The Metropolitan Police Federation chairman has expressed concerns in the press that the reputation of the police could be damaged by the necessary enforcement of measures to combat Covid-19.

While we understand his concerns because policing in the UK is as, he says, by consent, we don’t think they have anything to worry about. The vast majority of people in the UK will respect the police enough to not put them in the position of having to enforce the rules.

It’s important that the police know the community are right behind them and that we understand that they are trying their best to save lives and to ease the pressure on the NHS.

This is an extraordinary crisis and the measures that have cross-party support in Parliament are essential and temporary and we stand solidly behind all our emergency services in this difficult time.

Many of us were on opposing sides as recently as December in what was at times a hard-fought election campaign but there are times when politics takes a back seat to community need and this is one of those times.

Signed by: Cumbria County Councillor Tony Lywood; Gerard Richardson MBE; Rt Hon Hazel Blears, former Minister for Policing and Counter-Terrorism; Trudy Harrison, MP for Copeland; Mike Starkie, Mayor of Copeland; John Mallinson, leader, Carlisle City Council; Mike Johnston, leader of Allerdale Council; Janet King, leader, Workington Town Council; Brian O’Kane, Mayor of Whitehaven Town Council; Alvin Finch, Mayor of Kendal; Sharon L Webster, Mayor of Ulverston Town Council; Peter Kendall, chair of Maryport Town Council; David Burn, Mayor of Keswick; Cleator Moor Town Council; Doug Lawson, Mayor of Penrith; Mark Orchard, Mayor of Silloth Town Council; Paul Turner, Gosforth Parish Council chair and retired police officer; Angela Dixon, Mayor of Millom; Graham Calvin, Egremont and CBC Councillor; Mike Hawkins, Cumbria County Council; Linda Jones-Bulman, Copeland Borough Council; William McEwan, Cumbria County Council; Mike McVeigh, leader of Copeland Council Labour party group; Deborah Earl, Cumbria County Council portfolio holder; Jean Murray, chair, Copeland Labour Party; Karl Connor, deputy leader, Copeland Labour Party; and Juliet Wilson, chair of Allerdale Constituency Labour Party.

A SMALL SACRIFICE

In the coming weeks up to Easter, Christians around the UK will be remembering the horrendous death on the cross of their saviour Jesus Christ.

In May, although maybe not as planned, our country will not only be celebrating VE Day but will also be reflecting on the sacrifice our young men made in Europe during World War Two. Most of these young men were away from home living in the trenches all over Europe for five or six years, many thousands never returning, all to save the lives and freedom of their fellow man.

Today all our country is asking, not only from our young men but all of us to help save the lives of our fellow man, is for the coming weeks or months “to stay at home or be two metres apart”.

Alan Coyles
Whitehaven Methodist Circuit

LIFE AFTER THE VIRUS

When the direct health consequences of the crisis become clearer we will be in a very different place as far as society and politics are concerned.

Thousands will have died, many because of a chronic lack of health and care investment in a country which when this started had only one sixth of the intensive care beds available in Germany.

Meanwhile the Prime Ministers chief advisor is said by The Sunday Times to have suggested that to gain ‘herd immunity’ and protect the economy “if a few pensioners die, so what?”.

Any government is charged above all with protecting the safety of its people. Our government’s failure to realise – after clear warnings – that investment in vaccines, testing and health equipment is at least as important as Trident missiles, aircraft carriers or the now almost irrelevant Brexit tragi-comedy, is frankly criminal.

The flashy bravado of career politicians deciding off the cuff to bluff and change things regardless of any proper analysis of the facts, research or science surely cannot be tolerated for much longer. A proper long-term, structural investment in health and public services must be a real priority, not just claims of promised cash. Those investments must go far beyond replacing the damage caused by 10 years of now clearly pointless austerity.

The reality is that zero-hours contracts, McJobs, reliance on food banks and the gig economy have damaged the wellbeing of our population. Sheer selfishness and failures in parenting and education have resulted, for example, in neighbours who refuse to stay at home during a pandemic partly because they simply lack scientific or critical-thinking skills.

This crisis also proves that our economy and our social order are totally at risk if the government fails to sustain the incomes of millions of people who stand to lose their employment in the progressive recession/depression facing us. The grief over personal and national loss together with the sheer scale of the economic restructuring needed in the next few years will change all our lives.

Hopefully the traditional money-led Establishment’s ability to insist that the cost of everything is more important than its value will be binned and quickly.

Tim Knowles
Frizington