I WAS glad to see our MP Kevin Hollinrake apologised for tweeting “Hope these people don’t blame the government if there’s a second spike”, alongside a picture of people attending the Black Lives Matter protests.

The fact that he chose this event to criticise, rather than the thousands of visitors travelling to visit beaches, shows a lack of judgement. Perhaps he didn’t want to criticise his own party for inviting people to visit beauty spots in the first place.

One of the reasons for the protest was concern that those of BAME origin are disproportionately affected by Covid-19.

The PHE report shows that this group are twice as likely to die from the pandemic than those from a white British background.

I hope Mr Hollinrake’s concern expressed in his apology leads him to press the government to urgently put in place concrete steps to find why this is so and provide a practical solution.

It is no good criticising those who are no longer social distancing when a bad example has been set by Mr Johnson’s chief advisor.

How can prominent figures in the Conservative Party be taken seriously when they condone the ridiculous excuse of driving 30 miles to test your eyesight?

Our MP asked us to “move on” from this criticism, but according to the June 3 YouGov survey, “One in 5 Brits said they followed lockdown rules less strictly following the Dominic Cumming’s story. A third of this group cited the story”.

I will certainly blame this government if there is a second spike. Unrest occurs when a government fails to listen to the concerns of its people.

It seems Mr Hollinrake is very keen to represent Westminster to his constituents, but less keen represent his constituents in Westminster. His vote to pave the way for cheap US imports to the detriment of local farmers proves the point.

Hazel Winter, Kirby Misperton

Bridges to be built

I READ MP Hollinrake’s tweet and was appalled. The clear inference is that “those people” could blame the government if there is a second wave, which could be their fault as a result of them protesting.

I do feel Hollinrake should be probed on what he means and called out for it not just on Twitter. This rhetoric, from elected reps, is part of the problem, as well as a gross deliberate failure to recognise the true problems.

He is influential. He should be building bridges and not sowing poisonous seeds. I think he has demonstrated his ignorance on the matter.

Rachel Henley, Appleton-le-Street

Report concern

I’VE just seen a new report (from Best for Britain and the Social Market Foundation) on the double impact of Brexit and Coronavirus, and feel like I’ve spotted an iceberg on the horizon that everyone else is ignoring.

The report shows that any change to our trade relationship with Europe during the Covid-19 recession will hurt the UK economy. The North West and the Midlands regions of the UK would face a disproportionately severe impact should we leave the Brexit transition period without any kind of deal.

Brexit is done and we cannot stop it, but we can protect our jobs, our services and our local businesses. However, our communities are already stretched to breaking point by the coronavirus pandemic and we desperately need time to deal with that before we can turn our focus to our changing relationship with the EU.

Monica Gripaios, Hovingham