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Gallery not the answer

SO businesses have given their full support to the proposed new museum and art gallery in the proposed “Cultural Quarter” (that still makes me laugh out loud) dingy backwater of a dying town.

We are told that this is very important for the town, not just in cultural terms but in economic terms too.

Please tell who these businesses are, list them through the pages of the Adver, I’ll wager they are not the Nationwides or Hondas of this town, and if they are where is their money to back their support?

We are a dying town of coffee outlets and charity shops (if Debenhams and M&S pulled out we would be deep in it) and only something astoundingly different will reverse the retail decline we have seen over the past 15 years.

We have a narrow-minded council who are clueless and employ a town centre management company that keeps telling us they are running a great town centre. It’s a laughing stock and, frankly, a joke that a gallery is not going to change.

Get real, Swindon Council, listen to the majority of people who use the town to start with and then listen to the vast majority of our youngsters who will spend their significant amounts of disposable cash anywhere rather than this town.

I have many ideas on how to make this town a place where people would love to come as I suspect many others have. Do something before it’s too late.

The museum and gallery is not the way.

KEVIN EDMONDS, Covingham, Swindon

Affront to democracy

I WOULD like to respond to the letter by David Collins (June 13) and his disappointing outburst over the outcome of the General Election.

I have been involved in politics for many years. During that time I have seen Labour have good nights, bad nights and on occasions indifferent ones. I am sure politicians from any of the other main parties, would say the same.

On those bad nights, we might not like the fact that the voters have not supported our case, but we take it on the chin and redouble our efforts to change their minds next time.

Mr Collins’ condemnation against those he believes are to blame for Labour doing so well in the election therefore is really unacceptable.

Firstly, its seeks to tarnish all those categorised with the same brush, and secondly, in my view it is an affront to our democratic process and the principle that people are free to vote for whoever they want without repercussion. Not forgetting the old adage “The voters get the Government they deserve!”.

I would suggest Mr Collins tries to finds a recording of the Canterbury constituency declaration, and watch how the outgoing Tory MP Sir Julian Brazier accepted his shock defeat with humility and great dignity.

If Mr Collins can’t find a recording I would suggest that he then follows his own advice in the closing remarks in his letter — “grow up, join the real world, learn to live with it”.

KEVIN SMALL, Jennings Street, Swindon

It’s better than Corbyn

EMBITTERED, well yes, we almost had a totally Communist leader of the so-called Labour Party elected as Prime Minister. A supporter of Hammas, al Qaeda, and the IRA, who calls terrorists freedom fighters, can you believe it after the terrible atrocities committed in the country in the last month?

I and many other have suffered from the destabilisation caused by a bunch of not very gifted Labour politicians.

So I have taken my own advice and learned to live with it. We have a Tory Party with the largest number of seats in Westminster, Not as many as I would have wished for but nonetheless enough. So for the time being at least we have put the “joker” back in the box.

Additionally the SNP lost 21 seats, which pleased me enormously. It would appear that many Scots have come to their senses and realised that in the final analysis everything has to be paid for.

To quote the old expression there is no such thing as a free lunch. When are all these students going to be clever enough to understand this? And yes, it is going to be tough to get the Brexit deal we all wanted, even tougher now that people didn’t think it through. Or perhaps these same people are incapable of rational thought.

I can only wonder how all those who voted for UKIP thought it would work. They should have remembered what they voted for. It wasn’t Corbyn`s choice to leave the EU. He and other Labour leaders have done very well in Brussels, just look at the Kinnocks.

But we are now in a position whereby we have to rely on a Government that tells us it is going to deliver a deal that will benefit us all. So, satisfied? Well, it’s better than having Corbyn in charge.

So Martin, there you have it. No hard feelings I hope.

DAVID COLLINS, Blake Crescent, Swindon

Economy in trouble

ECONOMIC Group Think says that the British economy is strong. Any economist that goes against Group Think will be sacked from his job.

This is the danger of listening to experts. To stay in their jobs experts have to follow what all the other experts are saying.

Britain borrows a billion pounds every week and has done so for the last seven years. It has the worst trade deficit in the developed world and the National Debt is rapidly approaching £2 trillion.

The Government’s own forecasts are that they will need to continue borrowing until 2025.

Manufacturing has been in decline for 40 years with the result that Britain now has a dangerously weak economy.

Economists and politicians will not tell us how deep our problems are in Britain. They will not tell us that the EU is bad for trade.

We live in a crazy world where any economist who broke ranks and told the truth about the British economy, would be immediately sacked.

STEVE HALDEN, Beaufort Green, Swindon