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Letters: Sunak should seize the chance to take the economy in a new direction

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak leaves Downing Street -  Hannah Mckay/ Reuters
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak leaves Downing Street - Hannah Mckay/ Reuters

SIR – Hats off to Rishi Sunak: a serious politician who tells it straight and seems on top of his brief.

He has the opportunity to become the most reforming chancellor in years. He should simplify the tax system, lose stamp duty forever, encourage the green agenda with tax incentives, take away the pensions triple lock and encourage saving for long-term social and health care.

It’s time to let individuals keep more of their hard-earned income – and watch the country prosper.

Mike Metcalfe
Glastonbury, Somerset

 

SIR – According to your front page (July 9), Mr Sunak will “pay half the cost of a meal out for everyone”.

It is not, of course, the Chancellor but the taxpayer who will pick up the tab. But, strangely, this temporary, gimmicky, bribe to persuade us to go out is comforting, replacing the horrible “stay at home” mantra of previous months. The pictures of Mr Sunak serving meals in a restaurant are powerfully symbolic of his views about lockdown – and, together with his hopefully permanent stamp duty cut, give hope that he will never allow such damage to be voluntarily wrought on our economy again.

Tim Coles
Carlton, Bedfordshire

 

 

SIR – All credit to Mr Sunak in his attempt to lure customers back into restaurants. But then he ruins it all by serving a meal sans mask, sans gloves – sans common sense.

Andrew McCabe
Beedon Hill, Berkshire

 

SIR – It is nice that the Chancellor wants to buy me dinner. But I worry about what he might be expecting from me afterwards.

Anthony Tanney
Wickham Bishops, Essex

 

SIR – Until all restrictions are done away with in pubs and restaurants, many of their regular customers, no matter what incentives the Chancellor comes up with, will not frequent them - for the simple reason that there is no atmosphere whatsoever.

Martin Thurston
Midhurst, West Sussex

 

 

SIR – The Chancellor has done little to encourage the public to visit town centres. Businesses need customers.

A simple way of attracting people would be for parking in, and public transport to, towns and cities to be made free at weekends.

Tony Ellis
Northwood, Middlesex

 

SIR – It is an indication of the poor state of the British economy that the Government has decided to support the hospitality industry in preference to the manufacturing sector.

John Catchpole
Beverley, East Yorkshire

 

SIR – Could someone please remind me how to spend cash?

Graham Winter
Orpington, Kent

 

Less reliance on China

 

SIR – Your readers are right to be concerned about China’s involvement in British infrastructure, from nuclear technology to mobile phone networks (Letters, July 9).

We should now be concentrating on doing these things ourselves: it has been reported, for instance, that Rolls-Royce could provide mini nuclear reactors to generate “local” electricity. These would be less wasteful – and, with homegrown technology, any technical problems are easier to account for.

John Hinton
East Bergholt, Suffolk

 

SIR – Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (Business, July 9) argues that the expansion of China’s economy has “peaked”, in part due to the straitjackets imposed by Xi Jinping, and also because the regime underestimated the intrinsic strength of the US. He suggests that China “will eventually settle down”.

However, there is a plausible alternative scenario. President Xi may well decide to seize as much territorial, economic and geopolitical advantage as he can before the window of opportunity shuts. When absolute rulers have behaved like this in the past, the consequences for everyone have usually been dire.

Terry Smith
London NW11

 

Brain-teasing tests

 

SIR – When my testing kit (Charles Moore, Comment, July 7) arrived, it did not look promising.

There was a piece of paper telling me to check that I had received everything, including the instruction booklet. I looked at the items spread on the table before me but could not see it. Then, several panicky minutes later, I realised that the piece of paper was the instruction booklet.

As for the returns box, the one I constructed ended up being not very rectangular, and was held together with quite a lot of Sellotape.

However, the postman took it away and I received a negative result two days later.

Liz Wheeldon
Seaton, Devon

 

Sustainable salons

A hairdresser wearing protective mask and face shield dries customer's hair between acrylic walls set up for social distancing - AMANDA PEROBELLI/Reuters
A hairdresser wearing protective mask and face shield dries customer's hair between acrylic walls set up for social distancing - AMANDA PEROBELLI/Reuters

SIR – I was impressed by my local hair salon, where each client, having been given a plastic apron (Letters, July 8), was then given a plastic sandwich bag to keep it in for next time.

Elizabeth Stevens
Stroud, Gloucestershire

 

Unfair licence fee

The BBC will stop free licence fees for over 75s from August 1 - ANDY RAIN/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock/Shutterstock
The BBC will stop free licence fees for over 75s from August 1 - ANDY RAIN/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock/Shutterstock

SIR – The BBC has confirmed that it will start charging over-75s the full licence fee from next month.

