Andy Burnham’s desperately sad and disappointed face confronted me on the front page of Wednesday’s Guardian newspaper, and I was immediately transported back to the faces of the miners who were unsuccessful in retaining their livelihoods or support after Margaret Thatcher’s onslaught.
Then I read George Monbiot’s article (The government’s secretive Covid contracts are heaping misery on Britain, 21 October) in which he reveals the private profit bonanza that surrounds the test-and-trace system. “Consultants at one of the companies involved have each been earning £6,000 a day.” The contrast says it all.
Maybe those who voted for the Tory party in December 2019 will have learned a valuable lesson.
Pat Brandwood
Poole, Dorset
• George Monbiot is right to point out the scandal of the many contracts issued without proper tendering. It would improve the government’s tattered credibility if it took action to address the worst excesses of these contracts. Perhaps a windfall tax on lucrative test-and-trace contracts would be a fairer way of distributing the extra profits such as those announced by Serco, rather than declaring a dividend.
The government could also assure the public that it is withholding payment or seeking redress where serious failures such as those of Randox have been identified.
The taxes and clawbacks could then be used to increase funding to tier 3 communities.
Dave Turnbull
Great Rissington, Gloucestershire
• My friend the late Prof Tony King and Prof Ivor Crewe wrote a book published in 2014 called The Blunders of Our Governments. What George Monbiot describes seems to me far worse than any of the catastrophic decisions exposed in that book. Not only are the consequences now being experienced in avoidable illness and deaths, and the appalling economic, social and psychological effects of the measures to reduce them, but the motivation is based on a totally selfish doctrine that has been proved to have failed. The trust and respect on which democracy itself depends are being sacrificed to the plutocratic power grab from Downing Street.
Anthony Stamp
Wormingford, Essex
• Can I add a footnote from inside tier 3 to George Monbiot’s thorough exposé of the corruption at the heart of the test-and-trace scandal? Here in Wirral the council has just concluded a deal with a local call centre to provide a contact tracing service. This means that, after months of campaigners calling for the establishment of a fully resourced council-run system, young people on low wages will be attempting a challenge in which the best-connected in a crowded Jockey Club field have fallen at every fence.
Kevin Donovan
Birkenhead, Merseyside
• George Monbiot makes telling points concerning the relationship between the public and the private sectors and the government’s response to the pandemic.
Personal and political benefit seem to drive the allocation of major contracts without tender, transparency or accountability.
So it is crucial to redefine the badging of test and trace. It is not a function of the NHS. The ascription of this service to the NHS contributes to the fiction of the NHS proving ineffective and the validation of putting this service in private hands. It provides a barrier to proper scrutiny of the many failings of this service by giving the impression that this is an attack on the NHS with all the pressures it is experiencing.
Mike Taylor
Swanmore, Southampton
