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Getting away with it

While my friend and fellow correspondent Don Reeve rightly criticises the Government and laments the sale of RBS shares which will realise a net loss to the British taxpayer, I note he is silent on the assurances given by then Prime Minister Gordon Brown who was at great pain to assure taxpayers that they would “earn a proper return”, saying: “This support is on commercial terms. We expect to be rewarded for the support we provide.” (SA 5 June)

His fellow Scot and then Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling was even more certain that “the Government would get taxpayers’ money back within three years”. That was in 2008 and ten years later it is clear that the British taxpayer has paid through the nose to bail out a number of banks.

Of course the Americans have managed to ameliorate their losses by penalising British banks to the tune of billions of pounds (penalties paid by the taxpayer) while the UK government has sat on its hands and simply made no attempt to examine the role played by any US financial institutions in the banking crisis of 2008.

Des Morgan, Caraway Drive, Swindon

A question of bias

Once again the BBC have shown careless disregard for impartiality with the choosing of the audience for Question Time. Indeed Jeremy Corbyn couldn’t have picked a more left wing audience.

The BBC is funded by public money, paid for by the license fees. Why then are they so left wing? David Dimbleby with his fondness for hearing his own voice keeps interrupting the panel to get his own lefty views across. The programme used to be intelligent and interesting but today with the left leaning of the BBC it has degenerated into a joke. The political “picking “ of the audience should be stopped. Its an insult to all fee payers whatever their political leanings are.

David Collins, Blake Crescent, Swindon

Ducking the issue

A certain Mr Mattick, in high dudgeon, writes in response to my amiable letter about plastic ducks. He quite misses the point I make.

There can be few who have not been disturbed by the images we have seen and the facts we have read about the damage plastic causes. Today’s BBC news reports finding micro-plastic in every single sample of a random selection of mussels. I look at my own supermarket shopping, aghast at the amount of plastic in it; but I haven’t any ready solution. Has anyone? Decent people will at any rate have decided to be more ‘frugal’, with plastic.

It was in this spirit I sent my letter; it was not, of course, critical of the charitable aims and I did not write, as Mr Mattock says, of ‘polluting the river'. Leaving aside the matter of how much they cost, who made them and in what country, it remains evident that when the ducks are carefully collected after the event, they must still be disposed of, at sometime, somewhere. Where will all that plastic finish? India? China? The Antarctic?

I suggested (off the top of my head), an appropriate alternative: sticks. It wouldn’t be a misfortune should some of these be missed and slip-away down river during a final round-up of those being saved for next year.

John Chidley, East Leaze, Swindon

Such arrogance

Re ‘God’ shouldn’t choose (Janet Woodham 7/6/18).

The raw, breathless clay dictating to the Master potter about what it should and shouldn’t do.

Oh, the arrogance.

Jeff Adams, Bloomsbury, Swindon

Blame the parents

Is it any wonder Swindon is suffering from an epidemic of crime committed by gangs of 12-20 year olds? They’ve grown up with the dumbest, thickest, least knowledgeable parents on earth.

Almost all parents who gave birth in the late 90s and early 2000s are some of the stupidest people on earth. They think watching TV and gawping non stop at their mobile phones is their god given right and priority. Watch them all ignore their kids at bus stops and supermarket queues. Watch them cross roads without looking out to see what’s coming. Watch them walk along with headphones on pushing a pram or buggy totally oblivious to what’s going on in the real world.

Thick stupid parents breed thick stupid kids. And these thick stupid kids grow up to commit crimes and then are repeatedly let off by the justice system until they feel untouchable.

Roger Lack, North Swindon