I don't understand why my beauty salon remains closed while pubs are open

I’m writing to you about the government decision to keep businesses such as beauty salons closed, while allowing the opening of pubs, which have a much more lax hygiene policy and are a far greater risk to public health.

I, along with thousands of other business owners, have made a huge sacrifice to keep our businesses closed for the greater good of society, but when policymakers can allow pubs to open while our country has one of the highest cases of Covid-19, I’m left to feel our sacrifice has been in vain.

I’m willing to keep my business closed for another year to protect lives, but not while pubs and non-essential retail are allowed to open. I’ve worked day and night over 15 years to establish a reputable business in the beauty industry. I can tell you my colleagues are highly trained and have an exceptional understanding of hygiene. Beauticians are very much like doctors when it comes to performing beauty treatments and most, if not all, treatments can be performed with Covid-19 protective gear such as masks, gloves and protective face shields. It is also easy to work on an appointment basis, which highly reduces client to client proximity and allows the staff to carry out the hygiene protocol between clients.

Perhaps there is simply no one in government representing businesses like mine, leading to policies that are simply unfair. Nevertheless, I hope this letter opens your minds on the matter.

Shumaila Iftikhar
Address supplied

Credit to the chancellor and his package to avoid millions of job losses and subsequent reliance on welfare benefit. Oh, wait a minute, we already have millions reliant on welfare benefit, that’s right they’re called the poor. I wonder what happened to them?

Frank Kenny
Liverpool

Eating out isn’t helping out

The prime minister claimed that the poorer sections of society had benefited more than any other as a result of recent Tory largesse: examples are not easy to identify.

The chancellor made a soundbite-style plea for people to take advantage of his £10-off meal deal offer and to “eat out to help out”, which drew, apart from the expected media headlines, an apt response from Alison Thewliss. Speaking of rising child poverty, the SNP Treasury shadow spokesperson said that some parents were far from “eating out”; in fact, many were “not eating at all”.

Eddie Dougall
Bury St Edmunds

Drop in the ocean

The chancellor’s pledge of an additional £30bn of measures to support the economy is, of course, to be welcomed and brings the direct cost of Covid-19 interventions to over £311bn. While a seemingly large sum, when one looks at the potential economic collapse coming down the line, this is unfortunately akin to using a pea shooter against an elephant.

With the OECD predicting 4 million unemployed, bringing the unemployment rate to 11 per cent, what the chancellor has done is temporarily protect jobs and livelihoods rather than providing the stimulus needed to guarantee these jobs in the long-term and get the economy moving again.

We have seen VAT reduced to 5 per cent for the hospitality sector, but this is a fraction of the across-the-board cut that was made in response to the 2008 global financial crisis.

What we need is major investment to rebuild the economy and yet we have had the paltry amount of less than £10bn being used for housing decarbonisation and green homes. There is an immense amount of capital at very low prices for the government to borrow and invest, and this will not always be there.

The economy was already stuttering in the first quarter and has now fallen off a cliff, with the OECD predicting the UK economy will take the biggest hit in the industrialised world this year. And that is before we fully exit the EU single market and the inevitable economic challenges that creates.

We need a genuine New Deal, with billions pumped into the economy through additional borrowing if we are not to leave an economic and social wasteland for both this and future generations.

Alex Orr
Edinburgh

Our responsibility in conflict

Without the Balfour Declaration of 1917 by the British government, it is very unlikely there would be a state of Israel today, a consequence of which has been millions of stateless Palestinians. Will the UK also be offering a safe haven to the Palestinians, for whom its moral responsibility for current sufferings is far greater than for the Hong Kong Chinese?

Frank Chacko
Cheltenham

A man’s opinion

I enjoyed reading Harriet Hall’s article on the joys of not wearing a bra during lockdown until she returned to type, and blamed the patriarchy for being forced to wear one.

My belief is that ladies with larger-sized bosoms wear a brassier for support and to prevent back strain; many women wear a bra to improve their shape or increase their bust size and symmetry, sometimes with the use of “chicken fillets”. I really don’t believe that men force women to do this, it’s rather the editors and fashion commentators in women’s magazines in order to support their advertisers.

Ken Twiss
Cleveland

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