These are the lessons governments must learn from the pandemic

Hague is right to say lockdown should never happen again. His comment was intended to be more along the following lines:

First, governments should listen and understand warnings, of which there were many, that virus epidemics are going to happen even if the timing is not known.

Second, preparations should be regular, ongoing events. Secure supplies of items like PPE should be monitored regularly, with manufacturers paid a retainer to ensure that machinery and materials are always at the ready.

READ MORE: Economies always recover but those with a serious illness do not

Over-capacity in the NHS should be the norm. There is an old saying that “one too few extra is always better than one too many less”.

Third, the UK has had many opportunities (North Sea oil being one) to create a sovereign wealth fund which could see the country through such events. Since parliament became sovereign in 1689, including Scotland from 1707, the equivalent of hundreds, if not thousands, of billions which should have been paid in tax have been allowed to slip out of the country, and in recent decades tax avoidance has been a lucrative game for some.

There are many lessons to be learned from this pandemic, but will they all be forgotten in 18 months from now, and will the poorest in the UK suffer the burden of recovery yet again?

Mike Underwood
Linlithgow

I AM a member of the Unite union’s retired members’ branch. In it, I have a number of friends who are members of the Labour party in Scotland. Those colleagues without doubt have the best

interest and the betterment of the condition of Scottish working people at heart and work hard at this aspiration.

I feel for them when I see the positions their Scottish leadership take. It is a leadership who are colluding with a Tory party whose policies are diametrically opposed to the traditional aims and values of the Labour party and the reason for it is that in the main, that leadership has an irrational blind hatred of the SNP which clouds any logical or reasoned thinking or judgement.

The Tory party will use them to achieve its own political ends. The reality is that when they have no further use for you, they will turn on you without a second thought or thoughts. One only needs to examine the General Election of 2015 after the Better Together alliance of 2014 to confirm the fact. Their lack of trust is legendary.

I am beginning to wonder when in Scotland our trade unions (mine included) will begin to realise that many of their members are either supporters of independence or at least supportive of our nation’s democratic right to have a second independence referendum.

Our unions are supporting a Labour party that is on a downward political track, and the reason for it is that working people are now aware that Labour are no longer relevant to them in their desires for a fulfilment of their hopes and needs, and that the Labour party are becoming aligned with a Tory party who are the cause of the hardship and suffering that they are experiencing.

Bobby Brennan
Glasgow

DO dreams of world domination remain in the US political psyche? Brian Quail writes a brilliant exposure (The myth of Hiroshima, June 16) of the American plans for obliterating Russian cities with atomic weapons post-World War Two. Their successful demonstration of Japan as a nuclear testing zone should be set against today’s widespread social unrest, the looming economic depression, a US versus China trade war stoked by a faltering American president facing re-election as Westminster bows to Washington after Brexit.

A cornered despot is dangerous, as North Korea knows. With nuclear waste dumps, power stations and Trident on the doorstep an independent Scottish voice on the world stage is urgently required. Would Norway support Scotland declaring UDI? Holyrood should quietly find out.

Iain R Thomson
Strathglass

JAMES Cairney, one of our best sport writers, must feel the pain and anguish and outright anger stemming from the most recent self-interested greedy and parochial actions of the SPFL.

The SPFL have stooped to a new low in terms of self-interest, greed and the betrayal of all sporting integrity. The majority of clubs should hang their heads in shame at their actions. I am glad that I wouldn’t have to rely on any of these bunglers if I were in a personal crisis.

Will we ever see Partick Thistle play again? Potentially if leagues one and two go into mothballs we will not see the Jags again until July 2021.

I don’t see how the club could survive being put into mothballs with at least 15 full-time professionals under contract along with trainees and the full-time youth academy. It seems that our fellow members are not satisfied with only expelling Thistle from the championship, they are now potentially preventing Thistle from earning any income whatsoever.

What type of membership organisation treats a member like this? Not even an apology or any compensation or even an acknowledgement of the terrible unfair treatment being handed out. The majority of our European neighbours have been able to move forward without relegation; only Scotland deals with the crisis in this way.

Thistle have been expelled from the championship then set adrift in a storm, with no lifeboats or life jackets, grotesquely told to go away and die quietly.

Chick Hosie
Scottish Football Fans for Independence