Dear Sir,

I have to wonder whether John Armstrong lives in the same country as the rest of us?

The Government may have been slow to react initially to Covid-19 because we were prepared for the wrong pandemic, but the necessity to protect the NHS, and our lack of essential PPE, were both due to many years of unnecessary Tory austerity. Moreover, the way in which the vulnerable elderly residents of Care Homes were neglected was positively disgraceful.

Given the situation, the Government were right to order goods and services without waiting for the usual competitive tendering, but why did they award these contracts to companies with no experience, or worse, a proven track record of failure, leading to a great waste of public money? Is it a coincidence that these companies all seem to be Conservative Party and/or ‘Vote Leave’ supporters?

After the national lockdown, Boris Johnson typically swung to unjustified optimism, saying that we would be ‘back to normal by Christmas’. However, allowing people to take holidays abroad, and encouraging them to eat out in pubs and restaurants, and return to their offices, simply helped keep Covid-19 active. Then insisting that university students return to their halls of residence, rather than working from home, inevitably led to a fresh explosion of new cases. And finally, having rejected the earlier scientific advice for a short “circuit-breaker” lockdown, as recommended by Sir Keir Starmer, he has just been forced to introduce a much longer lockdown, but now with Covid-19 completely out of control, and the death toll again rising rapidly.

However, my greatest concern is that worldwide experience shows that the only way to control Covid-19 is with an effective locally-based ‘Test, Track & Trace’ system, whereas our so-called ‘world-beating’ nation-wide system has proved to be an expensive failure. Until this is fixed, which requires that the Government drop its ideological obsession that free-enterprise is always best, and instead rely on Local Authorities, I fear that we will be condemned to a never-ending cycle of lockdowns and relaxations.

Since there is no sign of this, ‘Keeping Your Faith in the Conservatives’, it will continue to be very expensive, both in terms of unnecessary loss of life, and a waste of taxpayer’s money!

Alan Jordan

Middridge