King's Lynn News letters August 2: Thornham bales, Lord Bellingham / Liz Truss & Tory leadership, abortion, climate change
POLITICS
We do not need another Boris Johnson as PM
I read with interest the letter from Lord Bellingham which perfectly illustrates the problems endemic in modern day politics – a well respected, principled, past Member of Parliament espousing the virtues of a career politician. Liz Truss was parachuted in, rather than selected, against the wishes of many of the local members.
She has supported surely the worst ever Prime Minister; a man utterly devoid of morals or integrity in both his personal and parliamentary life. In so doing she has prioritised her own electoral interest above the interests of the country. The last thing that we need is a second Boris Johnson.
On a local level, it is no doubt coincidental that Ms Truss has only just stated her intention to support the desperate need for the Queen Elizabeth hospital to be replaced, not to mention an apparent interest in the affairs of Norwich City!
At a time when there are so many problems to address; Brexit, the cost of living, the war in Ukraine, low productivity, the cost of the NHS, the climate crisis, we need a leader of substance and conviction together with integrity to restore trust and faith in our parliamentary system which has been severely undermined by recent events.
Sadly no such person is evident. The selection of a new Prime Minister by some 1,700 Conservative party members mitigates against a successful outcome – an undemocratic process and totally unrepresentative of the electorate. A general election would provide a better representation.
An uncertain future awaits!
A.G Firrell
Downham Market
My support will go to Liz Truss
I am one of your readers who is a member of the Conservative Party and so will get a vote as to who will be the leader of that party.
I have discussed this responsibility with many friends and colleagues and have decided that my support will go to Liz Truss.
I am aware that this is at odds with our excellent local MP James Wild who has set out powerful reasoning for his support for Rishi Sunak, but I have come to my decision for the following reasons.
I am no economist, but I have managed business and have painful memories of a Conservative chancellor in the 90s who set out to attack inflation by reducing the economy; he will claim it worked and indeed inflation did reduce, but small business paid a heavy price in retraction, closure and bankruptcy.
Winding down an economy is not good for business and not good for jobs.
To my mind inflation is caused by printing too much money (clever people call it easement).
Governments print money to cover bills and borrowing they cannot meet and try to fill the gap with more tax. I don’t believe that to be sensible.
When I was a local council leader we couldn’t print money, so the stark choices were: increase tax or spend less, and/or, increase income by encouraging growth, that is to say attracting more jobs and industry to increase the tax base
It is a strategy that I believe to be right; grow the economy, allow people and companies to decide how they will spend their own money leaving the state to fund essential services with the increase in revenue that growth provides. You certainly do not grow an economy by taxing more!
I believe Liz Truss has served Norfolk and the country well.
I valued the time we worked together to get rid of local incineration ideas,to maintain RAF Marham as not only a premium military base but the selected home for 617 Squadron, for her tireless support to industry, including agriculture.
As chairman of the local strategic partnership I so valued her encouragement, drive and “hands on “efforts to improve our schools and drive up achievement.
I am attracted by her ideas for realistic, meaningful policing and foreign policy
My vote will go to Liz Truss.
Nick Daubney
Conservative Party Member
CLIMATE CHANGE
Media needs to tell the truth about crisis
Just about everyone was adversely affected one way or another by the recent extreme hot weather.
The newspaper and broadcasting news media certainly had plenty to report on.
In addition to the pictures of packed beaches and outdoor leisure parks with swimming pools there were the reports of numerous wildfires and tragically, drowning incidents.
Although news media did mention that we must expect heatwaves to be a regular occurrence. I found it frustrating that the climate crisis and the continuing investment and use of oil and gas energy wasn’t mentioned in much of the reporting.
The science is very clear that to halt the continuing rise in temperatures the government must step up plans for a green new deal that delivers on drastic reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from all sources, having energy efficient affordable housing, jobs that focus on green investment and delivery and overall climate actions.
The urgency for drastic actions is not a fanciful notion from a few climate activists.
Climate scientists make it very clear that climate crisis is caused by destructive human activity and with every fraction of a degree of extra warming we’ll see and suffer more extreme and frequent heat, droughts, wildfires and hurricanes.
The media has an important role and moral obligation to tell the whole truth about the scale of climate crisis and the need for speeding up integrated actions to tackle the now very noticeable effects of rising temperatures, together with tackling the nation’s economy, health and cost of living crisis.
