Readers' letters - February 17

How many readers of the Lancashire Evening Post would like to see the NHS destroyed?

How many would like their children to receive an education that makes them suitable only for mindless, tedious, low paid jobs?

How many would like to live all their lives in rented accommodation at the mercy of ruthless landlords?

How many would like to endure a poverty-stricken old age unable to afford even basic care?

This is the future that this Conservative Government is preparing for everyone who is not a member of the top one per cent of the population who own 50 per cent of the country’s wealth.

In the name of “austerity” and under the mendacious slogan “We are all in this together,” this Government has ruthlessly pursued policies that have made this obscene imbalance even worse.

Since 2009, the share of the one per cent has risen from 44 per cent to 46 per cent in 2011, to 48 per cent in 2014 and 50 per cent in 2016.

Ordinary people have paid for this with their wealth, health and welfare.

What should be functions of the state have been handed over to unaccountable, unelected, tax-dodging multinational companies to create a social, economic and political system that is corporate fascism.

Jeremy Corbyn has been demonised by some sections of the media as a “red menace,” but his current proposals amount to little more than liberal reforms, too little and too late. However, for the moment, he is the only credible opposition until a genuine socialist alternative emerges.

John Prance, Penwortham

Labour, be clear on fracking

Calls by Labour MPs for democracy to be upheld in deciding fracking planning applications conceal their pro-fracking policies.

Cat Smith, MP for Lancaster and Fleetwood, for example, presented an otherwise praiseworthy speech to the rally outside the public inquiry in Blackpool.

It ended by stressing that decisions to accept fracking applications should be made locally, missing the point that they shouldn’t be accepted at all.

Lancashire’s Labour group reversed its promises of a moratorium at a time it was made clear to me the Labour Party had decided to go ahead with fracking and find out in doing so what the “community costs” were and what were the “benefits”. Calls by Labour MPs for “incentives” for communities followed.

There can’t be many planning decisions more undemocratic than allowing fracking to proceed.

The potential for long-range and delayed harmful effects were reasons for a ban on all fracking anywhere in New York State, an area the size of England, so objections from elsewhere around the country would be as valid as those remaining within our communities. Rather than confusing us with minor concessions, MPs should just say “No fracking anywhere”.

Philip Mitchell, North Lancashire
 Green Party

George helps with crisis

So, George Clooney has met with the German chancellor Angela Merkel to try and help with the migration crisis.

Now how could George Clooney actually help with the migration crisis?

Well, perhaps he could start with opening up his £10m nine-bedroom Berkshire mansion to Syrian refugee families, or his 22-room £70m Italian villa – neither of which he lives in for much of the year. And the cost of just one of his wife Amal’s frocks could feed a destitute family for a year.

Now, after that suggestion, I wonder if he’s still “genuinely” interested in helping these Syrian migrants with their plight.

No? I thought not!

Darryl Ashton, Blackpool

Can’t wait for springtime

Do you have a garden? Are you totally fed up with this rain wetting every inch of your beloved garden? With the wind creating havoc in the bushes?

There is no cure I fear.

We can only hope the spring will bring relief if Jack Frost has not beaten her to the task and frozen the tips of whatever we have left!

Too many loved old treasures have died in this appalling weather.

I hope my son will read this and think (as sons do occasionally), “I could help Mum here. I could build a path to the greenhouse and save her falling to her knees in the mud.”

Maybe he won’t even read

this!

Try and keep your spirits up gardeners. Sow seed in trays on your kitchen table or whilst you are watching TV on the settee, even if you have to eat on the floor.

A small green shoot would help lift our hopes a bit, don’t you think?

If my husband were alive, he would not be in agreement with this plan.

He would not like the necessary eating from the floor in order to facilitate the germination of a few seeds, even though he would understand my reasons.

The spring will come, you know, I promise... in the meantime keep your wellies close by!

Joan Bithell via email

Students and parked cars

I have once again returned home in my car to find somebody else’s car parked outside my house.

To get to my house in Preston, you have to turn in from Brook Street or Ripon Street. By turning into these streets, you pass an access only sign.

Please tell me what you are accessing other than to park your car up and trot off to the university.

Turning up early, and doing your make up, does not make the space yours on a daily basis.

I have heard that the staff at the university have been given permission to park on the car park off Plungington Road, behind the Spar Shop.

How much more of Adelphi does the university want?

I for one will be glad when the students go off on their summer holidays, and I hope they take their cars with them.

Name and address supplied