Rebecca Long-Bailey should have been more careful – but her error seems minor compared to others

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In yesterday’s editorial, you wrote that Rebecca Long-Bailey was guilty of retweeting a plain antisemitic conspiracy theory. Call me naive, but I really don’t understand how mentioning tactics learned from seminars with Israeli secret services (whether arguably true or categorically false or somewhere in between) can be interpreted as antisemitic.

If we criticise the tactics of the police or secret service in any country, will we be classed anti-Episcopalian, anti-Protestant, anti-Catholic, anti-Hindu, or anti-Muslim?

Being critical of the Israelis in their approach to the Palestinian people and the term antisemitism are not the same thing. As someone with an Italian-Jewish surname, albeit an atheist, I am sick and tired of this lack of distinction.

Yes, Rebecca Long-Bailey should have exercised more care before retweeting, but compared to the likes of Cummings, Jenrick, Johnson, Hancock and so on, her error is a minor one.

Perhaps all politicians – worldwide – should be banned from Twitter. It is full of ignominious and debasing drivel.

Patricia Borlenghi
Manningtree

No end to the nonsense

There appears to be no end to the crass, ill-judged nonsense Boris Johnson espouses in the fight against Covid-19.

His mishandling of the pandemic to date is verging on the criminal and has made Britain the laughing stock of the world. He has made statements which are simply not true, initiated actions which are later reversed and has reduced any worthwhile actions taken to naught by premature relaxation of lockdown.

Mr Cummings and others added to the PM’s woes by not adhering to clear rules in the early stages of lockdown. There seems to be so many new and innovative ways for Boris to screw up without trying.

Being newly retired, and over 70, the loss of freedom has affected me greatly, but being a caring person I have stayed at home since late March. If thousands of people disregard sensible distancing and hygiene regimes the pandemic will continue to disrupt our lives.

Businesses and family finances are suffering greatly which no doubt will lead to liquidations and redundancies in the near future. If you couple that with all the people who have missed hospital treatment in the wake of Covid-19 and the debt we incur as a result of financial support, it will change our lives for a generation. There are reported to be a backlog of one million people who are waiting for some sort of hospital treatment. How on earth are we going to satisfy that sort of demand? Many more people will die as a result of the pandemic, not of it.

So what our government does to relieve the misery of the future is vitally important to millions of British people. Are we to believe that Mr Johnson and his cohorts are able enough to handle the demands of bringing us through this nightmare with the least amount of trauma? Unfortunately, only time will tell.

Keith Poole
Basingstoke

What’s the plan again?

The UK government must decide and publish its strategy for stopping deaths from Covid-19.

Is it to stop the extremely vulnerable from getting infected? Or is it to reduce the level of infection so that it is very unlikely that the extremely vulnerable will get infected?

If it is the former, what are they doing to protect them – what barriers are they putting in place to ensure they get food and healthcare without getting infected? Who is responsible? If it is the latter, what is the level of infection that they think is safe? And how many deaths do they calculate it will give rise to?

There is ample evidence that strict lockdowns can stop Covid-19 in its tracks but only while social distancing is in place. However, the economic cost of a strict lockdown is unsustainable. Fine-tuning a lockdown means understanding which aspect is curtailing transmission. Which aspects is the government focused on?

Does the government think it is important to focus on clusters and contain them or does it think it can isolate every infected person wherever they are?

Have they determined which parts of the economy must be curtailed because they contribute to a disproportionate increase in the rate of transmission. Are they willing to resist the lobbying that they will face against the restrictions that need to be kept in place? Is the government’s plan to lead or follow events?

Jon Hawksley
France

Disconcerting behaviour

As 4 July approaches, our PM’s behaviour is disconcerting. For example, in parliament, telling Hove and Portslade MP Peter Kyle to show some guts and reopen our seaside towns. Does he have amnesia? Has he forgotten how seriously ill he became from coronavirus?

This Johnson love affair with neoliberalism is proving a very costly one for the UK. When the economy is leading key decisions during a public health crisis something is very wrong. We went into lockdown late because we placed the economy ahead of public health, this disastrous delay resulted in thousands of needless deaths. Ironically, it also protracted the lockdown which compounded the damage to the economy. Now the political pressure to restart the economy is intense. We now once again place the economy ahead of the health crisis as we fast-track from lockdown against the scientific advice. The Independent Sage group has calculated this path will cost at least another 30,000 lives, dark days indeed.

Paul Morrison
Address supplied

Starmer’s steel

I read Andrew Grice’s pertinent column about Sir Keir Starmer and how the government is being outwitted by smart tactics from the Labour leader. Personally, I was dismayed that he did not join with other parties to lobby for an extension to the transition period, but on reflection I can see that maybe this is a very canny move and makes for Boris Johnson to finally get his act together and strongly negotiate for a decent deal. Because a no-deal result would be catastrophic and he knows this, even if the European Research Group is in denial.

Starmer is a man of many parts and his often agonised demeanour belies his inner steel and convictions. He has not been cuckolded by the government but has been resolutely his own man, and that goes for his own party as well. He has proved decisive in the sacking of Rebecca Long-Bailey because he can see that the antisemitic issue will raise its head again and that self-defeating rabbit hole is one to be avoided at all costs. Yes, he can be ruthless and perhaps will take no prisoners, but surely that is a better route than a merry-go-round of factional in-fighting, which leaves the public disenfranchised and disturbed by this party’s constant and default strategy of navel-gazing.

Judith A Daniels
Cobholm, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk

It’s not a ‘Rishi holiday’ for most

I read with a degree of disappointment your article by Chris Blackhurst today. While I abhor the lunacy of those that chose to herd together on the beaches at Bournemouth, I dispute the author’s assertion that employers and bosses will have a war on their hands getting people back to work. I disagree with his tacit assumption that people working from home are clearly not working from home, but instead enjoying a “Rishi holiday”.

Both of these play into the fears of a very poor and old-fashioned leadership style where the assumption is “if I cannot see you... you are not working”. This has to change. I lead a team of nearly 100 people and every single one of them is working as hard, if not harder, while working at home. If there are some not working as hard, they wouldn’t have been working as hard in the office either. No difference, and the remedy is the same, clarity on what needs to be done, check they have the skills to do it, follow up and support to ensure they have done it, and feedback if they haven’t.

Never has there been such an opportunity to change how we manage and lead people for the better, offering flexibility and the ability to recruit in a location-agnostic way. We should be grabbing this with both hands.

Perhaps we need to move from a British attitude of “that won’t work because...” to “That will work if...”.

Laura Dawson
Address supplied