What do you think?
Rishi Sunak – will he be the last in the merry-go-round of Tory PMs? Join the debate by emailing letters@westerndailypress.co.uk and including your name and address
way for a system of direct democracy where key local, district and county level issues could be decided.
Many are feeling disempowered by the upcoming election that is bound to see Labour in control for the next five to 10 years.
Once elected to Westminster, wet-behind-the-ear politicians enter the shadowy world of the lobbyists, who have 101 ways of influencing key decisions and, predictably, we will end up with policies that favour bureaucrats, industrialists, globalists and bankers, because they influence politicians at Westminster far more effectively than we, the people, can in our constituencies.
Our MPs are paid from the public purse to represent our interests, and direct democracy would be one way to do it.
In order to modernise democracy, we should look no further than what has been done in progressive Asian countries, who learned from us and then improved upon it.
It’s time we caught up. When you go into the voting booth there, you are given a range of options to vote for: not just your popular representative, but also the policies you want them to pursue on any given local agenda. The MP then works to achieve what the majority votes on.
This way MPs are held to account, haughty ideologies dreamed up in the Westminster bubble are brought to earth with local realism, the corporate Lib/Lab/Con revolving door would close, and lobbyists would have to wine and dine us instead if they want to still influence public policy.
I am fully aware that no system of governing is perfect, but with all the information available online, combined with modern technology, we could have the community in control of the decisions that most affect them.
M Blackett Stroud, Gloucestershire long enough to master their brief or initiate and oversee policy.
The results are plain to see. The NHS is, in effect, broken, with some seven million people awaiting operations, overwhelmed A&E departments, a shortage of hospital beds and overworked doctors, nurses, midwives and support staff such as radiographers. NHS dentists are scarcer than hen’s teeth.
This government tries to lay the blame on the Covid 19 pandemic or the war in Ukraine, but the fact is that back in 2019, after nine years of Conservative government, the UK had fewer doctors, nurses, hospitals, and hospital beds per head than any other comparable European country. Boris Johnson promised to solve the social care problem, he did not and despite the ever-increasing problems it faces, social care was not even mentioned in this year’s budget.
Every Conservative Prime Minister has promised to reduce immigration and each promise has been broken, resulting in an increasing rate of immigration that is out of control. The justice system is on its knees. Criminal prosecutions are taking years to come to court, for instance rape cases are taking from one to three years to be heard, and prisoners are being released early to reduce the gross overcrowding in our antiquated prisons.
Defence of the realm is in an equally poor state. The Army has been reduced to its lowest strength since the end of 1815. The Royal
Navy has only some 15 destroyers/ frigates, many of which are nearing the end of their useful life. It has two massive, modern aircraft carriers which, it was claimed, would allow
Great Britain to project power and influence throughout the world.
But the Royal Navy does not have any fixed wing aircraft of its own and must rely on the RAF to provide them for its carriers. Also, aircraft carriers cannot operate on their own, they need a massive screen of destroyers/frigates for protection, and as we do not have enough of those, the carriers can only be deployed in conjunction with allied navies. Which makes a mockery of the claim that they allow us to project power throughout the world.
Successive Conservative governments have presided over a steady deterioration in all public services and infrastructure. A privatised Royal Mail consistently fails to meet its delivery targets, water companies are private monopolies which, while paying dividends to investors and excessive salaries to their executives, still discharge raw sewage into our rivers and seas. Our pothole riddled roads are of third world standard. Our fragmented privatised railway system is the least efficient and most expensive in western Europe.
Anyone who works in public services, teachers, nurses, junior doctors, care workers, firefighters, ambulance paramedics, police officers, et al, have all seen their pay, in real terms, drop by some 20% over the last 10 years. The outstanding exception to that is, of course, MPs, whose real term salary has not been significantly reduced.
This government professes to want to lower the tax burden but has frozen Income Tax thresholds until 2028. The Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) has stated that by 2028 this will result in 2.8 million more people paying basic income tax and another 2.7 million move onto the 40% rate – the highest tax burden level since WW2.
This government has increasingly passed responsibility for local services onto local authorities without providing the necessary financial support. Central government grants to local authorities (local government finance settlements) saw a reduction in real terms of 31% between
2010 -2022. This is exacerbated by the way it is distributed, county councils receive £153 per person for local services, 52% lower than Metropolitan Boroughs or cities.
Examples of what this means to Devon... for Adult Social Care, the County Council receives 65% less for over-65s than London. Home to school transport costs £193 per head, compared to £10 per head in urban areas.
So, I ask again, why should we re-elect this government? I do not know if a Labour government will do better but it is hard to see how it could do worse.
Oh, and in case I am thought to be a tree hugging, leftie socialist... I have voted for the Conservative candidate in every local and general election since 1959.
I have served as a committee member of my local branch of the Conservative Association and served for 10 years as a town councillor after being elected on a Conservative ticket.
Unfortunately, far, far too many of the electorate would vote for an organ grinder’s monkey if it wore their political party rosette.
I do not intend to be one of them. Charles Letchford
Devon