King's Lynn News letters August 5: Rishi Sunak vs Liz Truss Conservative leadership, heatwave, climate change, energy bills and in memorium Neil Faulkner at Sedgeford
POLITICS
Use your final vote wisely!
Just when people in the media were suggesting that Liz Truss was a shoo-in for the leadership of the Conservative Party, her campaign has experienced more than a ‘slight wobble’. No. That’s not true, it was an almighty catastrophe. A major U-turn, about civil servants’ pay.
Truss said civil servants could be paid at different levels – in different parts of the UK – meaning: a teacher, fireman, nurse, policeman, local government worker, etc, would have local pay settlements imposed upon them – depending on where those individuals lived.
Making a new policy (for the most part) looking like a form of ‘Levelling-Down’. And who wants to be a civil servant in (say) the north of England. Where wage and salary rates are lower than (say) London.
In the capital, these financial packages are much higher for all workers... in most sectors of the economy!
So the sure-footed Liz Truss, has got some explaining to do?
And this faux-pas from the foreign secretary has not been lost on the former chancellor of the exchequer, Rishi Sunak, whose credibility with the country’s finances has already surpassed those in the Liz Truss team, who aspire to be in Number 11 Downing Street.
Rishi Sunak, in calling-out this major flaw in Truss’ premium tax reducing policy – indicates that the South-West Norfolk MP’s financial advocates are clearly not up to the job.
Especially at this early stage of the voting for the Conservative Party leadership battle.
Obviously, for those who have already cast their vote – say, in favour of Liz Truss – it’s not too late to change your mind. In their wisdom, Conservative Party Central Office has made provision to ‘correct your vote’ – and vote again.
This last and final vote is the only one which will be counted... make the most of it.
Jim Mitchell
via email
Liz can see the overall picture
Our own MP and Conservative leadership contender Liz Truss has made two positive declarations.
Firstly she said SNP Leader Nicola Sturgeon ‘waffles on endlessly”, and that she is “an attention seeker”.
It sends out a strong signal that under her watch Britain should remain the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. One argument for Scotland not going independent is that its economy isn’t big enough.
The Foreign Secretary and Member for SW Norfolk is to be applauded for pledging no more damaging lockdowns, which is consistent with her policies on the economy.
They have brought misery to industry, schools, NHS and depression to people’s lives, and unlike many other politicians Liz can see the overall picture without over reliance on dubious science.
Well said ma’am, with best wishes to become the next Prime Minister, a credit to South West Norfolk!
David Fleming
Downham
What a way to run a country
Sometimes you need a little reminder of the reality of why this country is in the mess of savage debt, failing services and inequality and frankly the two letters supporting Lizzie Truss from Sir Henry Bellingham and Nick Daubney are prime pieces of this delusional tripe.
Ms Truss has not been a great constituency MP and has been conspicuous by her absence as she stood on our shoulders while developing her career in London.
To read of Lizzie’s great aspiration and vision for the UK in the context of how a couple of Tory diehards see the state of the UK should set alarm bells ringing.
We can expect more of the same kind of awful rule we’ve had from Boris with the ascendence of this woman to No 10.
It’s laughable... we’ve now had 12 consecutive years of Conservative ‘policies’ and look at the carnage.
Voters handed control to the current regime and the evidence of their tenure is plain for all to see. Its terrifying to see what they’ve done to the UK since they mocked Labour with their ‘broken Britain’ taunts.
It rings a little hollow now doesn’t it?
Messrs Daubney and Bellingham may live in rose-tinted bubbles but the rest of us non Conservative Party members are less easily bought off by a ridiculous series of ‘tax handouts’ financed by yet more borrowing.
And as for a new hospital... clearly Lizzie’s Magic Money Tree is going to make it right for everyone...but especially the special 1,700 Conservative Party voters now being fêted by the two people gagging to be our new messiah! What a way to run a country.
Steve Mackinder
Denver
HEATWAVE
More should be made of global warming
I was extremely disturbed during the reporting of the recent severe heatwave that so little mention was made of global warming as the obvious and indisputable root cause. Similarly, the political and economic influence of ‘big oil’ seems to only get significant coverage in relation to people’s energy bills, rather than the destruction of nature.
Large sections of the public (including the government) are strongly influenced by what they read or hear in the media.
It is therefore incumbent on newspapers to both accurately inform them, and to pressure our leaders into much-belated action to tackle climate change.
Kevin Stonebanks
via email
POEM
In memory of Neil Faulkner
On Saturday a memorial event was held for Neil Faulkner at St Mary’s Church, Sedgeford. Neil was a noted historian and archaeologist who founded SHARP, the Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Research Project, and was also chair of the trustees of a local arts charity, Lynx Theatre and Poetry.
He died earlier this year from a rapidly developing and aggressive lymphoma.
This poem was written for Neil’s memorial by local poet and friend, William Alderson, artistic director of Lynx Theatre and Poetry.
William has been widely published in magazines, and in 2016 he won a commission for a dramatic poem for two voices, Somewhere Else, which was performed by Eastern Angles theatre company at Peterborough Cathedral.
His collection A Moment of Disbelief was published in 2017, and in 2018 he had another long poem, May Days, performed to mark the anniversary of the Grenfell Tower fire. Both have been highly praised.
In Memoriam Neil Faulkner
From the silence of the earth
You excavated truth – a change
In the colour of the soil
Or the quality of bread;
A laying out of bones, of bodies meeting;
The significance of sherds and words.
Your politics knew that silence hid
Not just the unspeakable, but innocent lies,
The comfort of beliefs.
You knew that argument
Allowed these sherds to make a pot,
These bones to shape a life,
The shadings of opinion to reveal
More than we knew.
And I agreed with you.
It was our arguments I treasured,
That delving into cause, analysis,
Projection of effects; that scraping back of noise
To find the signal in its depths.
So when I saw a silence in your eyes,
I knew that look betrayed the truth,
That you believed that I believed
And you protected me by fencing off
A path of thought behind unspoken signs:
Beware! Keep Out! Deep Water!
There was too little time to lead you to the gate,
To talk you round, to show you the excavations
Of the argument, the archaeology of another truth …
In the comfort of belief, less than innocent lies
Have defied debate and brooked no argument,
And all your future has been drowned
In unspeakable silence.
William Alderson
Poet, printer and video-maker