Letters: It is right to trust people to make their own decisions about Christmas

SIR – Despite all the criticism of the temporary lifting of social restrictions for Christmas, I am pleased with the Government’s approach (report, December 16).

At last, I am free to choose what action to take. Based on all the information available, I will not be overtly socialising, and will be spending a quiet Christmas at home.

I hope that the Government continues to allow individuals to take responsibility for their own wellbeing, instead of attempting to micromanage our lives.

Alan Belk
Leatherhead, Surrey

SIR – Your Leading Article (December 16) is absolutely right.

Trust in people’s common sense. The vast majority will do what is right. The usual suspects will be irresponsible regardless.

John Taylor
Purley, Surrey

SIR – They break the rules; you bend the rules; I have a very good reason for what I am doing.

Kate Wylie Carrick
Ilminster, Somerset

SIR – You report that two leading medical journals have criticised the Government’s stance on Christmas.

Readers should understand that the Health Service Journal is actually a magazine for NHS managers. The British Medical Journal, meanwhile, is partly a peer-reviewed publication, but in recent years has also published political comment. Most of this has been critical of government policy (no matter which party is in power), and both journals could be said to share the view that the NHS runs the country.

Dr Robert Walker
Workington, Cumbria

SIR – I am irritated by the complaints that certain rules risk “cancelling Christmas”. It is not possible to cancel a date in the calendar.

Alan Finlay
London NW4

SIR – Perhaps Covid-19 has given us an opportunity. It is not a question of “cancelling” the festive season, but of rethinking the meaning of Christmas.

Once upon a time it was a religious holiday. Families would go to Mass, then gather around the table as children unwrapped their presents left by Father Christmas. This concept gradually changed as we all became consumers, encouraged to spend, spend, spend on gifts that would be forgotten, and at restaurants that doubled or tripled their prices.

In recent years we have seen panic-buying, overcrowded streets, bars, stores, stations and airports, and massive traffic hold-ups as everyone took to the roads at the same time.

I understand that much of this is good for the economy, which has been affected by the pandemic. But this year we have a chance to avoid the stress. Most of us should be happy to remain at home with family over a special lunch or dinner.

Peter Fieldman
Madrid, Spain

New health centres

SIR – The NHS Long Term Plan (launched last year) calls for integrated care to be provided outside acute hospitals. Coronavirus has led to a backlog of an estimated seven million hospital appointments, accelerating the need for more care to take place in primary health settings.

In 2017, Sir Robert Naylor’s independent review identified underinvestment and obsolescence in the primary healthcare estate. That situation has grown more critical.

We are calling for a Government commitment of up to £300 million – 0.25 per cent of the NHS budget – in additional rent for primary healthcare. It would enable the development of between £3 billion and £5 billion of new health centres, including multi-operational hubs.

In two or three years, this would see the building and modernisation of up to 750 flexible, fit-for-purpose facilities. These, by and large, shovel-ready projects could be built in line with net-zero emissions targets as part of a “green” economic recovery package after the Covid-19 pandemic.

The construction sector’s multiplier effect of £2.84 for every pound spent would mean significant regeneration for struggling communities. Such a relatively small financial commitment, well targeted, would help meet the levelling-up pledge of the last election.

This policy would align economic and healthcare considerations, no longer forcing the Government to decide between the two.

Dame Clare Gerada
Chair, Royal College of General Practitioners 2010-13
Paul Burstow
Health minister 2010-12
Harry Hyman
Managing director, Primary Health Properties
Sir Vince Cable
Business secretary 2010-15
Adrian Bailey
Chair, Business, Innovation & Skills Committee 2010-15
Professor Sir Sam Everington
Chair, Tower Hamlets Commissioning Group
Kim Foy-Olowu
Business practice manager, Milton Keynes Village Practice
Dr Ansar Hayat
Senior managing director, Maybush Medical Centre in Wakefield
Sir Norman Lamb
Health minister 2012-15
Matthew Roberts
Managing director, Brackley Investments
Chris Santer
Chief investment officer, Primary Health Properties
Dr Peter Shelton
Senior partner, Millwood Surgery in Norfolk
Richard Steer
Chair, Gleeds Worldwide
Mark Wakeford
Joint managing director, Stepnell

Now well confused

SIR – I don’t see how the problem of pronouncing Powell (Letters, December 16) is solved by rhyming it with Noel. Is that as in Noel Edmunds, or as in “The First Noel”?

Rita Coppillie
Liskeard, Cornwall

SIR – Robert Purry (Letters, December 15) gives his insight on pronouncing Powell. But is that Mr Purry like the noise of a cat, or the tomato paste in a tube – or does it rhyme with slurry?

Irving Wells
Yelverton, Devon

A true Brexit

SIR – If the Prime Minister emerges with a Brexit deal (report, December 16), no amount of spin will disguise concessions on fishing, the so-called level playing field or the European Court of Justice.

