Letters: May 11, 2016

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Thanks for your support

MAY I use the Swindon Advertiser to thank the people of firstly, the Grange Park and Freshbrook Ward, and latterly ,those of Lydiard and Freshbrook Ward for at the most their loyal support or the very least their friendship given to me as their ward councillor over the last 10 years. As I reach my 77th birthday in July I have decided to spend a little more time with my very patient wife.

The ten years have flown by but none quicker than the two years I was honoured to be invited to be first deputy mayor then mayor from 2011 to 2013.

Success over that period was only guaranteed by a faithful staff in the mayor’s office and by the wonderful people who volunteered in a great variety of tasks all over Swindon.

These people would have kept their talents hidden if it were not for the Evening Advertiser, BBC Radio Wiltshire and Swindon 105.5 giving them just recognition.

Besides dealing with problems within my ward I also sat on a variety of committees which produced a variety of tasks groups.

The first one I chaired was looking at the provision of public toilets within the borough.

Many visits to other local towns with a great team failed to convince the administration of the necessity of such a provision within the borough.

Why? Because there is no law which requires such a provision. One day I hope this will be overturned.

The most successful of the task groups examined the importance of the provision of a radiotherapy service at the Great Western Hospital to replace the tedious journey to Oxford.

The present mayor and myself made many a journey to Oxford seeking the support of clinicians and gaining the most encouraging support of clinicians here in Swindon and, of course, those who had to make that journey sometimes daily.

A paper was presented to Cabinet and today we can now see the moves to ensure that this service has been agreed with a view for it to be opened in late 2017. May I urge all who can afford to contribute to the Brighter Future to do so to ensure for the service to appear on time.

May I conclude by once again thanking all the people of Swindon on behalf of my wife, Ruth, and myself for their great support and wish them well for the future.

MICK BRAY

Leven

Freshbrook, Swindon

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Benefit system dismay

WITH reference to Barrie Hudson’s weird of the week review (April 30).

The television programme On Benefits: Life On The Dole not only portrays these people in an unfortunate way it also highlights how out of date the benefits system really is.

The people are in need of much more assistance than being put on benefits and just left to their own devices.

They need much more help than the current benefits system gives them.

Can we realistically expect these people to be able to improve their quality of living and improve their own skills without the help they obviously need?

The Government should be providing them with basic life skills and fine tuning a programme to give them the all round assistance they need to get in to employment.

Just giving them benefits is failing them and failing the country as a result.

Those who mock these people say they should get off their backsides think we live in a perfect world, In fact we live in a world far from perfect. They need more help and less exploitation.

NORMAN SCILLIT

Oakhurst

Swindon

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Cameron EU concerns

I REALLY didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I listened to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom suggest that leaving the EU could lead to World War Three, or that he would be so crass as to liken the Serbian conflict to the Second World War.

However, I did utter an expletive when he shamelessly used the image of ‘white headstones’ in military cemeteries throughout mainland Europe to support his claim that the UK must remain in the EU.

Mr Cameron assured the people of the UK that there had to be ‘fundamental reform’ and ‘full-on’ Treaty change which must happen ‘before the referendum’ – or else the government was willing to campaign to Leave.

No one truly believes Mr Cameron negotiated ‘fundamental reform’ and everyone knows the EU has not and will not agree to any ‘full on Treaty changes’ - which begs the question, why is Mr Cameron campaigning to remain in an organisation of which he said - “The fact is we are not comfortable with the state of our membership today. It does need to change.”

The simple truth is that Mr Cameron is a politician with an eye to the main chance, he knows no other rule than that of Brussels and cannot appreciate a time when the UK Parliament really did make the law rather than simply endorsing regulations decided in another place by politicians we cannot change.

DES MORGAN

Caraway Drive, Swindon

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Vote to leave EU

ALTHOUGH I am a Tory I am disgusted with David Cameron and his sidekick George Osborn. The reason? For perpetrating the fear campaign to try and make people afraid of leaving the corrupt and rotten European Union.

All the members of the cabinet who were in favour of us going it alone have proved to us they are only concerned with keeping their jobs.

Cameron’s latest gimmick is to get two ex chiefs of MI5 and MI6 to state it would make us weaker.

We have the best intelligence service in Europe, if not the world.

We have GCHQ who have a monitoring capability second to none. We have analysts who are second to none.

How will staying in the European Union protect us? Did it protect Paris or Brussels?

We must protect ourselves, not rely on people who have a record of giving in when the going gets rough.

When Cameron trotted off to Europe to get the changes he wanted they just laughed at him and he came back with nothing.

At that point he should have stood up and told the British people that Europe would give us nothing. Then he should have been man enough to recommend that we leave the EU.

That would at least have showed these corrupt politicians where exactly we stood.

Who knows, it might have made them reconsider. Now, because of Cameron’s defeatist attitude, they think they have us over a barrel - just like the Germans did in 1939. They were wrong then as well.

These politicians, who don’t have the guts to stand up to this cabal in Europe, are only interested in staying on the gravy train.

It doesn’t matter what Joe public thinks or wants. The politicians believe they can frighten us into voting to stay in and be told what we can or can’t do by Brussels.

The Labour crowd are the same - just looking after themselves.

We went it alone for 1,000 years and we built an empire that made all others seem petty by comparison. We gave the world so much and don’t forget the Industrial Revolution started here, not in Europe.

Don’t let these weaklings in Westminster frighten you or tell you that they are doing it for your own good. It’s all lies, they are doing it for themselves. We must show them that it is they who are wrong, Not the Great British Public, and I use that term Great advisedly, because you are great, each and every one of you.

You are better than that and you deserve better, so vote to leave.

DAVID COLLINS

Blake Crescent, Swindon

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Compassionate PM?

SO WE have a compassionate Prime Minister now?

What hypocrisy. Let’s start being more caring and think of our own children in dire circumstances before we let 3,000, or whatever the EU orders us to accept, live here.

Thousands of children were in the same situation after the war and they survived.

I see able-bodied men with mobile phones, well dressed and healthy enough to cause chaos in countries when they don’t get what they want.

Surely they should go back and form some sort of resistance movement and take their country back from the aggressor?

The EU top brass say they would fine any country £1bn if they do not take in any refugees.

Who are they to dictate what other countries do or do not do?

Only fools or naive businesses would want to stay in such a meglomaniac system. Plus Germany is again building an army of superior force (sound familiar does it?).

Not even Solomon could say the EU in its present state would bring us any benefits if we stay tied to its way of government control.

You cannot run a country on emotions, bleeding hearts and do gooders who are blind to the real future effects of what they ask.

GH SMITH

Wroughton

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Interesting articles

THERE were two interesting articles in the May 6 edition of the Swindon Advertiser.

Firstly, Rob Panther is to be congratulated on his cleaning of the road signs around Swindon, I have often thought when driving around the town how filthy these signs have become through years of neglect.

Fortunately, Rob has the necessary equipment to deal with this problem.

However, I do feel that some of the able bodied who are on benefits and never intend on looking for work could be made to carry out this type of work and put back into the community instead of sitting around all day smoking and drinking, or would this be against their human rights? Secondly, Bill Williams comes under fire again for some of the comments he makes in his letters regarding immigrants.

I always feel that Bill says what many people are thinking. However, in a letter on Friday reference is made to housing.

I have not gone into this subject before but can the correspondent honestly say that immigrants have never been housed in council houses in front of local people who have been on the council housing list for many a year?

R ALBRIGHTON

Shaw, Swindon