Your letters about King's Lynn developments, Queen Elizabeth Hospital and South Gates, politics and religion
Here are you letters from the Friday Lynn News of January 27, 2023...
Where were Jo and her can kickers then?
Once again we have the cardboard protesters out, trying their best to gain political points with their selective memory problems.
In 1976, the Labour government announced the building of several hospitals that had a known life of 25/30 years.
Roll forward those years and you are in Blair/Brown’s administration.
During their tenure of 13 years Labour did nothing about Lynn’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital and as they always do, left the Tories with not only an economic mess but a large number of hospitals past their sell by date.
Where were Jo Rust and her can kicking comrades then?
Chris Kerry
Castle Rising
Observations on some local schemes
My view is there are too many developments in Lynn and the town cannot take the extra traffic, apart from other
infrastructure and environmental issues.
Concrete is often replacing a pleasant environment and non-strategic development doesn’t solve the problems. The large number of retirees in the area do not want congestion or overcrowding.
Developments are reactive, largely piecemeal and not strategically planned. Consultation is not effective.
The planning processes are too centrally driven, archaic and often applied by people without relevant training.
Estates are cramped, roads narrow and houses of insufficient quality.
Houses should be affordable, and be built with two off-street parking spaces with electric car charging points. Solar panels ought to be mandatory.
Robert Gardner
South Wootton
Striking isn’t just about pay
Not since the Taff Vale judgement in 1901 has there been such a comprehensive attack on working people’s freedom and their ability to protect their standard of life than the Minimum Services Bill that the Tories are currently putting through Parliament.
This Bill allegedly seeks to protect the community when nurses, paramedics and other essential workers are striking. It makes no attempt to define what a ‘minimum’ service is, but would allow the relevant minister to decide for himself or herself what that might be, and to order up to 80 per cent attendance at the workplace. A ‘right’ which depends on the political attitude of a minister is no right at all. Without the right to withdraw his or her labour, a worker is no longer a worker but something akin to a slave.
The truth is that none of the current disputes are about wages alone. They are also about defending the public services which employees see falling apart around them.
Consider health workers for example: they are generally overworked, demoralised and in some cases having to go to food banks in order to feed their families.
They see patients waiting in ambulances, or in corridors, for hours on end before getting treatment.
The big problem we have is not a minimum service on strike days (emergency service has
always been agreed and has been adequate) but the inability of the Government to provide a minimum service on non-strike days.
This Government spends 20 per cent less per patient than most of our European neighbours.
Next Wednesday (February 1) has been designated a Day of Action by the TUC and there will be events in many places, including Lynn. The best way we can show appreciation of the public sector workers who served us so excellently in the pandemic, and continue to do so while working in increasing fraught conditions, is to go along to give them support.
Kevin Waddington
South Lynn
She’s been wasting tax payers’ money for years
I fully share the sentiments expressed by Rebecca Elliott (Lynn News, January 13) regarding MP Liz Truss’ various ‘remunerations’ - including the fact that, in addition to her £84k salary as an MP for SW Norfolk, she is now entitled to an extra £115k per annum for the rest of her life, because of her disastrous 44 days as Prime Minister.
I mentioned in a letter published by the Lynn News on the same date, that Ms Truss was one of the top three recipients who received over £250k each, in private funding from the £17million given to MPs by outside donors since the last election.
According to the Daily Mirror, Ms Truss actually received £537K for campaigning and other causes, including her campaign to become Prime Minister - a huge sum by any standards.
Around half of this money came from city bankers, hedge fund managers and venture capital controllers.
As Rebecca West rightly reminds us, Truss’ 44 day premiership brought about the virtual collapse of the UK economy.
Ms Truss has been reported in four national newspapers as having amassed a fortune of over £8million in the 10 years she has been in Parliament, and in her previous career as an accountant. She has not denied these reports.
One wonders why she did not fund her career advancement plans as PM, using some of that fortune - rather than using money from outside funders. One is also bound to ask what expectations those outside funders had, were Truss to become prime minister.
She had a habit of spending taxpayers’ money extravagantly whilst she was a member of the Government – including £500k for chartering a plane to take her and some colleagues to Australia for trade talks.
She and her 14 colleagues could easily have travelled there for a fraction of the cost, on a commercial airline, but she chose not to do so.
Last year, Ms Truss also demanded a further £3,000 of taxpayers’ money for a hugely expensive lunch at a private Mayfair club - owned by a Conservative donor - for a visiting trade delegate and nine of her staff.
She overruled DTI senior officials’ objections to the expensive venue chosen. Incidentally, some of the wine consumed during the lunch cost £150 per bottle. And ultimately we taxpayers had to foot the bill.
Dan O’Connor
Downham
Levelling up fund insanity
We have a hospital with a collapsing roof initially estimated to cost £32million, and the Government gives the town a £24million road around the South Gates instead.
Julian Banham
Dersingham
Treat each other with tolerance and respect
I would like to respond to one of the letters written and printed in the January 13 issue of Lyn News.
The writer is quite right in saying that we, as a community and as a nation, need to encourage respect and consideration for all people.
However, I take issue with his attitude towards religious believers. Is he not being intolerant towards his fellow citizens who do hold religious beliefs?
He says that over 50% of the population are non-religious believers, but this is not strictly accurate. In fact, around 30% of the population identified themselves as ‘non-religious’ in the census last year.
This means that about 70% do hold religious convictions, whether they be Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Islamic or
another religion.
The history of the Western church shows a very complicated picture, and the church definitely does not have an
impeccable record, but there are also examples of great faithfulness and heroism.
Surely, the way forward is for us to treat one another, whether we have religious convictions or not, with tolerance and respect.
(Rev) Linda Lubbe
Gooderstone
