Re your report on the confidential Cabinet Office document on “Operation Yellowhammer” (Revealed: secret plan for months of no-deal chaos, 23 March), it is hard to comprehend that any government could be making such plans. It is the first task of government to ensure the security and wellbeing of its citizens. To be actively planning how to mitigate a serious disaster that is quite unnecessary and has been brought about by this government is a complete dereliction of duty.
The plans themselves would be unworkable, involving incessant form-filling and reporting instead of action. It is exactly the same approach that has been applied to the NHS and the teaching profession, but in an emergency situation the results would be dire.
It behoves those who would lead us to save us from this danger by revoking article 50, removing the threat of no-deal and the promise of permanent cliff-edge scenarios and negotiations were we to pass a deal.
As for the so-called European Research Group, they might be better described as the Evasion of Responsibility Group.
Margaret Yerrell
Budleigh Salterton, Devon
• Presumably the codename “Operation Yellowhammer” for the government’s emergency food and medicine provisions, derives from the song of said bird, always popularly rendered as “a little bit of bread and no cheese”. Not the right time for black jokes at the public’s expense, I think.
Richard Mabey
Roydon, Norfolk
• Naming a no-deal survival plan after a bird that was placed on a “red alert” conservation list following a sad and spectacular decline is appropriate for so many reasons. Don’t panic, Captain Mainwaring.
Ian McCormack
Leicester
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