Why Leeds MP Richard Burgon makes Labour unelectable

YOUR correspondent J Hutchinson (The Yorkshire Post, March 30) rightly points out that now is not the time for political point-scoring, and that all politicians should be pulling together to get the country through this unprecedented and difficult time.

Unfortunately this plea goes unheard by the dreadful Leeds East Labour MP Richard Burgon. When Tory former party leader Iain Duncan Smith accused China of a “cover up” since the virus emerged there, as well as other similar comments by others, Mr Burgon stated that “this is a Trump-style attempt to divert blame from the UK Government’s failures”.

Sadly this sort of thing is what we have come to expect from Mr Burgon, and the fact that he could end up as a deputy leader of the Labour Party tells us, in my view, that there is still much wrong within that party’s workings.

From: Mike Ridgway, Ilkley.

JOHN G Davies (The Yorkshire Post, March 26), in reply to my letter of earlier this month, demonstrates a complete missing of the point regarding the lack of a response from the Chinese authorities to the coronavirus problem.

I can inform Mr Davies I have visited China three times, including twice within the last 15 months on business matters. The increasing movement and travel of people, and especially with the rise of the middle classes in Asia, will put the world at greater risk from these diseases. The world community must act against the ongoing denial of responsibility by the Chinese in order to prevent further repetition of the virus and threat to all.

From: John G Davies, East Morton, Keighley.

YOUR correspondent Peter Rickaby considers that Jeremy Corbyn “is frankly disgusting” and “a shallow-minded political agitator” because he “is trying to make political capital out of such a serious matter” as the application of austerity to the NHS. “Did he know when the virus was going to strike”? No, neither did the rest of the world.

I am afraid that he is wrong, particularly on the latter point. South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan anticipated the epidemic after their experience of the 2017 Sars outbreak, so they were prepared for another. They rapidly brought the coronavirus outbreak under control.

Our Government refused to fund the purchase of PPE for hospitals because they thought it was too costly. We are now reaping the results of that indiscretion.

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James Mitchinson

Editor