BURBERRY, a leading fashion clothing brand was recently tasked by UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock to produce personal protective equipment (PPE) for NHS staff and carers. The company not only re-vamped the production lines at its Castleford factory to meet this request but also undertook to fund research at Oxford University into a Covid-19 vaccine. Its reward? It has now been targeted by short-selling hedge funds aiming to profit from a reduction in the Burberry share price caused by the closure of the company’s outlets and movement to assist Government and society generally. Sad to say their actions are perfectly legitimate under current guidelines.

The Bank of England has requested that hedge funds desist from exploiting the coronavirus crisis, but its plea has fallen on deaf ears.

Hedge funds have been described as “parasitic malignances which look for weaknesses in market mechanisms (currently as a consequence of Covid-19 ) in order to draw their own nutrition from the real economy in the same way a tape worm draws away nutrition from its host body”. They inhabit a world of their own making, dealing in assets owned by others and driven by a culture of greed completely lacking in moral scruples.

Bland requests to desist have proven ineffective and what is now urgently called for is an “iron fist” policy backed by law. An alternative could be the introduction of a windfall tax on profits from short-selling. The problem must be addressed and the sooner the better.

D Lindsay Walker (Mr), Strachur.

DON'T we just love giving to charity. All these millions currently flooding into the NHS and related charities certainly let the Government off the hook for another few weeks.

However as inevitable as night follows day, this will not last.

The time for analysis of the horrendous economic mess we are now in is rapidly approaching, and whether we like it or not, taxes are going up.

Will the same individuals who willingly dug deep into their pockets for a charitable donation, be just as obliging, without complaint, to hand over a substantial slice of their income to the Chancellor?

All the current talk about the lifting of the lockdown, if, how, when, disguises the obvious truth, that such a mess did the Government make of introducing it in the first place that the last thing it will want to do now is make a hash of the wind-down as well.

Expect nothing much more than "careful analysis and consideration" statements for some time to come, hiding the dithering and obfuscation.

Gordon Robinson, Perth.