Letters: October 15, 2016

Anonymity is granted only at the discretion of the editor, who also reserves the right to edit letters.

I want answers from MP

I AM a resident in the North Swindon constituency, therefore Mr Buckland is not my MP. However, since his remarks make reference to areas in North Swindon may I ask Mr Buckland the following questions:

“Do you agree with the principle of the Conservative Swindon Borough Council to:

1a) create new parish councils in the present unparished areas

b) delegated the proposed works to: i) existing parish councils ii) the new proposed parishes iii) new parished areas with different boundaries than those presently proposed?

2) threaten to withdraw any services where those services which SBC wish to transfer are not agreed to by:

a) existing parishes or to curtail services to unacceptable standards

b) new parished areas or to curtail services to unacceptable standards?

3 Do you, Mr Buckland, support the borough council in these moves which could be described as Swindon Borough Council’s council tax evasion measures because of the financial mess the council is in?

4 Does this show the Conservative SBC is unfit to carry out its duty and is unfit for purpose?

BRIAN V COCKBILL

Swindon

....

May is a chameleon

THERESA May is a chameleon politician as a member of this Conservative Government, whose policy for the last eight years has been economic austerity.

Under this the nation’s economics favoured the richest one per cent of the population at the expense of the working population.

The proof is that the privileged one per cent are now twice as rich as in 2008. Ask the Duke of Westminster.

That is what thoughtful citizens would expect from Conservative MPs, but what is preposterous is for Mrs May, who sat in the Cabinet, now to declare she is offended by this inequality, as if the Tory Government had not deliberately created this divided and unjust society.

Mrs May has declared that Sir Philip Green is the ‘unacceptable face of Capitalism’, just as Ted Heath declared that Robert Maxwell, El Fayed and Tiny Rowland were the ‘unacceptable face of capitalism’ 40 years ago without the foggiest intention of Parliament ever changing the law to regulate British commerce to standards of honesty.

In truth, Sir Philip Green is the living, breathing embodiment of all that Conservatism has ever stood for, which is the blatant hypocrisy in Toryism, when every now and then, such magnates as Maxwell, Fayed, Tiny or Sir Philip go so very far beyond any civilised values, that eventually, just a few ‘left-wing Tories’, such as Heath or May, are forced to call them names.

But the Tory Party has no intention of changing such blatant corruption.

Sir Philip knows the friends he can rely upon after the spotlight of the media has moved on.

Many others will copy Sir Philip. And so it goes on, from election to election and from generation to generation.

Britain is controlled by the grossly corrupt commercial standards of Sir Philip, operated by bank directors and CEOs who are usually more cunning than him in disguising their greed.

But it only continues because so many British voters share the same personal unethical values.

CN WESTERMAN

Meadow Rise, Brynna, Mid Glam

....

Who will grit roads?

I READ about the predictions of it going to be a long, cold, white few months (Adver, October 11).

So SBC Highways has 1,600 tonnes of salt ready to be spread. Let’s leap forward a short while. SBC may have the manpower to spread the salt this year but where is the said manpower to come from if everyone is going live in a parish in the near future?

Are the same men and women who do the grass cutting in the summer months going to spread the salt in the winter months or does SBC have two teams, one which works in the summer and one in the winter. Is each team on garden leave for six months?

If all the grass cutting crews and others who currently work for SBC are going to be turned over to the parish council SBC will not have enough people to man the lorries and 4 x 4s to grit the footpaths, so are the parish councils going to have to pick this major problem up?

Is it another cop out from SBC which will mean another hike in the parish tax to cover the costs for spreading the salt and SBC will get to keep loads more cash.

JOHN L CROOK

Haydon Wick, Swindon

....

I favour a Hard Brexit

HAVING read the article in the Telegraph on Wednesday, October 12, I find myself leaning towards the Hard Brexit Campaign.

The British public voted to leave the EU. What they were telling the Government was that they were fed up with Brussels’ interference in British affairs.

