Your editorial (The Guardian view on Boris Johnson: forever behind the Covid curve, 4 January) points out the chaos over this week’s return to schools. The woefully inept decision-making of the prime minister hampers the actions that ordinary families can take to mitigate the negative effects on children.
In my case, my husband and I had formed a childcare bubble for our two young grandchildren. This was to support my daughter, who is working from home, and in anticipation of probable school closures. We were all very cautious over Christmas, following guidelines.
The children returned to school on 4 January following the prime minister’s announcement on Sunday that schools were safe. On Monday he said they were not, and must close. Consequently, as we are both over 65, we feel it prudent to wait a period of 10 days before caring for the children. This could have been avoided if the prime minister had listened to his advisers on 22 December, when they told him schools should remain closed.
Set against the serious impacts of his lack of leadership, this may be relatively insignificant, but again the prime minister has chosen to prevaricate, risking many lives and causing families additional and avoidable emotional stress.
Pauline Pilkington
Cannock, Staffordshire
• “Poor communications” is the easy and shallow answer when any government encounters difficulties with policy implementation, or becomes unpopular with the electorate (Government’s Covid missteps continue to baffle Tory MPs, 4 January).
However, the prime minister was selected by his party because it was claimed that he had a great gift for communicating that would more than compensate for his well-known weaknesses. His calls for a “united front” to fight the virus have always lacked sincerity and have dripped with arrogance and condescension – in much the same way as overtures to “friends in Europe” also failed to convince.
A government of all the talents – sweeping away the kind of second-raters like Gavin Williamson and Priti Patel, who have engineered difficulties and created mistrust – would be a start. But I suspect that few, if any, talented people would wish to serve in a tainted administration. Time to go, in the national interest, Mr Johnson?
Les Bright
Exeter, Devon
• Even while warning that the worst is yet to come (England to enter toughest Covid lockdown since March, 4 January), Boris Johnson is too quick to try to sugar the pill, talking about his hopes that we are “in the last phase of the struggle”, that “the end is in sight” and that we will progressively lift restrictions and move out of lockdown after the February half-term. While I also hope that these will turn out to be true, none are guaranteed in any way, and it is irresponsible for the PM to raise expectations. He may dash those expectations once again, but he is driven by his aversion to bad news and willing to take a risk, relying on his ability to talk his way out of it should things go wrong.
Bill Stothart
Chester
• One thought alone amuses about this pandemic: it is to think of the howls of anguish, anger, ridicule and despair that we would have heard from Messrs Johnson, Sunak, Hancock, Williamson, Rees-Mogg, Eustace et al if this shambolic horror show of incompetence had been presided over by Jeremy Corbyn.
David Beake
Budock Water, Cornwall
