The Labour Party is showing off its economic illiteracy again

Letters to the editor: our readers share their views. Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

Labour leader Keir Starmer (PA)

I read with a large degree of disbelief Labour’s proposal for a “windfall tax” on energy firms to “help consumers with their bills” (‘Labour calls for North Sea windfall tax to rein in soaring energy bills’, 9 January). This classic “beat the bosses” idea shows once again the party’s total lack of understanding of the realities of the service sector and business practice.

Who do they think will end up paying for that new tax? We will – the consumers. The energy companies will simply pass the tax bill onto the customers, as they always do with any rise in costs. Far from being “helped” by this idea, were it ever to be implemented, the consumer would be even worse off. Labour should really learn something about economics before making these pronouncements.

Ian McNicholas

Ebbw Vale, Wales

Learning to live with the virus

Does “learning to live with Covid” mean accepting an average of 100 deaths a day, making a total of 36,500 lives lost each year? Or is this just an excuse for this government’s complacency, laziness and ineptitude?

Nigel Groom

Witham, Essex

A Tory prime minister in the making

Liz Truss has “failed to deliver” on a new LGBT+ advisory panel. How better could Truss establish her credentials as future Tory PM than by making promises and then not delivering?

Phil Whitney

Cromford, Derbyshire

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Covid in Scotland

Last week, Scotland recorded the highest number of Covid infections per head in the whole of the UK. This, in spite of the imposition of more severe public health measures than in the rest of the UK. There is nothing that the first minister likes more than issuing restrictions bearing doom and gloom for hospitality, retail, sport and cultural life. That, at any rate, is the clear impression she conveys.

The “three households” limit is a strange one, given the varying sizes of households and the differing number of contacts households of sizes will have. How many contacts does a one-person household have? And how many does a five-person household have, especially when there are children attending schools? It isn’t difficult for a party of five to derive from four households.

Unless these facts have changed markedly for the worse in recent days, why are we all being held in a semi- or quasi-lockdown again?

Jill Stephenson

Edinburgh

All fine for England – once the Ashes have gone

Following the desperate efforts by England’s cricketers in scraping a draw from the fourth Ashes Test, a BBC correspondent observed that it was good to see the players showing some fighting spirit when they could have easily rolled over in the last two Tests.

I can’t help thinking that he is missing the point, which is that the England team find themselves in the current predicament precisely because they rolled over in the first three Test matches. I note also that once again it was the tail of the batting order that had to battle for the draw. So any talk of glimpses of talent from a couple of the so-called specialist batsmen would also seem embarrassingly premature.

J Wells

Alresford, Hampshire