Letters: October 19, 2016

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

It’s policy hypocrisy

THE situation in Syria is dire and I am sure that the role of the Russian government is not helping the rebels, including IS, in their fight to bring an end to President Assad’s presidency.

However, before the UK Government embarks on yet another round of ‘bear baiting’ it would do well to reflect on how the conflict came about and how it has been allowed to escalate.

In this the Western powers do not have clean hands, neither do they have moral right in their favour.

At the same time as the US and UK Governments castigate Mr Putin they turn a blind eye to the actions of the despotic Saudi regime as it seeks to cleanse the Yemen of a religious group it despises.

Moreover, the Saudis are provided with intelligence and military assets to wage a war on so-called dissident groups.

In Egypt the Arab Spring has quickly morphed into a democratic deficit autumn where any semblance of challenge to the government is quickly and efficiently put down by use of military force.

As for Turkey, the prolific Mr Erdogan continues his war on freedom by imprisoning, or worse, anyone who dares to question his dictatorship.

The sheer hypocrisy of UK foreign policy makes you proud to be British (irony).

DES MORGAN

Caraway Drive, Swindon

....

Business as usual

FURTHER to various letters recently in your newspaper. I have noticed several times that some of your readers refer to Theresa May as the unelected Prime Minister of this country.

Could I point out that we do not elect our Prime Minister in this country, this position is taken by the leader of the political party in charge.

Also, people seem to think we have to have a General Election following David Cameron’s resignation, when in fact this is not the case.

Similar situations have arisen in the past. It happened when Tony Blair resigned in 2007 and Gordon Brown took over.

And it also happened in 1990 when Margaret Thatcher resigned and John Major took over. On both of these occasions a General Election was not held and the new Prime Minister stayed in office until the next General Election took place.

Hopefully, people will stop going on about this now.

MIKE ROSE

Broughton Grange, Lawn, Swindon

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Dwelling on profit

ALLAN Woodham shows a certain naivety when he supposes a causal link between costs and prices (Rip off for motorists, SA October 17).

Current sales strategy is “to price at what the market will bear.”

This is particularly relevant in the house building industry, where a handful of major players are sitting on land banks and planning permissions for over five million new dwellings.

By casualising the construction labour force and manipulating starts they are able to ratchet prices up to levels that routinely yield 20 per cent net profit on turnover.

If they were selling groceries the Monopolies and Mergers Commission would be down on them like a ton of bricks.

DON REEVE

Horder Mews

Old Town

Swindon

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Brexit fight continues

ON JUNE 23 Britain voted to leave the EU in a referendum. When the result was announced the leader of UKIP Nigel Farage said that he was resigning because now there was nothing more he could do to battle against Britain’s membership of the EU.

Paul Nuttall, the deputy leader of UKIP, also said he was standing down, along with the party chairman Steve Crowther.

They all believed the campaign was over and that Britain was now on a firm path to leave the EU.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The leaders of UKIP were mistaken when they thought that campaign to stay in the EU had ended.

Three months later the path to leave the EU is far from clear.

The majority of the MPs in our Westminster Parliament were supporters of the Remain Campaign.

Many MPs are demanding a second referendum on the grounds that the consequences of leaving were not made clear to the voters.

Many other MPs are saying that the terms of leaving the EU should be decided by a vote in Parliament and not by the Prime Minister. A vote in Parliament could have the result of keeping Britain in the Single Market even though we were technically outside the EU.

The strong opposition in parliament to the referendum result has put our exit from the EU in doubt.

Many people now believe that our MPs want a half in and half out compromise.

The dream of the Brexiteers of Britain becoming a fully independent country now looks like just a faint blur far away on the distant horizon.

STEVE HALDEN

Beaufort Green

Swindon

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Benefit clarification

IN response to Mr J Adams’ letters in the Adver dated October 17 and I feel I have to ask him for an apology.

In his letter he wrote that Theresa May is planning to cut housing benefit for pensioners with spare rooms.

I have spoken to my MP who said that Mr Adams is completely wrong. There are a number of specific exemptions to the removal of the spare room subsidy, one of which is pensioners.

At the Conservative Conference, the Prime Minister said Labour are: “Fighting among themselves. Abusing their own MPs. Threatening to end their careers. Tolerating anti-Semitism and supporting voices of hate.”

Which makes me wonder, I don’t think that our two excellent local MPs, Robert Buckland and Justin Tomlinson, are members of the nasty party, but it sounds like Mr Adams and his comrade Corbyn are.

NORMAN BAKER

Swindon