• LET’S buy hope – not loo rolls!

Hope needs to be reclaimed. Hope has been called, “one of the most valuable assets of rebellion”.

However there is a way that shoppers can put down a pound or two for hope.

For example, in 2012 Budgens supermarkets in north London started charging £1 for a log of wood marked “Hope”.

You put it in your basket, took it to the checkout, and paid for it. But the log went back on the shelves for someone else to buy.

Budgens’s hope was to raise money from their shops in Belsize and Crouch End. The money was to go to the Alzheimer’s Society.

Let’s do this today and raise money for charities and social care.

First, we need to ensure that social care and our care homes can protect vulnerable people from the coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic this winter. They could do with money from hope for action.

Second, we need to ensure we support Marcus Rashford to successfully overcome child food poverty.

The England and Manchester United star has already got the backing of the major United Kingdom supermarkets on this.

But he, too, could do with money from hope for action. So our supermarkets could all sell logs for hope.

Rather than idiotically panic buying loo rolls – unforgivably wrapped in plastic – we could put down a bit of money for hope.

ROY TREVELION,
WC1