Nicholas de Jong (Letters June 4) expressed very well the inappropriateness of John Hayes’s self-congratulatory claims about the good state of the economy at a time when the government has allowed the UK to become almost the worst in the world for the number of deaths per million from COVID-19.
The agreement of most experts is that the best way of measuring the deadliness of the disease, is to take the excess of the number of deaths this year as compared with average number deaths over the same period in previous years.
By that count, the UK has so far had nearly 900 deaths per million people, with only Spain showing slightly higher. Most countries have shown fewer, and most of them far fewer.
Even if you count only certified COVID deaths, the UK is almost top again.
No wonder government spokesmen prefer to fudge the information they give out at the daily Downing Street briefings, rather than give it with clarity and trust the people to judge it fairly.
Boris Johnson says his government’s plan has worked very well. One wonders how many deaths it would take for him to admit a slight problem with the slow start and often muddled follow-on.
But, strictly on the economic side, John Hayes forgot to mention that – even before the COVID outbreak – the Conservative government had built up an enormous National Debt over the past ten years – its way of getting the deficit down (I don’t condemn the further debt now built up through COVID effects, but to begin the period with a big debt already hanging round our necks, was not a good idea).
Again, it’s a bit rich to talk about the good state of the economy, when our gross domestic product per head (GDP) for the past ten years has remained much as it was after the 2009 financial crash, while comparable EU and world countries have steadily increased theirs.
And it’s only this year after over ten years, that the UK average real-terms pay has got back to 2009 level.
Although the Conservative leader has long been known for his lack of respect for the truth, I commend to John Hayes the practice of not just telling the truth, but of telling the whole truth. Then let the people judge.
John Tippler
Spalding
