King's Lynn News letters – Glastonbury/Covid, MPs Elizabeth Truss and James Wild, Lynnsport trees, abortion and heatwave are subject matters

All the sports, tennis, football, men’s and women’s, and then to top it all the beaches have all been overcrowded. No wonder all the poor staff in all the hospitals everywhere are under so much pressure. To my mind, everything was open again far too early.

Mary Urry,

King’s Lynn

PLANTING

Are these trees alive?

In late March, the borough council planted 6,500 young trees: 6,000 at Lynnsport and 500 at King’s Reach. Opinions differed about whether they were still alive before the current heatwave.

At the beginning of July, members of three local environmental groups on different occasions walked through the trees at Lynnsport. Their view was that the majority of the trees were not alive. Even though many had not come into leaf, a report from a qualified tree specialist read out at the council meeting last Thursday said that the majority were alive. A possible reason given for lack of leaf was that before planting, the trees had been put in cold-storage to stop them from growing, so they would not be expected to spring into leaf immediately. The report concluded that some trees may not come into leaf until the end of summer.

Why be bothered about these trees when there are so many life threatening things happening? One answer is the cost (£27,000 in the first year and around £54,000 for care and maintenance spread over the next two years). Money, however, becomes insignificant compared to the environmental cost. If alive, these trees could give so much.

Their shade and cooling effect would benefit the people of King’s Lynn. In times of heavy rain, the trees would help to protect against flooding. They would provide shelter for hundreds of creatures, many of which we take for granted but which are vital for our food production. Trees absorb carbon so would play an important part in cutting West Norfolk’s carbon emissions. All these are reasons to bother about the fate of these baby trees.

Arguably the most important reason is linked to carbon. If they die, as they rot they release carbon so to prevent more carbon from being released it’s vital to establish what has happened. The contractors are meant to replace trees that die within the first two years but is it part of the contract to assess why (if it is the case) so many trees have died? Are there plans in place to prevent the same happening again? The fact that this is the third time of planting at King’s Reach does not inspire confidence.

The high temperatures this week serve as a warning that the council’s target to reduce district emissions to net zero by 2050 is woefully out of line with the pace of climate change. District emissions are 99 per cent of West Norfolk’s emissions. Implementing an effective climate strategy, which includes successfully planting trees, should be at the top of the council’s agenda.

Jenny Walker,

Roydon

REFUSE

Delight to see binmen happy

What a pleasure it was to see the wheelie bin lads faces light up on Monday whilst emptying our bin, just after midday, when I handed them a bag of cold bottles of water straight from our fridge. They were so grateful.

Thomas and Helen Eggett,

Alexandra Way, Downham

POLITICS

What a slight on workers

An open letter to Liz Truss. Please forgive the familiarity but posted on Facebook is a reprehensible quote from Britain Unchained, the book that you with Dominic Raab, Priti Patel and Kwasi Kwarteng wrote. It described the British worker as “among the worst idlers’ in the world”. If you four knew anything of the UK’s agricultural and industrial past and the conditions the people of these isles had to endure to work for a crust, perhaps you would demonstrate less ignorance of the value of us workers. What a slight this is on the healthcare and social welfare workers who made the NHS and social welfare such an envy of the world that American money people want to muscle into it, raising their profits but reducing costs, to turn our health service into a ‘for profit’ not ‘for need’.

Your party, in its undignified scrap for the leadership, lives in a desert of political, economic and social ideas. Your members think raising wages increases inflation. Is that the limit of your imagination? Shallow isn’t? Devoid of any substance. To reduce income tax is the basest of theories.

I am aware that Thatcher is dead, let us leave her and her's/Murdoch's destructive theories there.

Maybe some ‘kenosis’ and metanoia’ is needed.

Mike Larcey,

Tinkers Way, Downham

ABORTION

In reply to Christian

Committed Christian Sheridan Payne welcomes the US Supreme Court judgement which restricts a woman’s right to choose what she does with her own body and makes accessing an abortion almost impossible. He claims that all men and women are responsible for the small child they have created, but abortions are not carried out on small children, they are carried out on a foetus or zygote or mass of cells, depending on what stage of pregnancy the termination is carried out at.

In addition, it is not the man who is left carrying the baby once that pregnancy takes place. The man is usually the one who is free to walk away and never face a moment of responsibility for the child. They aren’t even forced to pay for it. The state doesn’t have to face up to supporting the child either and in many, many cases that child is seen as a burden with the mother having to pay everything for a child she was literally forced to have. Sheridan Payne claims that it is only a small number of cases that are as a result of rape. I say that’s rubbish. There was a recent case of a 10-year-old child who was raped, probably by a family member, who was forced to go to a different state because she was just a few days over the 6 weeks cut off stage. She was 10-years-old; she was a child. Can Sheridan really justify denying her a safe and accessible termination of pregnancy? No one should defend that situation. Sheridan claims that the American constitution doesn’t give a woman the right to murder her unborn child.

Yet ostensibly the American constitution does give men the right to murder children that have already been born, schoolchildren, because they have a right to bear arms. He claims that 97 per cent of all abortions are due to uncontrolled sex!

What a statement that is! Whose uncontrolled sex and actually, what even is uncontrolled sex? Sex for pleasure only?

Well I’d argue a woman has an equal right to want to have sex purely for pleasure rather than make a child. And It takes two people to have sex and the one who is responsible for the sperm should be capable of using a condom to stop the risk of pregnancy if he is not prepared to take on that child and give it a decent upbringing.

Yes Sheridan, I do think you are harsh and judgmental and it’s harsh and judgmental about a matter that you will never have to experience because you will never get pregnant under any circumstances you can care to describe.

You claim that abortions are a barbarity. Well I say to you that denying a woman access to a safe way to terminate a pregnancy that she does not feel able to go through with is barbaric. The mass shootings which take place on a weekly basis in the US are also barbaric but I don’t see Sheridan writing in to condemn them. Hopefully he’s OK in the 40 degrees heat this week, after all, there’s no such thing as climate change according to him either.

Jo Rust,

Gaywood

MP

Contempt for constituents

I write regarding the vote on Monday in the House of Commons on the matter of “Confidence in Her Majesty’s Government” which saw James Wild MP vote in support of Boris Johnson’s Government.

Just two weeks ago our MP, when calling for the Prime Minister’s resignation, tweeted “For the good of the country this situation cannot continue”, yet his vote yesterday was for the opposite, for this situation to continue exactly as it is.

He also tweeted “Enough is enough. We need a change of leadership to restore public trust in democracy and good governance”. I agree with the words, but words must be followed up with action. James Wild’s lack of commitment to his own words here show that he has the backbone of a windsock and shows his utter contempt for his constituents.

I am utterly perplexed how our MP can simultaneously call for Boris Johnson’s resignation, and vote in the Commons to support Johnson’s Government. As a father of two young children, I am used to them saying/wanting one thing, and doing the other, but to have it from my elected representative in parliament makes me wonder if James Wild is able to represent his constituents or follow his own political self-interests. My only conclusion is that his tweet two weeks ago was what he thought his constituents wanted to hear but meant none of it.

David Sayers,

Clenchwarton