Your letters on Hunstanton bank closure, climate change and local elections
Here are the letters published in the Friday Lynn News of April 21, 2023.
BANKS
Yet another nail in the coffin for our town
A copy of a letter sent to Simon Evans, branch network director of Nationwide:
Dear Mr Evans,
We, the people of the British Isles, have endured, fought and conquered an invisible enemy labelled Covid-19!
We, the people of the British Isles, now bear remnants of an ongoing European war.
Now we, the people of Hunstanton, have witnessed the closure of two banks within our community.
I recently wrote a letter to Debbie Crosby, chief executive officer of Nationwide Building, suggesting our beloved branch of Nationwide move into the building vacated by the latest bank to close in this town.
In addition, I recently received a letter from Simon Evans, Nationwide branch network director. In his letter, Mr Evans outlined reduced hours for our branch of Nationwide.
Yet another nail in the coffin for our town, our people and our community.
Correct me if I’m wrong, Mr Evans, but is not the Nationwide Building Society a society for the people?
Is it, not the 4,000-plus souls who make up this town that Nationwide serves?
Or are reduced hours a precursor to the termination of Nationwide Hunstanton?
I look forward to your response.
Yours sincerely,
John White
“Alone, we can do so little; together, we can do so much” - Helen Keller.
John Evans
Hunstanton
CLIMATE CHANGE
Speed and scale of changes is the concern
There is a phrase which goes “it is better to keep silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt” but clearly this nugget of wisdom hasn’t impacted upon some of our doughty contributors.
Without naming names, we seem to have a tiny ‘flat earth society’ convention infiltrating these pages after a series of climate change denier views were expressed in forthright terms with suspect ‘facts’ extracted from ‘denier’ website.
Now, we do know the weather is changing and it is a fact that in the past mini-ice ages and the Medieval Warm Period happened but their occurrence was marked by a slow rise and fall of temperatures whereas this lurch in temperature and sudden pulses of rain are happening over a few short years... not hundreds or thousands of year.
It is the speed and scale of the changes and a rapid extinction of species and habitats plus flooding and desertification which is the reason we should be panicking.
I don’t wish to embarrass our deluded contributors but let’s just say I’d be interested if they also have theories about tooth fairies, Easter bunnies, storks delivering babies or even Mickey Mouse theories about er... Mickey Mouse.
Steve Mackinder
Denver
HEALTH
Warning over pandemics comes from lies
The Rev West wrote an edifying letter in Viewpoint, 14th April over the letters I have written on climate change, and the accusations of me being intolerant.
His wording was as refined as the style of one correspondent who was crude and said that I write “a lot of squit”, a definition not found in the dictionary, but an alteration from an unprintable word.
Let me give my critics food for thought with this example of real intolerance towards Britain’s national identity by weaponising pandemics.
We are being told that more of them and serious health risks are on the way and the reasons are self explanatory.
Governments and globalists are pushing to procure one of the United Nations agencies the power to rule us all.
They want to grant the global health agency, the World Health Organisation (WHO), with powers to rule a new global international response plan.
This move is to approve a “Pandemic Treaty” to seize far-reaching and legally binding powers for supposedly prevention, preparedness and response to future pandemics. Crassly this is what could be described as “a lot of s---t”.
The new treaty would establish one common law to fight future epidemics, eroding the sovereignty of the United Kingdom and other countries, with totalitarian measures. This is a health warning borne out of lies and deception, but how many will pay attention through preoccupations of Eastenders and Strictly Come Dancing.
David Fleming
Downham
LOCAL ELECTIONS
It should be our civic duty to go to ballot box
May Day! May Day! May Day! Local elections are only two weeks away ….. We need YOUR help!!
How will YOU vote? Will YOU actually vote?
Of course for those who consistently abstain from their ‘duty’ at the ballot box – the imposition of supplying “photo Identification” will not really matter a great deal.
But to many others – this mandatory showing of ID measure(s) has a ring of invoking “voter suppression”!
Seen to be most effective in the southern states of America. Brought in by the Republican Party, to disfranchise certain ethic groups.
Photo identification is not the British way.
There is statistically NO call for photo ID to resolve a problem which does not exist.
To my mind such a decision to inflict this alien concept into UK election(s) is heavy handed at best. Anti-democratic at its very worst?
Yet for many of us - these local elections are a timely warning to be on our guard – “Big Brother” IS watching…
So, this is perhaps the moment to hold your own personal referendum on this current: Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, Theresa May, and David Cameron - former Conservative administrations. Allegedly in charge of national and local government these past 13 years.
Remember, previous generations have died for us to secure the right to vote for ‘our’ democracy.
It is therefore important for us to play ‘our’ part.
Moreover, I believe it should be regarded by everyone as a ‘civic duty’ to vote.
An old fashioned principle maybe – but you only have to look at those countries around the world; who do not permit their people to vote in election(s); to realise how fortunate “we” in Great Britain truly are – free to choose?
Jim Mitchell
via email
Don’t lose your chance to vote
Local elections in England are fast approaching on Thursday 4 May.
This will be the first year that everyone is required to bring a form of photo ID to cast their vote in the polling station, following Government trials during the 2019 elections.
RNIB (Royal National Institute of Blind People) research shows that as many as 40,000 blind and partially sighted people do not currently have one of the accepted forms of photo ID, such as a driving licence or passport, which could put them at risk of being turned away from the polling station.
We want to urgently remind blind and partially sighted people that they can apply for a Voter Authority Certificate; a free voter ID document that will be accepted at all polling stations across the country. Having this document will ensure that they don’t lose out on their chance to cast their vote. Applications must be made by 5pm on Tuesday 25 April.
Forms of photo ID that will be accepted include passports, a UK driving licence, Blue Badge or certain bus passes.
Full details of the ID that will be accepted at the polling station can be found on the Electoral Commission website.
To find out more information and to apply for the Voter Authority Certificate, visit www.electoralcommission.org.uk/voterid. RNIB has also worked with the Electoral Commission to produce resources for blind and partially sighted people: www.electoralcommission.org.uk/media/9756.
Mike Wordingham
Policy manager, RNIB
