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It’s parish business

BEFORE the last full council meeting, I sent a question with regard to the amount the parish is now paying for Swindon Borough Council services.

Today, the council’s ‘political advisor’ has replied with a reply from the council leader to say that that such matters are now the business of the parish and I should take it up with the parish.

I have now emailed the parish leader and asked the question, of what we are getting for the charge of £383.204, and also £85.520, which is for the ‘enhanced’ services of SBC. Exactly what are these enhanced services also and how they can cost so much?

I would also make the point, given the reply the council leader gave, when is the council going to cut the number of councillors on the borough payroll (57), down to say one per ward, if we now have to deal direct with the parish for any such matters?

T REYNOLDS

Wheeler Avenue

Swindon

A gamble too far

A BRITISH Trade Unionist official has just declared that, if manufacturers wish to sell cars in Britain, then they must make them in Britain. The man probably means well, but, like all Brexit supporters he does not understand a modern world, beyond his own misleading opinions.

Ask yourself, if you were the CEO of Peugeot, who recognises that he is in no position to guess or influence what level of tariffs, import and export, these various national governments will impose on the cars which are manufactured in future years. Would you think it safer to make them in the EU with 440 million potential customers, while there might be tariffs against the UK, or make them in the UK with 60 million possible customers, and possible tariffs against selling them in the EU?

That is how decisions are made. The UKIP continual chanting that the British are wonderful, so that will fix everything, is the thinking of a child.

A faithful workforce is a great asset to a company, but all commerce depends on plenty of customers, before any other consideration.

Corporations will adapt to the policies of governments, but even if Mrs May has offered secret deals and subsidies, a CEO would be foolish to rely upon such insecure guarantees, by comparison to the largest consumer base in the world. The UK is a gamble too far.

When you think about it, it is wiser to examine the opinions of others, rather than be blinded by your own.

CN WESTERMAN

Brynna,

Mid Glamorgan

Suicide votes

MY grandparents and parents all worked hard during their lifetimes. The ones who made pensionable age ended up financially struggling and living frugally on the basic state pension. I witnessed this personally, not that many years ago.

Let us fast forward to the last financial year. It has been officially announced that the 814 members of the House of Lords cost you and I, the British taxpayers, £67,932,000. I make that more than £83,000 pounds a head. I then come to the mathematical conclusion that is just over £1,600, a week each.

The basic state pension at the moment is £119.30 a week. That means the Lords receive more than 13 times your average pensioner receives, after a lifetime of hard work of paying tax and national insurance to be eligible. Not to mention the subsidised freebies that they receive, at our expense.

No need for a visit to the food bank for the Lords and Ladies then. Nor joining the thousands of pensioners dying every year of cold weather related illnesses because they cannot afford to pay their heating bills.

Yet for the second time in a few days the unelected have defied the elected MPs. Defied the will of the people, in a petulant act of “we know best”. Many of them should not be allowed to have a vote as they have a conflict of interests, as they are receiving financial gain from the Disunion.

I am no historian but many people have stated this is in breach of our symbol of liberty, the 1215 Magna Carta. The distinguished Lord Denning, when Master of the Rolls, once stated it was the greatest constitutional document of all times.

I sincerely hope that their actions will end, to paraphrase Michael Foot’s manifesto, in being the longest suicide note in political history. The Lords, by their recent actions, will have reciprocated with the two shortest suicide votes in political history.

BILL WILLIAMS

Merlin Way

Covingham

We’re ready to trade

BRIAN Mathew, the erstwhile wannabe Lib Dem MP, makes a very cogent point in his latest missive (SA , March 8) when he says “The key to our long term success as a nation, must be to maintain flexibility and not be locked to one fixed idea”. Of course he doesn’t really mean that as he is an advocate of the UK being locked in to the protectionist EU to which flexibility is anathematic to its nature.

The UK Government is ready and willing to strike a trade deal with the EU but the commissars who really control the EU do not want to know; and it suits some EU political leaders to vocalise extreme action against the UK as a way of demonstrating their support for what many would see as a failing (if not failed) political and social construct.

Mr Mathew suggests the decision as to whether or not the terms of any EU agreement are acceptable must be made by the ‘people’. Strangely, such thoughts have never before entered the thoughts of Lib Dem peers and MPs, and many who voted to leave will be dismayed at being thought of as clueless, and ignorant.

The ‘people’ voted 52% to 48% to leave the EU which included the single (or internal) market and to make its own trade deals where it could with a much wider world. It should not be forgotten that despite an increase in size and population, UK business in the EU was not increasing year on year.

DES MORGAN

Caraway Drive

Swindon