THOSE of you who follow my occasional missives in The National will have noticed it is usually crass, unfeeling statements by the not so great and the not so good that set me off!
Step up UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, quoted in Monday’s National defending the Starmers for accepting donations of clothing from Labour peer Waheed Alli.
READ MORE: Stephen Flynn fumes as Keir Starmer 'won't face investigation' over clothes gifts
Whether these gifts were declared in the proper manner is neither here nor there as far as I am concerned. The main issue is that Starmer is head of a government that is determined to allow the rich to get obscenely richer while the elderly are left to freeze to death this winter, unable to afford to switch on their heating or have enough clothing to wear multiple layers of coats and cardigans to keep themselves warm!
To quote Mr Lammy: “I have just come back from the United States, where US Presidents and First Ladies have a huge budget paid for by the taxpayer so that they can look their best on behalf of the US people. We don’t have that system over here!”
READ MORE: Labour MP Paul Waugh in painful BBC interview on Keir Starmer's wife's clothes
Too true we don’t, and hopefully never will! MPs get a salary far in excess of what working people are expected to live on and then get a ludicrous amount of perks on top of it!
Keir Starmer is a multi-millionaire and he also has a Prime Ministerial salary of something like £165,000, so could well afford to employ a personal shopper should he choose to do so!
I do wonder if, by allowing others to choose his wardrobe, Mr Starmer is setting out to emulate another well-heeled individual whom we are told does not even dress himself!
Drew Macleod
Wick
SINCE the donor class anointed him, Keir Starmer has been clear about what he’d do if elected. He’s been in office for just over two months and is bringing back Brown and Blair’s disastrous PFIs, selling off the NHS, impoverishing kids and killing pensioners.
Rachel Reeves is reintroducing PFIs to fund £300 billion for schools, hospitals and transport projects. She’s been advised by The Future Governance Forum, whose funders include BT, Lloyds Banking Group, billionaire Gary Lubner (who gifted Labour £5m) and the Australian-owned Angus Knight Group, so you know who benefits.
READ MORE: Scottish Labour 'essentially threatened' members considering voting Yes
PFIs are economic lunacy. Scottish local authorities are on the hook for £29.86bn for £5.8bn worth of infrastructure. That’s right – each £1 spent on PFIs results in public sector repayment of at least £5. That’s a lousy investment.
Streeting and Starmer have been open about their plans to privatise the NHS – they’ve been given lots of dosh by private health interests so they’re under pressure to deliver.
In a recent speech, Starmer said the NHS wouldn’t get any more money without first reforming itself. The institution that’s been underfunded for decades must heal itself without more money. Impossible. And it’s economic lunacy. Not only does the UK spend much less per capita on health than other west European nations, but every pound spent on health generates £4 of economic activity. That’s a brilliant investment.
Starmer feigns concern about kids in poverty, but won’t lift the two-child benefit cap that would help one million children at a cost of £1.7bn. Nor will he fund the £2bn universal winter fuel payment, choosing to let pensioners die of hypothermia.
Ten years ago, Scotland had a chance to leave the failing UK. It blew it and is now suffering the consequences.
Leah Gunn Barrett
Edinburgh
I WAS extremely disappointed to learn that our newly elected Labour MP, Mr Torcuil Crichton, voted to cut Winter Fuel Payments for pensioners.
Our islands have an elderly demographic coupled with the fact that we are suffering from high rates of fuel poverty. It certainly was a shock to hear that Mr Crichton had voted the way he did given these circumstances.
Also, our islands suffer very harsh and cold weather which will cause a very worrying situation for our elderly who are unable to afford to heat their homes as energy prices rise. Our climate differs greatly from that in the south of England.
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Pensioners are those members in society that have paid tax over many years, and for them to be hit in this way is very distressing. I can think of a number of households in my own ward of Stornoway North that will feel the full brunt of this policy. We should not be in a situation that our old people will be choosing whether to eat or heat their homes – the UK is the sixth-richest country in the world and yet we are taking money, used to keep homes warm, out of the hands of the elderly as winter looms.
If there are financial challenges for the new government, why not look at taxing the wealthy and raising revenue in that way, and having the burden placed on those with the broadest shoulders financially?
Our islands need strong representatives who will stand up for the values that we have learned growing up here, yet I fear our MP, from his vote on this matter, has followed the party line rather than what is best for the elderly in our islands.
Cllr Gordon Murray
Stornoway North
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