1 week Ago By [email protected] (Letters to the Editor)
Our readers from across the county give their weekly take on the biggest issues impacting Kent and beyond. Some letters refer to past correspondence, which can be found by clicking here . Join the debate by emailing letters@thekmgroup.
co.uk Car owners are ignored by politicians Soon it will be local election time and many will groan and not bother to vote. But voting is important.
There are, of course, many reasons you might want to vote for a certain political party. How important is having access to a car, for you and your family, for example? One universal theme running through most political party manifestos is denying you that ‘privilege’, as they like to call it. Most party manifestos will bang on about public transport and ‘sustainable’ transport as if car ownership does not even exist.
Bicycle sales boomed a bit during Covid times but sales of new bikes have continued to fall. Yet various governments continue to pour billions of pounds into unwanted ‘car-free’ schemes like ‘Active Travel’. Here in Kent, we have seen a massive increase in converting roads into 20mph glorified cycle paths, in the vain hope that we will ditch those four wheels along with its excellent carrying capacity for passengers and any goods we have purchased.
It would now seem that ‘fines’ from motoring offences must have to be included in council budgeting as a genuine acceptable form of raising revenue, which of course can incur huge rises in your insurance premiums - a ‘double-whammy’ for you and extra money for the government via IPT (Insurance Premium Tax = 12%). Plus, of course, sky-rocketing parking charges etc In his last term as Prime Minister, Boris Johnson enabled that all revenue from ‘moving traffic offences’ could be kept by the enforcing council, so creating a whole new revenue stream for councils for minor infringements of petty legislation they mandated; a real ‘licence to print money’ at our expense. So when those candidates drop round for a chat or you get a leaflet through the door asking for your vote, please question them.
Terry Hudson Time to scrap the green agenda Not all of us believe that the world is going to hell in a climate handcart and that to prevent that we must upend civilisation as we know it. We do need to adapt and man has shown over millennia that he is adaptable; the climate is changing but that is what it has always done and man and nature have always adapted. Our problem nowadays is that there are those who shout the loudest who blame man for all changes to the climate; they credit man with omnipotence but this is just really western hubris and arrogance - if the world is changing, it must be man's fault as he is all powerful! Yes, the climate is changing, we're not going to be able to stop it, particularly as we in the UK contribute so little to climate change.
So let’s plan for a changed climate here at home; let’s build in flood resilience; let’s create fire breaks in at risk areas; let’s manage controlled moorland burning; let’s pipe water from where it is abundant to where it is needed and let’s manage safe and secure energy from power stations -not from turbines which we pay to switch off if there is too much wind and not from solar panels over productive farmland. Of course, that will mean getting rid of Ed Miliband but then every cloud has a silver lining. Ditch the green agenda and spend the money protecting homes and the countryside.
Bob Britnell Our moral duty to cut pollution If we so distrust current MPs, we might succumb to any group who claim that "broken Britain can be easily fixed" with the flick of a fag and a swill of beer. The UK is said to be too "puny" to have any influence in the world over the adoption of net zero, so we shouldn't follow the policy ourselves! If, as is suggested, we should wait for the major nations to lead towards climate sense, yet another of the reasons given for Brexit (global influence) has not materialised As one of the initiators of the industrial revolution, we not only made enormous economic strides (from which we still benefit) but helped to launch the volumes of greenhouse gases that are profoundly threatening. Thus we have a moral duty to show leadership in resisting the charge towards the climate crisis.
Jeremy Hall Pupils need teaching, not mudslinging The National Education Union, which claims to have half a million members, recently made a commitment to use its political fund for campaigns against Reform candidates in elections. The first salvo was fired by Daniel Kebede, the General Secretary of the NEU. Needless to say, this produced the inevitable backlash from Reform’s leader, Nigel Farage.
Surely the last thing that parents with children at school want is to see education become a political football between a teacher’s union and a political party? This undignified spectacle has continued. Rather than giving in to self-indulgent political mudslinging, I think most parents would agree with me, that these two leaders should best be addressing the very real problems we face in our schools, namely, teacher shortages, mental health concerns among students, funding gaps and inequalities in access to quality education, particularly for disadvantaged pupils. At the end of the day, these are the things that really matter, with consequences which we be felt in people’s lives long after Messrs Kebede and Farage have been consigned to their place in the footnotes in history.
John Cooper Pavement cycling is still banned With reference to Jenny Cooper’s letter (April 17) requesting that pavement cyclists give more consideration to pedestrians, I would like to point out that it is illegal to cycle on the pavement. According to the Highway Code you must not cycle on a pavement. Unfortunately today, so many people cycle on the pavement that people think that it is allowed.
J. Goldsmith Reasons to vote Reform Tired of those boring, old political parties? Need a change? Why not try the new kid on the block - Reform UK? Particularly if you send your kids to private schools as Reform will give you a tax break on the fees. Good for your kids, but not too good for the kids from poorer families who are paying for your tax break.
