If we can’t persuade the unvaccinated to get the jab now, we are all heading back into lockdown this winter

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An anti-vax protest in London in July (PA)

Talk of the government potentially reimpose restrictions at the end of October, such as social distancing and mask wearing, is concerning. The rationale for such measures, and more lockdown style restrictions going forward, are due to rising hospitalisations and deaths caused by Covid.

What such preparations betray is the unravelling of the strategy switch made on 19 July, when all restrictions were lifted.

The change saw a move from restrictions on individual’s liberties like social distancing, masks and lockdowns to a herd immunity approach. It was premised on everyone getting vaccinated.

The fact that upward of 6 million people refuse to be vaccinated is driving us all back into lockdown - to once again protect the NHS.

A way must be found to persuade the unvaccinated to get the jab - otherwise we are all heading back to where we were 12 months ago.

Paul Donovan

Wanstead, London

More than just affordable homes

Harriet Williamson makes some excellent points on why younger people struggle to get on the housing ladder, but the generational inequality is not just about boomers having more affordable homes to buy when young relative to earnings.

Boomers have had more secure jobs that lasted longer than their mortgage terms. These jobs were close to where they grew up or even if further away, the houses were affordable.

Kartar Uppal

Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands

Giving up takeaways and avocados? At the risk of sounding like a Monty Python sketch, when we bought a house in 1975 we could not afford a telephone, a TV or a car and interest rates swung between 8 per cent and 15 per cent. And in the spirit of Harriet Williamson’s gross generalisation, lots of boomers haven’t bought houses and lots of millennials have.

On a serious note, labelling generations and pitting them against one another is divisive and should be avoided.

Nick Donnelly

Dorset

Social care funding gap

What kind of social care service do we really want? I applaud Dr Fisher’s sentiments and analysis, but wish to point out that even he has not devoted as much attention as I believe is due to the real central issue.

Where in the government’s plans is the commitment to the level of funding to be provided for each person requiring care? All I have been hearing is about how we won’t have to eat too far into our children’s inheritance and are the tax arrangements regressive?

Please tell me I have missed the part of the plans which will guarantee that adequate funding, to achieve Dr Fisher’s aspirations, will reach the care homes themselves.

Chris Dixon

Address supplied

Light shone on human fragility

It is brazen that the government is putting economic interests ahead of the environment. Our world has been ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic. It has shone light on the stark reality of our human fragility, the greed of our economies, the cracks in our social, political and cultural spheres, the perpetuation of health disparities, social injustices and the encroachment on the natural world.

However, the pandemic has revealed our connectedness with each other and the natural world around us. Since time immemorial, native peoples have had a sacred tie to their lands. Their traditional knowledge, languages, values, cultural and religious rituals, and spirituality are inexorably tied with land. They remain on the frontlines of the climate emergency. Time to stand in solidarity with the most marginalised, and view nature through the prism of stewardship, not ownership and material interests.

Dr Munjed Farid Al Qutob

London

Grasp the nettle, Labour

I read your editorial with interest and fully take on board that this is indeed not a Conservative government but a fundamentally populist one, which just majors on crowd-pleasing tricks from the maestro Johnson himself and his cabinet ministers.

Of course, it might be argued that this government has grasped the nettle of the continuing implosion of the NHS and social care, but the jury will be out on how this will be implemented and if indeed the ‘Cinderella’ of that partnership, namely social care, will receive the finance it requires by this taxation. Or will its omnipotent partner swallow it whole as it attempts to cope with the backlog from the pandemic?

This is very difficult for Keir Starmer and the Labour Party, who have been maligned as “Johnny-come-lately” to this ongoing problem. But their stance is that you don’t hit the pay packets of lowly paid workers in this manner. Seemingly the Northern Research Group of Conservative MPs are restless because they know their constituents will face a double whammy, with the proposed cut to the universal credit uplift and now this new national insurance hike. These men and women did lend their votes to Boris Johnson and this is beginning to hit home and there might be a considerable fallout.

Labour needs to grasp their own nettle, come out fighting and identify the gaping holes in this tax hike strategy and become more cunning – because a populist prime minister in full flight needs more adroitness than just habitual condemnation.

Judith A Daniels

Great Yarmouth, Norfolk