There should be a short transition period to allow our fishing industry to rebuild after the disaster of the common fisheries policy. However, any move towards a level playing field must be resisted, particularly if the ECJ were to police such an agreement.

If taking back control is to mean anything, Britain must be free to make (and amend) its own laws, support industry and control its borders.

R G Hopgood
Kirby-le-Soken, Essex

SIR – Talk of a level playing field has dominated the Brexit negotiations, yet the French government “lent” Renault €5 billion in June 2020 so that it could continue trading.

Surely, this is just the sort of help that EU law forbids, and its principles are one of the main sticking points of a smooth Brexit.

Simon Scrutton
 Lesterps, Charente, France

SIR – You report (December 16) that a trade deal could be agreed by the end of this week, and that MPs have been asked to vote on it on Monday.

As this deal is said to run to 600 pages, it could not possibly be properly scrutinised by then. If my MP voted for it, I would demand his resignation.

Sandy Pratt
Storrington, West Sussex

The jab queue

SIR – I was surprised to see Prue Leith, 80 this year, receiving a coronavirus jab so soon (report, December 16).

I have friends and relatives in their 90s waiting to hear from their surgeries, not to mention nursing staff at our local hospital. Is Miss Leith simply benefiting from her celebrity status?

Vicki Hooton
Camberley, Surrey

SIR – Here in Scotland, we over 80s are going to have to wait until February for our vaccinations. I asked my GP when we would be getting them at the surgery, and he said that he watched the BBC, same as the rest of us.

Jacqueline McCrindle
Prestwick, Ayrshire

Answers from Eton

SIR – Now that the dismissal of the Eton master Will Knowland (report, December 15) has been confirmed, there are questions to be answered.

It is suggested the legal opinion was that his lecture, The Patriarchy Paradox, breached the Equality Act 2010. Was this opinion shown to Mr Knowland, and was he given the opportunity to delete or amend the allegedly unlawful passages? Will Eton College now publish this opinion, so we may be sure that the dismissal was not an attack on free speech?

Robert Ashton
Shrewsbury

Wits' end

SIR – The recent letters (December 16) on street names reminded me of buying a bungalow near Wokingham in the mid-Sixties, when house names were de rigueur. Hardy annuals such as Dunromin and The Larches we thought to be wearyingly passé, so we eventually decided to leave it as No 6, which probably did not go unnoticed.

At the time you published a gem – a letter from a cash-strapped buyer who had called his new home Beam Ends.

John Turner
King’s Langley, Hertfordshire

Fidelio and a marriage nourished by music

SIR – Rupert Christiansen’s review of Beethoven’s opera Fidelio (Arts, December 14) brought back a very special memory for me.

On September 23 1955 my future husband and I attended an amazing semi-staged performance at the Royal Festival Hall by the Stuttgart State Opera. It was two days after he had finished his National Service in the RAF, and three weeks before his first term at Oxford University. I was in the sixth form of Oxford High School for Girls, and we had met two years earlier as members of a local youth orchestra. Music meant a great deal to us and we attended many concerts in the Sheldonian Theatre, the Town Hall and the Holywell Music rooms.

We married at the end of my husband’s third year of a four-year course. We had four musical children who benefited from the marvellous music education in Hampshire, and our eldest son has had a very successful, happy musical career playing in string quartets.

Rosalind Tapping
Basingstoke, Hampshire

An ill-judged attack on the success of Smiley

SIR – Sir Richard Dearlove’s bitterness at the success of John le Carré knows no bounds (report, December 15). Having once described the Smiley novels as having “some quality”, he now accuses Mr le Carré of tarnishing the reputation of MI6 with his books.

Sir Richard, it should be remembered, was head of MI6 at the time of the invasion of Iraq, an escapade that owed part of its origin to the dossier based on so-called “intelligence”.

His Honour David Ticehurst
Winscombe, Somerset

SIR – Sir Richard Dearlove was right to pour cold water on the rather gushing praise for John le Carré’s portrayal of the Service from Richard Moore, the present head of MI6. Sir Richard was simply echoing (with renewed vigour, it has to be said) the verdict expressed by eminent directors before him.

Nor, it seems, was Mr Moore wholly correct in his literary judgment. Yuri Modin, the KGB officer who controlled the Cambridge traitors, wrote that there were “truer, more subtle portraits of the profession”.

Michael Esther
Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire

SIR – Sir Richard Dearlove says Le Carré’s claim that his cover was blown to the Soviets by Kim Philby was “hardly a career-defining event”, since that was an occupational hazard.

Surely this doesn’t diminish the seriousness of a spy having his cover blown and thereby having his career in espionage cut short. Pretty career-defining, I would have thought.

Chris King
Woking, Surrey

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