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Party of the people

Steve Thompson (Jan 20) might like to know that the rally in London where I was invited to speak was a cross party protest.

We were protesting about the delay in implementing the Brexit referendum result that the 17 million people voted for in June 2016 and that is now well over a year ago.

UKIP is incorrectly labelled ‘right-wing’ when in fact it is a populist party. We are now seeing members joining from Labour, who are ignoring the working class. I love Swindon and the people that live in Swindon but there is a very serious problem about the delivery of the public services.

The Great Western Hospital has recently cancelled many operations that were not considered urgent because it is struggling to cope with the current level of demand.

In addition Carillion has recently gone bust and this has caused further disruption to patients and staff at the GWH.

There is also a housing crisis in Swindon that hits the young generation the hardest. It is the duty of people of our generation to try to help the young to make a good start in life.

The young generation are being let down. The young people of Swindon deserve a decent home in which to raise families and of course the rents need to be affordable for the working class.

MARTIN COSTELLO, Eldene, Swindon

We’ve been deceived

I WAS interested and amused by the letter from Tony Mayer, “I feel betrayed” (SA January 15).

Mr Mayer expressed his disappointment and sense of betrayal by Labour’s position on Brexit and a second referendum. He describes this as “the most important issue for the country since the second world war”.

This is an interesting comparison. During the second world war the UK was fighting against the vile German Nazi regime to retain our national freedom and sovereignty.

The UK joined the European Community (Common Market) in 1973. Since then various treaties (not voted for but imposed on us) have led to the formation of the EU. This system of gradual incremental change is based on the Jean Monnet principle of achieving an end goal by deceit.

Membership of the European Community was originally promoted as a way of improving the UK economy and trade but has evolved into an undemocratic political union whose policies are determined by unelected bureaucrats.

To Eurocrats such as Jean Claude Juncker and his cronies this is an unstoppable ongoing project which will eventually lead to a unitary super state. They want their own army by 2025. They want to force all member nations to join the Euro currency. They want to ensure member nation states become subservient regions of the super state. For verification of this agenda I refer to Jean Claude Juncker’s State of the Union Address 2017.

I find it peculiar that there are Remainers who are so critical of this country’s democratic process but are prepared to turn a blind eye to the EU’s democratic deficit, its anti-democratic agenda and its dictatorial bureaucrats.

Mr Mayer tells us he has been a member of the Labour Party for nearly 40 years but will not be renewing his membership because the party no longer represents him. Like a spoilt child who gets upset and throws its toys out the pram when it doesn’t get its own way he says, “Only a drastic change of direction will cause me to renew my membership”.

European integration has a long history of dividing the Labour Party. One of the best warnings ever against joining the European Community came from Labour Party leader Hugh Gaitskell in his party conference speech of 1962. During the 1970s Labour heavyweights including Tony Benn, Peter Shore and Swindon’s own MP David Stoddart warned against the dangers of the UK joining the European Community.

I suggest the polarisation within the Labour Party is represented by the Brexit split. In simple terms, the Labour heartlands have witnessed the detrimental side of the EU and are Brexiteers. The metropolitan “elite” of the Labour party, who continue to live their champagne socialist lifestyle and show a total disregard for the opinions of their impoverished comrades, are the Remainers.

KEN KANE, Wharf Road, Wroughton

Stay and fight

I WORKED for virtually all my life in local government finance, the last 23 years here in Swindon.

That was before outsourcing had really “taken off”, although I remember the Thatcher government forcing the Borough to replace the well trusted public sector District Audit with a private company that lacked experience in our specialised field.

This change, which is ongoing, has probably contributed to our Council’s involvement in costly failures like the wi-fi scheme. Councillors were much more cautious with our money in my day!

After I retired in 1990 I went to help out at Manchester City Council when some of their accounts failed to obtain audit approval. I was employed by Capita on a salary I could only dream of at Swindon.

This was my first and only experience of outsourcing and I quickly resigned when I realised what a bad deal it was for the Manchester ratepayers.

Thereafter, whenever I got the opportunity, I shared my view that outsourcing would end in tears.

Imagine my dismay, therefore, when New Labour came to power seven years later and fully embraced the outsourcing dogma.

But unlike Tony Mayer, (I feel betrayed, S.A. 15th January), I didn’t leave the party but went on airing my opposition to the privatisation of public services.

Then finally 26 years later, when Jeremy Corbyn stood for leadership I felt vindicated. Here at last is a man who actually talks like a socialist and has the same view of public services as I do.

So I say to Tony Mayer, don’t resign from the party, stay on to fight your corner, what goes round comes round.

DON REEVE, Old Town, Swindon

PFI is piffle

Lord Willis quoted in the SA that he was all in favour of PFI’s (Private Finance Initiatives) for hospitals, schools and new roads to be built and to him it seemed its the best thing since sliced bread for the working class, the main reason his Lordship and all the other poorly informed Lords, Ladies and other MPs hanging on John Major’s coat tails who voted for this utter waste of tax payers’ cash was they will never ever have to use the NHS or send their silver spoon-fed children to schools being built under the PFI scheme. If one of the upper class gets ill or needs a doctor all they will do is call Harley Street or book themselves into a private hospital.

What we the working class and middle class have is decades of debt some, £10 billion a year that’s coming out of the NHS coffers. How much does the GWH in Swindon have to pay out yearly for its PFI funded building?

There are some 716 schemes in the UK which according to some will cost the British Taxpayer some £200 billion because of paying for advisors, lender fees, insurance and interest payments.

It would or should not come as a surprise that a few Lords who voted for PFI will be sitting as directors on the boards of some of these companies receiving all this money.

My old dad always said to me if you can’t afford to buy it don’t borrow it to buy, save up and buy it - that way there’s no interest to pay on top of the costs. Shame John Major and others did not save up and build. All you did was transfer the risk to the private sector and lost billions in the process. Maybe it’s not all of Carillion’s making.

JOHN L CROOK, Haydon Wick, Swindon

A decent company

What a refreshing change to read some good news in the SA following the recent sad collapse of Carillion.

Nationwide Building Society took swift action to offer those employed by Carillion, who work in their offices across a number of sites, a full time job with them.

We often hear about how poorly some people are treated by companies, especially banks and building societies, who do not care. The way that Nationwide has dealt with this matter shows that they are there for people, unlike banks who have shareholders. Nationwide is a major employer in this town. For those people affected what a relief it must be to know that they will still have a job.

Well done Nationwide. They should be congratulated for this. They have turned a bad situation into good one for Carillion staff working at their sites. Let’s hope other organisations do the same type of thing.

ALAN WILSON, Shapwick Close, Swindon