Letter: Crisis has made me lose faith in bumbling Boris

On more than one occasion I have, in the letters column of the Shropshire Star, defended Prime Minister Boris Johnson against what I felt was unfair criticism expressed by other contributors.

Regrettably Mr Johnson has let me down to the extent that I have completely lost faith in him and his Government.

His bumbling handling of the current crisis is leading to an economic disaster the worst of which could have been averted had the Government stood up and addressed Covid-19 in a positive measured way.

Instead they seemingly descended into panic mode. This approach has caused serious alarm and fear among a population which needed calm reassurance, something which the Government has singularly failed to provide. Instead we have had to fall back on a daily diet of speculation and counter speculation fuelled by an ever-changing variety of supposed experts.

From this daily diet, I am led to believe that for the great majority of people under 70 with no underlying medical issue(s) Covid-19 is not fatal.

In fact we are given to understand that seven out of ten supposedly affected don’t even know they have it. On this basis the Government should be encouraging the fit under 70s to return to normal life and treat us oldies and potentially vulnerable as responsible adults capable of carrying out our own risk assessments as to where we go and what we do.

Inevitably some of those returning to normal life will pick up the virus, requiring a couple of weeks off work, but surely that is better than having no work to return to. I recall that as a youth I had a bout of Asian Flu which was quite nasty and put me out of circulation for a week or so. Apparently over 30,000 died, but I honestly cannot recall much talk about it.

Returning to today I’m no hero but I don’t want the economic future of the UK to be sacrificed in order to keep me free of the virus.

Michael Hughes, Shrewsbury