincerity - I hope this finds you well.

Almost certainly you are here because you value the quality and the integrity of the journalism produced by The Yorkshire Post’s journalists - almost all of which live alongside you in Yorkshire, spending the wages they earn with Yorkshire businesses - who last year took this title to the industry watchdog’s Most Trusted Newspaper in Britain accolade.

And that is why I must make an urgent request of you: as advertising revenue declines, your support becomes evermore crucial to the maintenance of the journalistic standards expected of The Yorkshire Post. If you can, safely, please buy a paper or take up a subscription. We want to continue to make you proud of Yorkshire’s National Newspaper but we are going to need your help.

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Sincerely. Thank you.

James Mitchinson