Readers' letters: Leaders should have gone online for G7 Summit

Does anyone know why, if there is still a pandemic - with a new, serious variant - are world leaders and their entourages still coming to Cornwall for the G7 Summit?
Protesters at the G7 Summit in Cornwall
Picture: Getty ImagesProtesters at the G7 Summit in Cornwall
Picture: Getty Images
Protesters at the G7 Summit in Cornwall Picture: Getty Images

We are still being told to work from home if we can.

Portugal has just been put on to the amber list (causing a lot of disruption to families), and international travel is frowned upon.

In certain areas, like here in Lancashire, we’re being advised to minimise travel out of the area.

We’re told that cases and hospitalisations are increasing.

And it looks like the June 21 deadline will be delayed.

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So if the pandemic is not yet over, why is there a mass gathering of people, coming from all over the world, taking place in Cornwall?

This is surely risking a surge in cases?

Why not do the meeting over the internet, as most people have done theirs for the past year?

I’ve heard that the summit will also mention climate change.

If so, there is a particular irony ignored by these world leaders, who are flying in via private jet and then driving gas-guzzlers.

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Trees were also cut down at the hotel they’re staying in. Very green.

Again, what’s wrong with using technology?

Or is it one rule for the ‘elite’, who can do as they please, and another rule for the rest of us?

Ava Bantam

Lancashire

virus

What was the point of jabs?

The frantic dash for our holiday-makers to get back from Portugal before the Tuesday 4am deadline, and the scenes at Faro airport, with Brits telling their stories to the media about the extra expense of having to cancel their holiday and rebook flights at exorbitant prices, was a complete and utter farce.

It also looks like June 21, when things should have been back to ‘normal’, is going to be put back to goodness knows when and so folks, it could be a week in Blackpool for most of us which is all thanks to the ‘Indian’ variant.

Oops!

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Sorry, I meant to say the ‘Delta’ variant, which has now been renamed by Number 10 and used as a smokescreen to take our eye off the fact that our porous borders are leaking like a sieve and people are sick and tired of hearing about the Indian variant which could possibly have been controlled at source (meaning the airports, and also putting India on the red list a lot sooner).

The thing that gets me is both myself and my wife have had our two ‘jabs’ which supposedly protects us from Covid and yet we are advised not to travel abroad.

So what’s the point of having it in the first place?

M Tipper

Penwortham

Foreign aid

How should cash be spent?

Re: Government’s policy to reduce the Foreign Aid Budget by 40 per cent.

The UK spent more than £8,300 a minute on nuclear weapons last year according to a Report of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

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ICAN estimates that £4.38bn was wasted on nuclear defence systems in 2020, making the UK the fourth biggest spender behind the US, China and Russia.

Globally, nuclear weapon spending increased by $1.4bn in 2020 alone, with a total of $72.6bn spent by nine nuclear armed countries on their nuclear weapons as the pandemic spread in 2020 and a global treaty banning nuclear weapons took full effect.

All this money on weapon systems which, if it were ever used, would destroy us all.

Instead of reducing foreign aid by 40 per cent, would it not be morally right to use these nuclear monies to combat climate change and Covid-19, as well as alleviate poverty, which would help to stop the flood of refugees fleeing war and environmental degradation?

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To add insult to injury, the UK has sold arms to Saudi Arabia. These have been used to bomb civilians in Yemen while we intend to cut foreign aid to that war-torn country.

David Penney (Rev)

Colne

nuclear weapons

Billions spent on weapons

Just how much does the UK Government spend each year on nuclear weapons?

The answer, according to a new report based on figures from the National Audit

Office, the Ministry of Defence and other sources, appears to be a staggering £6.4bn.

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Indeed, in Complicit: 2020 Global Nuclear Weapons Spending, Nobel Peace Prize winners ICAN highlight the fact that this amounts to more than £8,300 ($11,769) for every minute of every day throughout the year (see https://www.icanw.org/complicit_nuclear_weapons_spending_increased_by_1_4_billion_in_2020).

At the same time, the Government tells us that it needs to cut expenditure.

It refuses decent pay rises for essential workers

and is busy

ending free parking for NHS staff at their places of work.

They claim that they can no longer keep their manifesto commitment on foreign aid to the world’s poorest nations, but for no good reason they seem ever more eager to squander billions on nuclear weapons of mass destruction.

Philip Gilligan

South Lakeland and Lancaster District CND

cemetery

Resting place at the cemetery

What joy awaited me when I took a recent stroll around Lancaster Cemetery.

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A brand new bench on which to rest awhile, listen to the birds and feel the breeze gently stirring the beech trees.

Whether this has been provided by a private benefactor or from the funds of the Cemetery Office, I wish to offer a huge ‘thank you’.

It means such a lot to me (and I’m sure to many other citizens of Lancaster) to once again have a place to rest and absorb the soothing sounds of nature.

Elizabeth Capon

via email