THE founder of the NHS, Aneurin Bevan, who would be far too left-wing for the present UK Government, once asked “why read the crystal when you can read the book?” How right he was.
In the furore about Keir Starmer’s government cutting the Winter Fuel Payment and refusing to abolish the two-child cap on benefits, we have only to look back at Blair and the “New Labour” government, not long after they too won a landslide victory because people longed for a change from the Tories.
READ MORE: Labour vote to scrap universal Winter Fuel Payment despite grave warnings
In late 1997 Blair’s government chose to go ahead with a cut to benefits already proposed by Major’s government and abolished an extra payment given to single parents, resulting in a reduction to their income of £6 a week. According to Andrew Rawnsley’s account of New Labour’s decision-making process in his excellent book, Servants of the People, “this had turned into a virility test”. How true that is of the attitude of Starmer and the current UK Government.
Incidentally, when this came before the House of Commons, 47 Labour MPs voted against the measure, and one junior minister and four parliamentary aides resigned, a sight more than the seven Labour MPs who supported the SNP’s motion over the two-child benefit cap. In contrast to the present time, however, none lost the whip. It is a measure, however, of how much more right-wing than even Blair’s government the present Labour government is.
Gavin Brown
Linlithgow
I HAVE just watched the co-leader of the English Greens address their party conference. The thing that leapt out of his speech was his opposition to development is the Rosebank oil field. Whatever your views on that issue, it should incense all Scots that a purely English political party, with four MPs, actually has more influence than the Scottish Parliament over the development or otherwise of a resource in Scottish waters.
On a completely different point, the average age of the delegates filing out of the auditorium at the end of the speech was at least 20 years younger than that of the equivalent SNP event. For me, this highlights a serious problem for independence.
READ MORE: SNP ministers ordered to release legal advice on Nicola Sturgeon probe appeal
As a not-so-young supporter of independence, I find this extremely depressing, and wonder if it will ever strike the leadership of both the SNP and most of the Yes groups that their offering to voters needs to be updated to reflect the aspirations of young people. An over-concentration on process and continuous recitation of past successes do not enthuse the average person. A credible vision of a better future just might.
Cameron Crawford
Rothesay
I’M sure most people were horrified by the wife of the Tory councillor who encouraged people to set fire to hotels housing asylum seekers.
These refugees have been through enough trauma (often suffering torture and persecution in their homelands) without having to put up with racists trying to kill them.
READ MORE: Tory councillor's wife faces 'substantial' jail time after guilty plea in racism case
This anti-immigrant mentality – which is reminiscent of the KKK or Nazi treatment of minority communities, where lynchings and arson attacks were commonplace – is a warped attempt to create a culture of fear and hostility.
The UK is founded on an acceptance of different races, creeds and cultures and that is why it has thrived as a democracy. Vile racist poison has no place in Britain – or anywhere else in the world, either.
Stephen McCarthy
Glasgow
THE result of the Grenfell inquiry was published last week. What did it reveal? Nothing surprising: the disaster caused by refusal of local and national governments to spend money on infrastructure, linked with incompetence, greed, stupidity, lack of will to build decent housing for the people who put their ALL into working to keep Britain functioning.
Decent, hard-working people are screwed into the ground so that the rich, powerful, greedy at the top of the heap can move their millions from tax haven to tax haven, avoiding paying their taxes, but still expecting the country to function.
READ MORE: Grenfell Tower fire result of 'decades of failure' — inquiry
Grenfell is just a rerun of MS Herald of Free Enterprise, Piper Alpha and ALL the train crashes since everything was privatised and deregulated. As far as I am aware, there were NO corporate manslaughter charges brought against any body.
Margaret Thatcher followed a failed US film actor in his stupid “trickle-down economics”. What does this prove? That Britain is a failed state, a banana republic, but that is an insult to bananas!
Cancel Trident, and put the money into providing decent housing, decent infrastructure, protecting nature, and giving our children and grandchildren a FUTURE.
Unfortunately that is too simple for the lunatics at the top of the tree.
Margaret Forbes
Blanefield
WAS it not just recently you castigated someone calling the Queensferry Crossing the Queensferry Bridge? And yet here you are doing the same (Sep 7, p.16). Makes my blood boil!
M Macdonald
Edinburgh
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