Letters: 'Permanently close all businesses which are not viable due to Covid-19 and have the state take them over'

We don’t want that.

On the other hand, scores of businesses stand to fail, there would be massive redundancies, and very high unemployment when the furlough scheme ends. We don’t want that either.

If the Government tries to go halfway on their plans, we shall have both problems.

The Government want all schools to re-open in September. I don’t believe that this can be done safely due to Covid-19.

If schools don’t reopen, then children will miss out on their education and their exams, and if the Government goes halfway on this, we shall have both that problem and further outbreaks of Covid-19. The answer for how do we save all these businesses and these jobs, is to not need to.

The answer is how do those in education have the chance to pass their exams, is for them to not need to. I therefore propose the permanent closure of all businesses which are not viable due to Covid-19, and for them to be taken over by the state without penalty to the business owners.

I also propose the permanent closure of schools and for children to be educated another way.

My maternal grandfather lived in rural Norfolk, and never went to school because there wasn’t one close enough. He did okay for himself. We need to abolish the economy as we know it, and replace it with a state owned planned economy. The idea is to abolish work which is not viable, and replace it with work we need so that we can avert both unemployment, and labour and skills shortages. This country needs to greatly improve its food production so that there needs to be no starvation, so employ more people in that area. There are several other examples like this.

The current government’s aspirations are simply wrong. If we had locked down as early in the pandemic as Germany, South Korea and New Zealand had done, about 75–85 per cent of the Covid related deaths would have been prevented.

Jeremy Whiting, Great Lumley