Chatteris, Emneth and March readers discuss politics
Here are the letters from Wednesday's Fenland Citizen...
Welcome to the Old Boys’ Network
In true Tory style the next prime minister will give Boris Johnson a peerage into the House of Lords, to reward him for his unblemished contribution to society, just like many other MPs and prime ministers over the years.
Yes, the Old Boys’ Network rewards the clique who can do no wrong.
Meanwhile Rishi Sunak and the rest of the deadpool who perpetuated this cost-of-living crisis are putting themselves forward as future prime ministers to protect business, all to the cost of working class tax payers.
Alternatively, we could appoint Andrea Jenkyns who clearly communicates with the common electorate via obscene gestures.
Jeremy Hunt went for prime minister. He said as a Tory he would cut corporation tax to make bosses wealthier, but working class people will not receive national insurance, fuel tax or energy tax cuts, therefore they would have less disposable income to cope with the cost-of-living crisis.
So, yet more rhetorical promises, gestures and manifesto pledges never to keep.
Then the key opportune business lobbied political career seeking ministers have put themselves forward as candidates for the role of Prime Minister”.
Now Rishi Sunak is said to have saved the economy after lockdown when we spent our cash on retail therapy. Non dom status, tax avoidance and party gate.
Bring on the General Election.
Mark Burton
Chatteris
A few highs but oh so many lows
With a parting shot, as he called Sir Kier Starmer ‘Captain Crasheroony-Snoozefest’ Boris Johnson had them all laughing in Parliament, but it was ironic that he used name-calling as his jokey way of firing a possible final shot at the Labour leader.
Apart from getting SOME of Brexit done, getting the vaccine procurement, and roll-out right, and his almost unparalleled support of Volodomyr Zelenskyy and Ukraine, everything else Boris has done in Downing Street has been an absolute joke.
But, even those ‘successes’ have been tarnished, or will be. With Brexit, the soon-to-be former Prime Minister did almost nothing for the fishing industry and left Northern Ireland in limbo.
With the vaccine, yes, he did buy up many millions upon millions of doses, but quite a number had to be sent abroad or destroyed because of their shelf-life. Also there was the £4bn of PPE that had to be burned, as it was unusable and the covid loans fraud scandal, which cost around £12bn.
And, the VIP fast-lanes, in which anyone who was a friend of a senior minister was afforded a covid contract.
After years of austerity, coronavirus bail-outs, and mismanagement of our nation’s finances, former chancellor Rishi Sunak couldn’t ‘find’ the money to help us through the energy and cost of living crises, but when it came to Ukraine, there were billions and billions found from somewhere.
Even though all of the above, I do not regret voting for Boris Johnson in 2019. Without him, we wouldn’t have gotten Brexit in any shape or form, we would still be fully entwined in the EU rules and regulations, with no say in our own destiny.
But after the scandals, the squillion dollar wallpaper, the lavish presidential-style press briefing room, partygate and the ‘forgetting’ of calling sex pest Chris Pincher “Pincher by name, Pincher by nature” Boris has lied to his party, Parliament, and us.
Some have said to me that “Boris is the best man for the job, because who else have we got?”
If the best we have got to run the country is a blatant liar, then we have a problem.
I was hoping for Liz Truss to win the race but it looks like it could be Rishi ‘I live in a 4.5m house, and am married to a billionaire’s daughter’ Sunak.
I just pray that whoever wins the race, they have enough stamina to beat the prospect of a Labour/Lib-Dem coalition, and that our future outside of the EU is cemented, otherwise, we’ll back back in, Scotland will be allowed to leave the UK, and our lives will, once again, have no meaning.
Anyway, good luck in your future endeavours Boris, you’ll make millions, become a Nobel Prize winner for Ukraine, live your own life for yourself, like you do.
Ashley Smith
March
Letter writer owes his freedom to them
Your correspondent Steve Lund-Beck writes: “I do not want to live in a multicultural, multi-speaking England, I want England to be the country my family fought and died for in two world wars.”
Let’s hope Steve never finds out that in addition to his own family (and mine) millions of troops from the British Empire also fought in these wars and hundreds of thousands of them died.
It is partly thanks to them that Steve has the freedom to express his views in newspapers. More good news for Steve - if discovering this should give him a medical shock to his system, then thousands of descendants of these same people are today the mainstay of our NHS and even if they knew about his views they would spare no effort in caring for him and saving his life if necessary.
Ironically, these could be some of the same people so rightly lauded by Julie Williams in the other letter printed in the same issue.
Lucky Steve!
Michael Clayton
Emneth