Dido Harding is struggling to defend the indefensible

Dido Harding, chair of the National Institute for Health Protection and head of the NHS Test and Trace system - Credit: AFP via Getty Images

Readers have their say on the silence of Baroness Dido Harding, who is overseeing the government’s test and trace scheme.

I can’t help wondering why, if Diana ‘Dido’ Harding is that capable, confident and articulate (“Test of her life”, TNE #215), she doesn’t seem to do more media interviews: after all, who better to report on progress with that world-beating Test, Track and Trace system?
Perhaps there are more awful truths that her minders know about but we don’t yet. Or perhaps she can’t be trusted not to make a slip as David Davis did on BBC TV last week when he referred to Public Health England as a “nationalised industry” in an interview about the absence of penalty clauses in the T&T contracts.
Jim Trimmer

The government is responsible for two terrible adverts touting the idea of ‘transferable skills’. The first is the notorious ad suggesting ballerinas should go and work in “cyber”, and the second is Dido Harding.
Her failure with Test and Trace is proof positive that public health programmes should be run by public health professionals rather than Tory friends from supermarkets and telecom groups.
Ryan Taylor

So, Brexit-supporter Prue Leith is worried about food standards after a no-deal exit but says she was around before we joined the EU and it was okay (TNE website, October 10).
I remember them too – spaghetti was as thick as your finger with a sauce to match, cabbage was a rather limp affair and best left alone. Oh, the delights of the Friday night special, chicken in a basket preceded by a prawn cocktail.
Brexitland! I can’t wait.
Kathy Erasmus
London

Dominic Cummings (“His mortal enemy”, TNE #215) and right-wing Tories seem intent on spoiling our way of life. That is, in pulling us out of the EU, bashing the NHS, undermining the civil service and, in an attempt to master the airwaves, endeavouring to bring about the demise of the BBC as we now know it.
At least the BBC has enriched our lives giving us, for example, Sir David Attenborough. What have Cummings and Co given us – other than grief?
Roger Hinds
Surrey

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