This is despite the fact that its output now openly targets the 16-24 age group. No normal company would survive with such a policy.

Dr Brian Wareing
Chester

 

SIR – Rather than extending the licence fee to include the elderly, the BBC should become a subscription service, like Netflix or Amazon Prime. Then only those wishing to receive its transmissions would pay for them.

Michael White
Penwortham, Lancashire

 

SIR – Over- 75s should continue to receive a free TV licence unless there is a wage earner in the same household.

Means testing is unfair to those who have been careful and saved throughout their working lives.

Patricia Richardson
Haywards Heath, West Sussex

 

Stranded abroad

Some British citizens are still stranded abroad because of coronavirus -  Toby Melville/Reuters
Some British citizens are still stranded abroad because of coronavirus - Toby Melville/Reuters

SIR – You report (July 6) that passengers on the recent repatriation flight from Saudi Arabia included government officials and their families.

My wife was in Kyrgyzstan when lockdown was imposed, as a consequence of which I haven’t seen her for the past four months. As the airport and borders in Kyrgyzstan remain closed, we have no idea when we will be together again.

Like many British citizens stuck abroad, it seems that we have been forgotten, despite the Foreign Secretary’s promises to help. Presumably he had only government officials and their families in mind.

Peter Graham
Dipton, County Durham

 

Driverless trains

The Docklands Light Railway, connecting the City of London to the Docklands area - Simon Dawson/Bloomberg
The Docklands Light Railway, connecting the City of London to the Docklands area - Simon Dawson/Bloomberg

SIR – Boris Johnson has said that he wants driverless trains to be a condition for bailing out Transport for London (report, July 7).

In 1989, while the second managing director of Docklands Light Railway, I commissioned a comparison with other “automatic” services. I found that DLR was the only “driverless” railway that did not have at least one of three safety precautions: a man at the front in the cab who could, if necessary, take emergency action; platform doors, so that passengers could not disembark until the train had stopped at the right spot; a pressure sensor at the platforms, to cut the power and emergency-stop a train if anything fell on the track.

The Victoria Line was the first automatically driven service in London, but had all trains have a man in the cab. The New Tokaido Line (Shinkansen) in Japan was automatic, but also had a man in the cab.

Others, better informed than me, will know whether the DLR still lacks any of these safety features. In any case, it would be a mistake to think that any further implementation of “driverless” in London should entail no one in the cab. It is too crucial to safety to be influenced by politicians trying to clip the wings of unions.

Kenneth Fergusson
London SW11

 

A broad church

SIR – St Margaret’s is indeed known as the Speaker’s church (Letters, July 9).

It was, however, also the parish church of many more humble local inhabitants, such as my great-grandparents. They lived in the slums nearby in the 1850s and signed the register with a cross.

Robin Garstone
Cricklade, Wiltshire

 

One love that blossomed during lockdown

‘For health and good cooking’: an early poster extolling the virtues of Marmite - Alamy
‘For health and good cooking’: an early poster extolling the virtues of Marmite - Alamy

SIR – As we come to a possible end of the lockdown, I have been reflecting on whether it has permanently changed my life in any significant way – and I find that it has.

When I entered lockdown, I despised Marmite. Now I adore it, and even think about it during work hours – just as it is becoming impossible to buy in local shops.

Alice Loxton
Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire

 

Patients are feeling cut off from their GPs

Many people are still too afraid to visit their GP in person - Anthony Devlin/PA
Many people are still too afraid to visit their GP in person - Anthony Devlin/PA

SIR – It is disingenuous of Professor Michael Marshall, of the Royal College of General Practitioners, to say that it has been business as usual (Letters, July 8). Thousands of patients have struggled to access primary care.

Redirection from a practice website, with an instruction to call NHS 111, submit symptoms for a 48-hour response or consult an online information leaflet, is not an acceptable standard of doctoring. It also means that elderly patients without computer skills cannot access the medical attention they need.

Hospital doctors have soldiered on magnificently – along with my vet, the dustmen and supermarket staff. Where have the GPs gone?

Dr A C E Stacey
Rustington, West Sussex

 

SIR – I take issue with Allison Pearson’s implication that GPs have had it easy over this Covid-19 period (Comment, July 7).

While some practices have had and continue to have restricted access, my surgery has been very much open. Yes,, we it was quiet during the early stages of early in lockdown;, and yes, we have moved to phone triage, but this is so that patients are seen by the appropriate clinician in the most appropriate time frame. All staff are seeing patients face-to-face – after which, personal protective equipment PPE has to be changed and the consulting room has to be cleaned, usually by the doctor – and making home visits.

The biggest challenge now is persuading patients that the surgery is a safe place to visit.

Dr Richard Loach
Ryde, Isle of Wight

 

 

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