Does our government consider football more important than the climate?

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England playing the Czech Republic at Wembley in their European Championship group match (The FA via Getty Images)

I see that the government is allowing the Cop26 to take place in November if Covid-19 restrictions allow.

But now I also see that the government is considering allowing 2,500 Uefa officials and fans to come to the European Football Championship final at Wembley to avoid Uefa taking it elsewhere.

They will not have to quarantine despite the ongoing restrictions for everyone else. This seems to indicate that the government considers football more important than climate change and the participants in the conference.

Clem McCartney

Limavady

Freedom day

I too would love to travel abroad again, both for leisure and for my work. The trouble is, either most of the places I would go to won’t let me in or our government's conditions on the return from these destinations make it an unattractive proposition.

But what concerns me most is that the relaxation of restrictions is being called “freedom day”. What nonsense. Freedom day will be when we are free of the virus.

Removing restrictions too early will only delay that moment, as we already see with cases rising again sharply. The vaccine may have broken a link between cases and hospitalisation and death, but government statistics this week show how much more prevalent Covid-19 is now in the UK than in most other countries. For us to be denied entry by many European countries should serve as a reminder that we have not yet got our house in order.

We aren’t out of the woods yet; it is still only summer and we mustn’t waste the sacrifices made over the last 12 months. We need to get this properly under control before autumn and winter. Now is the time to know the government’s plans for booster jabs and other measures to follow the vaccine so that we don’t have to endure more lockdowns later because of weakness now. Covid-19 most certainly won’t be “done” when stage four of the roadmap is reached.

Charles Wood

Birmingham

Covid test registrations

Is it a coincidence that the 14 per cent registration rate of free NHS lateral flow tests represents one in seven, when the tests come in packs of seven? Could it be people use one, then ignore the rest?

I asked at our pharmacy for four tests, but they tried to give me four packs of seven, and eventually I escaped with three packs. They had a mountain of the things on their counter that they were clearly trying to get rid of. I suspect people are being given more tests than they need.

David Watson

Henley-on-Thames

Media censorship

Who could disagree that no government should shut down a news outlet that dares to criticise or hold them to account? However, in China/Hong Kong this is done by use of oppressive legislation and force, whereas here in the UK it could be perceived that the government is aiming to disable Channel 4 by more subtle means.

G Forward

Stirling

Green list padding

The bureaucratic farce that our government has created in its traffic light system is no better illustrated than in its inclusion of Pitcairn island in the Pacific, notwithstanding its singular inaccessibility in normal times – no airport, no docks, access by French Polynesia only.

I wonder if the people on Pitcairn – all 67 of them – have been consulted about the sudden possible arrival of UK vacationers.

We might ask the UK government to treat its home population with a little more respect concerning such traffic lists since we can all recognise absurd and insulting “padding” in a list as soon as it appears.

John Evans

West Sussex