Got private health insurance? Well, vote Reform, because they'll give you another tax break. Yes, your tax break is being paid for by those who can't afford health insurance but really, who cares? As well, with your health insurance you'll be able to jump the queue in the new 'insurance-based' privatised NHS. Pity that those who can't afford it will wait forever but once again, who cares? It's really great to have the new kid on the block, isn't it? Mike Baldwin Tackle crossings or be fired at ballot box We were told by the current government that they would ‘smash the gangs’ but thousands are descending upon our shores, to the cost of the hard-working people of this country.
Can you imagine what that money could do for our health service, our roads and infrastructure? This surely cannot be allowed to continue unabated without some sort of drastic measure, such as coming out of the ECHR and returning people back to their home countries if they do not fill the needs of the country. Much of the blame for this shambles and couldn’t-care-less attitude lies with all governments and not just Labour; let’s be fair about this, the Tories had 14 years in power and did little or nothing about the issue. I’m not trying to sway anyone into my political thinking but I do believe the pen is mightier than the sword and a cross where you think is appropriate will send the strongest of messages to the politicians that they either sort this enormous problem out or be fired.
The choice is all yours, don’t waste it. Sid Anning Trump does not deserve a state visit I found it a matter of great concern when Donald Trump received by the Prime Minister, an invitation from King Charles to a state visit. Of course, at the time neither King Charles nor Keir Starmer were aware of the upheaval the President would inflict on the world's money markets with his tariffs that he applied with unconcealed relish.
The much vaunted friendship between the US and the UK is teetering on the brink of dissolution. A recent survey carried out by Ipsos disclosed that only three in ten Britain's agree that there is a 'special relationship.' It now would seem Trump’s unpopularity amongst a large swathe of the British public is such that it would be intolerable for the President to be furnished with all the trappings of a state visit given his reputation as a divisive figure and his flagrant abuse of power.
Michael Smith We live in scary times I, for one, find what is going on in the USA under the Trump regime a great deal scarier than what we went through for the 40 years of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, from the late 1940s to the collapse of the USSR in 1991. With the Soviet Union we knew at all times what the agenda of the politburo in Moscow was - but Trump is a loose cannon whose mind is impossible to read. What is even more frightening is that Republican Senators and Representatives (with the exception of a very small handful ) see Trump as some kind of Messiah.
Bob Readman Crucial difference between two wars Colin Bullen compares the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany when over six millions were killed with the situation in Gaza today. He has overlooked a very important difference: in the Second World War, Jews were on the receiving end of the violence but in Gaza it is the Palestinians who have borne the brunt. True, some Hamas fighters have been killed but the overwhelming majority have been innocent women and children, as well as aid workers and doctors and nurses.
To their credit, 36 members of the Board of Deputies of British Jews have signed an open letter opposing Israel’s war in Gaza. Jews who care about humanity and know their own history must feel uncomfortable when they see Netanyahu and his government slaughtering people and destroying their homes Michael Charles Help us fund vital dementia nurses I am writing to ask your readers to make Time for a Cuppa for Dementia UK – the dementia specialist nursing charity – so we can continue to provide vital support to families facing dementia. It’s a huge and growing health crisis, yet families are not getting the support they so urgently need.
At Dementia UK, we believe every family affected by dementia should have the support of a dementia specialist Admiral Nurse but right now, we can’t reach everyone who needs us. This May we’re encouraging people across the nation to pour a cuppa for our largest annual fundraiser to raise crucial funds to help us recruit more Admiral Nurses. Dementia UK’s Admiral Nurses offer life-changing support and advice to the whole family, whenever it’s needed.
They work on our free national Admiral Nurse Dementia Helpline, in our face-to-face and virtual clinics and in the community, in GP practices, hospitals and care homes. We have an ambitious target of reaching a total of 1,000 Admiral Nurses by 2030. But to fund these vital nursing posts, we rely on donations from the public.
Time for a Cuppa week will take place from May 1-8 but people can host their own event at any point in the year. Sign up for your free Time for a Cuppa fundraising pack at dementiauk.org/timeforacuppa If you need advice or support on living with dementia, contact Dementia UK’s Admiral Nurse Dementia Helpline on 0800 888 6678 or email helpline@dementiauk.
org Dr Hilda Hayo, Chief Admiral Nurse and chief executive at Dementia UK Ignorant claims over steelmaking As a retired steelmaker with 50 years’ experience of the process and 40 years in the management and designing electric steelmaking plants in the UK. I am disturbed by some of the ill-informed statements by senior politicians on the electric arc process. The idea that electric arc steelmaking furnaces are not capable of making virgin steel is absurd.
The new electric arc furnace at Port Talbot will be capable of producing a full range of grades previously produced by the blast furnace. John C. Twiselton.
