Readers express their disbelief at the government’s explanation for the lockdown gathering at Downing Street last year
John Harris’s article (The fatal weakness of the Conservatives is not seeing the kindness in most people, 19 December) carried the evergreen quote of the Brittania Unchained (definitely not Unhinged) group: “Once they enter the workplace, the British are among the worst idlers in the world.” Your photograph showed employees of the public in the Downing Street garden, standing around chatting, with wine and cheese at hand, at a claimed “work meeting”. Having retired from the NHS, where consuming alcohol on hospital property was forbidden due do its effect on professional performance, and where late working hours meant working flat out into the next morning rather than just a balmy evening, I applaud the prime minister for promulgating the view of the Brittania Unhinged group even at the very heart of government.
Dr Jonathan J Ross
Sheffield
• I was 18 when I first walked on to a Covid ward. I began the year studying cells and chemistry with my friends in sixth form and I ended it donning scrubs on my own in a small staff toilet preparing to cross the red line. I sat in the corner as a nurse asked if a family wanted to be taught how to put on PPE so they could see their daughter. “No,” they replied. They had done this many times before. Today was goodbye.