Desperately sad to read of the death of Paul Nicolson (Obituary, 10 April). Guardian readers will be familiar with his sharply critical but always constructive commentaries on government policies over the past decade. Now that Covid-19 has exposed the inequalities created or exacerbated by austerity, and the lie that we were all in it together, his passionate plea for social justice still needs to be heard.
Alan Walker
Professor of Social Policy, University of Sheffield
• My husband is one of the 750,000 who signed up to be an NHS volunteer and put himself forward to phone vulnerable self-isolating people (NHS coronavirus crisis volunteers frustrated at lack of tasks, 3 May). To date he has not been allocated any tasks but details on his app show that he has already completed 100 hours! He has now set himself the exhausting target of completing a 1,000 hours by the end of the month.
Gloria Raven
London
• Economist Basil Yamey is 101 (Birthdays column, 4 May). Good to see he is doing his best to defy the dictum of his fellow economist John Maynard Keynes that “in the long run, we are all dead”.
Michael Cunningham
Wolverhampton
• What? I made this chutney too. Does John Chambers (Letters, 3 May) mean I have to wait a couple of months to eat it? That wasn’t in the deal!
Jennifer Rayner
Folkestone, Kent
• Boris Johnson: it was 50-50 whether to put me on a ventilator (Report, 3 May). 52-48 surely.
Alan Pearson
Durham