Cliff Goodman
Lynn
DISPUTE
We should help and look after one another
I would like to thank the Lynn News, and your excellent roving reporter Jenny Beake, for your courage in reporting the plight of John Turner and his mum Maxine.
Two front page reports about an ongoing dispute with their neighbour Stephen Bett, and bringing it to the wider local public in West Norfolk.
I feel empathy and sorrow for John and Maxine in this hideous situation they find themselves in.
I know the place they live in, Shepherd’s Pightle, when working, and what a lovely place I thought it would be to live with nice tidy houses and great views over open fields in their back gardens.
Now it seems Mr Bett, a former Police and Crime Commissioner for Norfolk, wealthy landowner, and relatively recent newcomer to Thornham, seems to be acting in a totally unacceptable way by deliberately blocking their view from their rear garden.
He refutes their claim to a decent view, even though he must surely know John’s mum is ill with MS and failing vision and that her main pleasure in life is watching the horses in the field behind her home.
Yet he claims: “He thinks he is entitled to a view but he is not”.
His counter claim is that: “I don’t want to see these people in their gardens, barbecuing and putting their washing out.”
So he’s entitled to an acceptable view, but his neighbours aren’t.
None of our farmers where I live would ever do anything like he’s done. They go out of their way to ensure mutual understanding and respect with local residents. But our farmers have been here for generations and know we’re all part of the same local community – all in it together.
I only hope Mr Bett reconsiders his actions and shows love and compassion to his neighbours.
In these difficult and challenging times we all have to help and look after each other.
George Wood
Congham
ABORTION
Let’s not go back to the Stone Age
Your correspondent Sheridan Payne, like most who seek to abolish abortion rights, seeks to promote what he calls ‘the rights of the unborn child’ as a counterweight to a women’s right to have safe terminations.
Many feminists fall into the trap of fighting mainly on a similar ground.
The claim ‘my body my choice’ is too narrow a platform either to obtain abortion rights in the first place or to defend them against reactionary extremists.
Of the people on the recent pro-rights demonstration, I was the only one who had been a member of ALRA (Abortion Law Reform Society) which campaigned both inside and outside of Parliament and achieved legal abortion in 1967. The campaign was fought on a class basis: anti-abortion laws infringed the rights of the majority – women, children and men alike. According to polls at the time, this approach obtained 90 per cent plus support, and led to a membership which had two men to every three women.
What rights should a foetus have? Mr Payne’s views are shackled by the theological dogma that the soul enters the body at conception. Thus one male cell joined to one female cell is an ‘unborn child’!
In fact a foetus is merely an adjunct to a woman’s body, unable to exist independently of her until the 28th week of pregnancy.
Mr Payne is unable to distinguish potentiality from actuality: a foetus is not a child any more than an egg is a chicken.
Are not children whose mother is facing death or physical or mental breakdown not having their rights violated by anti abortion laws?
What about the foetus with a serious genetic fault that would produce a child whose short life would be full of pain. Mr Payne believes that it is ‘God’s will’ that such pregnancies should continue. I am sure that there are many Christians who do not view their God in such a negative light.
A peasant working 16 hours a day to keep his wife and six children in food may find his wife again pregnant, and this will mean that if his wife finds it illegal to obtain an abortion, he will then have to work 18 hours a day.
Both husband and wife may have their health and quality of life affected by anti-abortion laws.
Mr Payne is obviously unsure of himself when he deals with pregnancies caused by rape. He says only they are ‘generally accepted reasons for abortions’ but fails to say whether he himself thinks it acceptable to ‘murder’ a foetus to save a woman such anguish. He also fails to give a reputable source for his nonsense that ‘97 per cent of abortions are due to uncontrolled sex’.
Anti-abortion laws are class laws. Prior to 1967 wealthy women would go to Harley Street, get a diagnosis of amenorrhea, which was then ‘cured’ by D&C (womb scrape). Today wealthy women can go to another country if it is not freely or legally available in their own.
It was working class women whose only option was to go to a ‘back street’ abortionist whose abilities ranged from clinically skilled to the downright murderous. Many women died. We all need to fight against being taken back to the stone age.
Kevin Waddington
South Lynn