Letters: Thursday, March 2, 2017

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

Families will be hit

THIS Conservative Government says families matter to them. But in reality, actions speak louder than words.

So, let’s judge this Government on its actions. Last week it survived a legal challenge to its policy that the UK spouses of immigrants must earn more than £18,600. If they do not, then they risk seeing their families broken up and their loved ones forced to leave.

The implication of BREXIT may now mean that EU nationals living in the UK and married to UK citizens will be treated in the same way.

Even UKIP is on record as saying that those family members of UK citizens who were living here prior to the referendum, should have their right to remain respected.

Not so the Conservative Government, who seem bent on holding EU nationals living here to ransom while the negotiations with the EU are in progress.

This petty minded attitude is doing untold damage to such families by creating totally unnecessary anxiety.

Millions of EU citizens have made Britain their home. In doing so they make a very valuable economic and social contribution to our country.

Those married to UK citizens have made a deep commitment to our country and the role it plays in their family’s future and it is plain wrong that these families should be put under this stress.

This Government’s inhuman attitude is creating the same anxiety in reverse on the Continent. There, in addition to their now potentially precarious right to remain, British citizens depend on European national health services for their treatment.

It is time to end this shameful farce and offer cast iron reassurances to EU citizens already here that they are welcome to stay and use the NHS as required. No doubt that will be followed by the same commitment to British citizens whose home is now on the Continent.

If they fail to do this then Conservative politicians would do well to remember that EU citizens have the right to vote for their community representatives in this May’s county elections.

Many no doubt will let the Conservatives know how they feel about real family values through the ballot box.

DR BRIAN MATHEW Prospective North Wiltshire Liberal Democrat MP

Houses are just profit

BILL Williams is right to be outraged about homelessness in Britain. Homelessness is a result of accelerating inequality, the worst in Europe, as wealth accumulates more and more in the hands of the rich.

It is a result of marketisation of housing; the shift from the point of housing as being the provision of places for people to live to housing as a means for making private profit.

And it’s the result of the bedroom tax.

Homelessness has nothing to do with people seeking asylum, often from mayhem directly or indirectly caused by UK military interventions.

On another issue, Des Morgan wrote to oppose gay marriage. Ostensibly avoiding moralistic comment on homosexuality he stakes his position on rights. He says the Church of England has the right to determine its own rules.

Surely this must include the right of gay members of the C of E to work to change those rules?

After all the C of E has always been split between busybodies who want to vehemently dictate how other people must live and those who think they have a mission to make the world a better place.

Should those of us outside care about an institution denying equality to some of its members?

I think we should.

The various Christian institutions claim a uniquely privileged position in influencing all of our lives. We should oppose such an organisation being a bastion of inequality.

Not least is this shown in schools. Hardly a school gets opened these days without it claiming some Christian ethos. If part of that ethos is inequality it is bad for all of us.

We have after all not long done away with the stigma of being “born out of wedlock”. In the USA and elsewhere this remains an issue for some.

PETER SMITH Woodside Avenue Swindon

Church welcomes all

READING Mr Scortford’s letter, it seems he is an authority on certain issues with the Church of England.

Can he therefore tell us what church he belongs to and when he last attended a service where he saw treatment of the congregation which he has referred too? Along with other church members I wait for his reply.

I repeat we respect all, but same sex marriage is not a part of the Bible teachings.

People wanting to have a same sex marriage, which is now law of the land, can do so at the appropriate Register Office and, without doubt, they can find a clergy or even a bishop of the same opinion to bless it.

A church does not have to sign or register anybody to welcome someone into their church for a service.

J H OLIVER Brooklands Avenue, Swindon

Are drivers at fault?

SINCE the completion of the upgrade of Greenbridge Roundabout I have read several letters written to this newspaper, by authors who vociferously announce that it is not safe.

As a driving instructor, might I suggest to those motorists that it’s quite likely to be the other way around - the roundabout is safe, they are not.

A recent critic stated that, “I used to be able to drive around Greenbridge without stopping.”

May I suggest that there was the problem with the previous roundabout, because many people who did this would always carry it out using excessive speed?

May I further suggest that those motorists who are obsessed with speed are responsible for actually slowing down the general progress of this junction and others around our town?

I regularly negotiate Greenbridge roundabout with my students and I find myself using one word with particular regularity, “observation.”

By reading the vertical signs on approach and by reading the wording written on the Tarmac within the lanes, the junction is straightforward to negotiate.

The bonus at the moment is that the traffic lights slow the traffic down so drivers have the time to carry out the aforementioned observation.

I cannot confirm it but I suspect that the council planners have it in mind to allow the general public to become accustomed to the upgrade, and will then switch the lights to part-time, as is now the case on Bruce Street and Mannington roundabouts.

And, while I have fingers to the keyboard, may I congratulate the council and the contractors on the manner in which they carried out this large upgrade.

NEIL MAW ADI (Car) Covingham,

Swindon Referendum needed

OPEN letter to David Renard. Thank you for the responses you provided to my recent questions within the Cabinet meeting on the 23rd February 2017.

Please can you elaborate on why you do not accept the premise of my first question? I have spoken to many Swindonians who feel this must be taken seriously.

Swindonians were never given an option as to the regards of the parishing process and this was unheard of before the last elections.

It would be sensible for you to gauge public support in the name of democracy so I trust you will ask the cabinet to step down and hold an immediate election?

Anything else would appear dictatorial given the fundamental changes proposed by the council.

With regards to the second question, it is clear that many of the council tax rises (as reported by the Swindon Advertiser) are well over the 4.99 per cent threshold in general and appear to be under the disguise of the new parish system.

Would you agree that it is morally correct to hold a referendum on these rises?

I believe you must start challenging central Government to make up any budget shortfalls and not heap more pressure on Swindonians who are already ready struggling through inflation and lack of any pay rises or benefit increases – it is simply unfair to place more burden on the most vulnerable of our society.

May I suggest you contest the Government to slash the foreign aid budget considerably and recommend that HMRC chase corporate tax dodgers to chase the billions of pounds owed to help make up shortfalls?

I look forward to your swift reply on this serious matter.

MARTIN COSTELLO Swindon

Country on the rocks

THE British Government is forever putting out glowing statistics and saying about how well the economy is doing.

If you believed all the official statistics it would appear that nothing is wrong and that Britain was booming in every way.

But the truth is that what is happening in the real world is very different from what we are being told.

The infrastructure in Britain is crumbling, there is a housing crisis and all the public services are being cut to the bone every year.

It feels to me that Britain is getting steadily poorer and that in truth the economy is on the rocks.

STEVE HALDEN Beaufort Green, Swindon