AT church we were recently given a local food bank-supplied list of items to donate next Sunday for harvest festival. Yes, gone are the days of churches bursting at the seams with all the stuff from local allotments – those bloody marrows – now it’s a much more practical list asking for stuff the left-behind really need. Sensible.
Meanwhile, during this season of harvest, Starmer – the freebie farmer – has been busily gathering in designer suits, expensive glasses and free use of an expensive pad for his kid while he happily left poor families in poverty by refusing to remove the two-child benefit cap. And it was a choice – just as it was a choice not to cap bankers’ bonuses.
READ MORE: Rosie Duffield quits Labour Party over Winter Fuel Payment cut
SO – ONE Labour MP has resigned over this. Just one. We have to assume then that the others are fine with it.
Starmer surrogates were quickly pushed out to the weekend media round to state that Labour MP Rosie Duffield, who will now sit as an independent, had previous beef with the party. Heaven forbid we should take an intelligent woman at her own word when she says quite clearly it was down to freebies.
But why not add a stinking pile of sexism for good measure?
Amanda Baker
Edinburgh
WHY am I having another deja vu day? Starmer about the Winter Fuel Payment – “I get it”. No he does not, or he would not be doing it. Labour claim pensioners will be better off next year – too late, as many will have been frozen and made unhealthy this winter. For Scottish Labour to have backed this is absurd – the temperature in the north of Scotland on Tuesday was one degree, in the south of England it was 17 degrees and this morning there is ice on car windscreens.
As for the freebies, the fact that they are recorded does not take away the problem – it still has an effect even when we don’t realise it. I call it influence, or to be bold, corruption.
READ MORE: 'Scotland fed up' with Keir Starmer as approval ratings fall
But not satisfied with starving children and freezing pensioners, he is now going after the long-term sick on benefits when we all know benefit fraud is infinitesimal compared to tax fraud.
So according to Labour the “broadest shoulders” in this country that need to bear the weight of government bad finances are children, pensioners and the sick and disabled. I can only say again – what has become of Labour?
On Tuesday the Scottish Parliament was debating this year’s budget but where were Scottish Labour? Certainly not where they should have been in the Scottish Parliament, but in Liverpool taking a bow for following their masters’ orders and dancing the night away at a Labour Party bash – you simply could not make this up.
Winifred McCartney
Paisley
I AM sure that I am plagiarising this idea from the late, great Robin Williams. All politicians should dress like racing drivers and display logos or the names of their sponsors on their clothing. This way the public can clearly see and understand why they are making the decisions they are.
Andrew Currie
Renfrew
WHAT more do Labour members need to show that their party has become a weak copy of the Tories? Not only are they pursuing Tory policies like the two-child benefit cap, they are going further by knowingly putting millions of pensioners at risk by severely limiting the Winter Fuel Payment. And now, to top it all, the Labour Chancellor meets with the Israeli ambassador who is pushing for more illegal Israeli settlements in Palestine and calling for the end of any Palestine state! The SNP were heavily criticised when Angus Robertson met secretly with an Israeli diplomat and I would expect no less criticism for the Labour Chancellor.
READ MORE: Alyn Smith: Time for Keir Starmer to accept the EU’s gift for our young people
Organisations such as Labour Friends of Israel seem to have more power and influence in the party than actual Labour members. Who can forget Keir Starmer working with the Speaker of the House of Commons to water down an SNP motion on Israeli war crimes! It’s clear that Israel is intent on full-scale war with Lebanon – as weak governments like the UK continue to provide them with the weapons to kill civilians. The UK Government should all be facing war crimes for their support of Israel. In the same way that President Biden will always be remembered as Genocide Joe, so too will the UK Government – past and present – be considered enablers of Israel’s war crimes.
It’s time to boycott every company that deals with Israel. If the politicians won’t stand up for human rights then it’s up to the rest of us to make sure that no companies that support Israel will ever see their goods bought again in this country.
Cllr Kenny MacLaren
Paisley
ACCORDING to the Lebanese Prime Minister, more than a million people have now been displaced by Israeli strikes on Lebanon. Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 41,500 Palestinians and wounded more than 96,000 others. More than half of the dead have been women and children, including about 1300 children under the age of two.
READ MORE: Israeli air strike kills 11 day after Hezbollah leader confirmed dead
Israel has maintained that its military operations are justified and are necessary to defend itself. In actual fact Israel is not defending itself, it is just continuing its genocidal campaign against the indigenous people of Palestine which started 100 years ago.
If we allow the psychopathic Zionists to continue their actions, eventually Israel will implode. Unfortunately, it will take the rest of the Middle East with it, unless of course wisdom strikes the war-mongers in the White House and Downing Street, and they stop providing the weapons and money.
STOP DISPLACING INNOCENT PEOPLE. CEASEFIRE NOW.
Margaret Forbes
Blanefield
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