It was reassuring to read our esteemed local Tory MP, Giles Watling, admit to being a jobbing actor recently, because he certainly isn’t a scientist or epidemiologist.

His acquaintance with facts seems tenuous at best as he changed tack within two weeks after Christmas when tougher lockdown measures were needed to stop Covid spreading, having previously railed against them.

But he is good at rehearsing his lines provided by the Government stage managers - he loyally voted against extending free school meals to stop children going hungry when parents on low wages were struggling.

He then blamed outsiders for spreading Covid, even though there isn’t a shred of evidence this happened.

Clacton High Street is hardly a big draw for shoppers with empty shops and tatty businesses left to deteriorate by the local Tory council’s failure at regeneration.

The massive Covid rate in Tendring and subsequent deaths are due to the Tory government’s multiple failures throughout the pandemic and ten years cutting the NHS and nurse training.

Particularly locking down too late and re-opening too early, spreading confusing messages about bubbles and tiers, failing to enforce face covering in shops, opening pubs before schools, failing to deploy an effective test and trace system, allowing schools to become Covid factories, failing to test passengers arriving at airports, sending infected people into care homes where Covid spread rapidly, and failing to provide PPE to care home staff.

As a result, the UK now has one of the highest Covid death rates in the world, a tragic, unnecessary, entirely avoidable record, but a testimony to a shambolic Tory government, more interested in giving away taxpayers’ money to their mates and party donors.

Steven Walker

Sunny Point, Walton on Naze

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