We, the public, wanted out by 1.3 million votes.

Soft Brexit leaves it open to more stupid meddling in totally British affairs. We want no more of it.

Yes, it would be nice to remain in the single market but not at too high a price.

Prior to the Common Market we had traded with a very large portion of the known world – for the most part successfully.

Listening to Dr Liam Fox and David Davis I am encouraged to think we can do so again and get even better deals than are to be had via the EU.

We shall have to improve our productivity. We produce less per unit than most of the leading European companies. This has to be addressed to make us competitive in all markets. Then we can be really successful.

We only have to look locally at the old Pressed Steel/Leyland factory in Swindon. Now owned by BMW they decided to “robotise” the plant to make it more efficient.

However, it means more co-operation between companies and the banks/Government to carry out this modernisation and the design and the manufacture of efficient machinery to give us greater output.

This means total professional updating of both production and managerial skills so that we can reap the benefits of being out of the EU. The sheer incompetence of the hierarchy leading the EU is totally unacceptable. to the voters. and is many cases to a whole raft of British manufacturing companies Not only is it incompetent but it is also corrupt..

Billions of pounds are wasted on ideas that should never have seen the light of day.

We have competent Engineers and Sales and Marketing Teams that can go out and sell our products and ideas.

Do we honestly believe that all these Europeans who have been hoodwinked by the EU are going to stop selling us their products?

And do we think that they are not going to purchase from us those things that we do so very well? And all because some appointed idiot in Brussels tells them not to.

As David Davis states we can go out and seek the most open and barrier-free markets and that will be as good as the present single market.

And we must remember that we also voted to reduce immigration. Yes, of course there must be some but we should be able to choose who comes in and who cannot come in.

This part of Brexit cannot be overlooked. I honestly believe the public will not stand for it.

We all know it’s not going to happen overnight. We have to plan and put those plans into operation. So for the moment we have to tighten our belts.

Why do we expect that our Prime Minister is going to lay out her plans before we are ready. Do you tell your opponents what cards you are holding when you are playing cards?

What we are planning is to build a sound and profitable country where it is a pleasure to live. where our hospitals are not swamped by diseases from less fortunate countries immigrants who think we are soft enough to take them all in. Why do they want to come here. What is wrong with France, Italy, Spain, and indeed all the other EU countries.

I thought it was law that they had to stay in the first EU country they arrived in. So much for EU laws and rules.

Theresa May was correct when she stated: ‘Brexit is Brexit’. So let’s let our leader get on with her job without interference.

DAVID COLLINS

Blake Crescent, Swindon

....

I used a different word

THANK you for printing my letter of October 10 Xenophobia is Wrong but I would like to point out that you printed the word “Fascism” when I used the word racism.

On the same evening you printed a letter from Anne Bennett Count on Racist Policy in which she urged people to write to their local MP or Home Secretary Amber Rudd on the Tories’ proposal to force companies to publish a list of foreign workers they employ, although this plan has now been scrapped.

I can inform Ms Baxter that I did write to my MP Robert Buckland on this issue and other topics regarding the recent Tory conference.

MARK WEBB

Old Town, Swindon

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Just a bit of banter

LOAD of nonsense over nothing!

Donald Trump was just having a bit of banter, which many have done also.

Lots of blokes look at pretty girls and would say they are “lookers.”

The way people view what was innocent humour today, well they must be ‘odd’?

Incidentally, in many TV shows in the 1970s, they did talk like this about sexy looking birds.

COUN PHILIP WINTER (UKIP)

Southmead Road, Filton, Glos

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Thanks for my care

MAY I, through the Swindon Advertiser, express my grateful thanks to all the carers and staff (past and present) of Sanctuary Home Care, for the way they have looked after me for the past several years.

Now that we have been transferred to First City Homecare, I trust that the case will continue for many years to come.

Thankyou.

GWEN COLLINS

Moredon

Swindon