Your letters on Wisbech incinerator and politics and a thanks from a Wisbech motorist
Here are the readers' letters from the Fenland Citizen of Wednesday, May 4, 2022...
We need actions now, not just words
As we approach decision time over the much vaunted mega-incinerator in Wisbech, it should be viewed as the death-knell to almost everything we cherish and love.
If you have children, parents or grandparents with breathing conditions, the incinerator will exacerbate their conditions, and if they don’t have them, they very well could develop them in the near future.
Your pets’ lives will also be affected by a lack of clean air, and a myriad of pollutants will enter their systems, and could, very well, shorten their lives.
Our environment will be affected, whether it be the wildlife, critters, and other elements of our local eco-system, our gardens could be affected by the emissions,and there will be a chimney taller than Ely Cathedral, only a million times less pleasant to look at.
Also, a severe decreasing of house prices in the region.
If this hungry, belching behemoth is going to be burning our waste 24/7, then surely it will need feeding 24/7?
Good luck sleeping through the rumble of the gorging monster, and the lorry, after lorry, after lorry running around our roads all day and night long.
I also worry that if the incinerator is to burn rubbish once destined for landfill – i.e. green bin waste – it could make people lazier when it comes to recycling, and then, in turn, more waste gets burned, leading to more emissions/pollutants being released, and more risk to our health in future.
It’s all well and good for local MP Steve Barclay to put his voice behind the incinerate the incinerator campaign, we are passed the point where words have effect, and it’s only actions that will count from now on.
Forget your government’s ‘green pledges’ Mr Barclay, put the health and lives of your constituents first please.
Ashley Smith
March
Time to stand up to bigotry
The Tory government has announced a raft of anti-refugee measures, including a deal to remove many asylum seekers from the UK to Rwanda.
Ministers’ comments suggest the scheme will initially apply to men arriving unaccompanied by irregular routes, though this is not fixed – any asylum seeker could face removal.
The Conservatives are dog-whistling the widespread myths that single male refugees’ claims are bogus, and that such men are inherently dangerous.
Lawyers and NGOs are gearing up to contest the scheme in the courts. Johnson suggests he will respond with demagogy against “activist lawyers”.
The Labour leadership has spoken against the plans. But it continues to accept the premise that the response to irregular Channel crossings must involve deterring or preventing migrants from attempting to reach Britain.
In truth, it is Britain’s insistence on blocking safe modes of travel for most refugees that leaves them on irregular routes and in exploitative smugglers’ hands.
Labour front benchers’ objections put too much emphasis on legality, expense, and impracticality, rather than directly challenging the xenophobic bigotry.
Australia’s imprisonment of refugees in offshore camps while processing their applications placed detention further from scrutiny, and detainees further from support.
Conditions were appalling. Physical and sexual abuse, including of children, were rife. Australia has begun winding down the practice.
Israel tried to deport thousands of Eritrean and Sudanese migrants to Rwanda and Uganda.
About 4,000 were “voluntarily” removed. Rwanda and Uganda denied them residency and support.
Some were detained and beaten. Almost all quickly left again, making dangerous journeys. Legal challenges and protests in Israel successfully blocked further deportations.
As the latest assault in the Conservatives’ brutal war on migrants, the Rwanda deportation plan underlines the need to confront their agenda head-on.
Victory will require not only direct action and industrial action, but a consistent, persuasive political challenge to bigotry and reaction.
John Smithee
Wisbech
We need to move away from blame culture
MPs believe it would create a better culture if the NHS learned from its mistakes.
The House of Commons’ Health and Social Care Committee said the current system was too adversarial, leading to bitter and long legal fights for patients and from families who had lost children or whose babies had been left with brain injuries from mistakes made during birth.
Parents described how they had to fight for years to get recognition for the harm that had been caused.
The report said countries like New Zealand and Sweden, which had similar schemes to the one being proposed by the committee, spent half as much on litigation than the NHS did. “We must move away from a culture of blame to one that puts the prevention of future harms at its core.” But patient group Action Against Medical Accidents accused MPs of “headline grabbing” for suggesting the well-established and evolved system of law could be discarded so easily.
More than £2bn a year is paid out on claims, but 25% goes to legal fees. The average length of time for these settlements was over 11 years.
Another woman whose daughter died aged 20 months after errors in her care said she felt lessons had not been learnt despite a settlement in her favour.
She said the whole process had left her feeling devastated. An independent body should be set up to adjudicate on cases and the need to prove individual fault should be scrapped, the cross-party group said.
Instead, the focus should be whether the system failed. Committee chairman Jeremy Hunt said the system was not fit for purpose and reform was “long overdue”.
Under the current system, patients have to fight for compensation, often a bitter, and stressful experience with a quarter of taxpayer-funded sums ending up in the pockets of lawyers.
John White
Wisbech
Left trying to destabilise society
I am always impressed by John Smithee’s faith that one day the country will elect a radical Labour Government perhaps in the mould of the post war Atlee Government but I am afraid he is doomed to disappointment.
The more far seeing of the left gave up on that idea over 20 years ago – they knew it would never happen (and it didn’t even with Corbyn) and shifted their activity to insinuating themselves into senior positions in every significant public and private body including the BBC the NHS, and the Civil Service.
Once in positions of influence, they set about undermining our society and culture at every turn. They do so using two weapons – fear and control of language and they find lots of useful idiots and virtue signallers to do their dirty work.
Words influence how we think. Examples are ‘birthing people’ instead of ‘pregnant women, ‘gender is assigned at birth instead of observed’. As the left are now in senior positions they demand compliance from people afraid of losing a job or promotion.
There is a general atmosphere of fear of questioning or speaking up and a fear of being in a minority and a fear of being called racist. Thousands of young girls were sacrificed to grooming gangs for fear of racism.
Some teachers are activists giving a skewed view of our history and spreading gender ideology. BBC schools sex education claims that there are a hundred genders.
Here’s more of the left’s attempts to destabilise society; name changes of roads and buildings, statues toppled or removed, men in women’s safe spaces and the woman is a bigot for objecting, married Keir Starmer terrified of defining a woman despite waking up next to one every day.
The virtue signallers tell us we must accept the migrants crossing the channel because they are helpless and desperate but every month we see hundreds of fit young men coming across the channel.
Mostly I worry about our young people in the hands of the left. They are being taught in schools and universities to accept a raft of opinions as facts that cannot be questioned. If you are a parent take a close interest in what teachers are filling your children’s minds with.
David Silver
Wisbech
Two young men helped me with car
Many thanks to the two young gentlemen who stopped and helped me with a car problem at the Hudson Leisure Centre car park in Wisbech on Wednesday. Problem now resolved.
Jim Kennaway
via email
