Letters: October 27, 2016

Anonymity is granted only at the discretion of the editor, who also reserves the right to edit letters.

Christian welcome

DESPITE being an atheist, I totally agree with Bill Williams (Disgraceful Situation, Letters October 25) that the teachings of Jesus are very relevant to the current plight of refugees.

Bill should perhaps re-read the New Testament however, as he would find that Jesus’s love and charity towards others was universal and was not restricted to others based on their age or any other factor.

“Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.” (Matthew, 5:42).

When Jesus fed the 5,000 he certainly did not ask anyone their age or question their provenance.

I would advise Bill to be very suspicious of ‘newspapers’ such as the Express, Mail and Sun who have a track record of publishing lies and distortions and who gleefully printed the questionable photos of a very select handful of refugee children that has sadly set the news agenda recently.

They make huge profits from peddling such fear and hatred which swells the offshore accounts of their tax-avoiding wealthy owners.

I would also like to remind readers that in April both Robert Buckland and Justin Tomlinson were two of the MPs who voted to narrowly defeat a motion to accept 3,000 unaccompanied child refugees.

I don’t know how Mr Buckland or Mr Tomlinson feel about the teachings of Jesus, but it seems sure to me that his ideas weren’t at the forefront of their minds when they made that decision.

NEIL MERCER

Maidstone Road, Swindon

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Wrong on migrants

RE GILL Harris’s article (In need of our care, not our cold hearts. Adver October 20).

I see no reason for Calais immigrants not having their teeth tested to prove their age. Every other EU country, bar three, uses the same method.

She refers to the Jews to bump up her spurious argument, but the Jewish refugees were a finite number (1938-1940) unlike the present situation.

Her article is regurgitated cheap journalistic dross.

One glance at the incoming ‘children’ soon reveals the utter nonsense her article is: Mainly swaggering male adults with five o’clock shadows, ripe for army enlistment to fight anywhere in the world, except the enemy back home it seems. Adults who have deliberately destroyed their identification documents.

Ah, says Gill Harris, but these young men have been traumatised. But then she conveniently fails to mention so were thousands of young men in Nazi Europe where such atrocities were commonplace – yet most fought back.

If they were truly seeking a safe haven, what was wrong with the first safe country in Europe? Many have lied to come here.

How many of these “children” were only last week wearing scarves, smashing trucks, lighting fires, terrorising travellers and motorists, and destroying what they could?

And now it seems at last they have claimed their reward for such. We are importing thugs, perhaps terrorists.

Of 11,000 whose ages have been disputed by local authorities since 2006, 45 per cent have been judged by the courts to be over 18.

That’s almost 5,000 fraudulent claimants, whose education and upkeep is paid for by cash-strapped councils (in short, us) doubtless at the expense of indigenous children in genuine need.

But this doesn’t seem to bother the overcharged Ms Harris, where the homegrown come last, if that.

What we are witnessing now removes all credibility with the asylum system.

Will Gill be taking some of them in? Or will she do a Yvette Cooper/ Lily Allen (about to release a new album – what a coincidence!) where noble talk of ‘taking a poor child in’ terminates as soon as the interview.

How many of these “children” will end up late for school because they haven’t finished shaving, I wonder?

It’s a big con and puts a whole new sinister slant on the logo “Children In Need.”

For Gill Harris to sum up her emotional rant by stating: Anyone who “disagrees with her needs their head testing” strikes me that she is living in her own little make-believe, emotionally charged world, in which the truth is whatever she wishes, whatever the cold facts staring her in the face.

J ADAMS

Bloomsbury, Swindon

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Sort out traffic lights

AS WE sit in our car waiting to go around Bruce Street bridges, because the traffic lights are not on again, the traffic is sometimes backed up as far as the Dolphin Pub.

Why were the lights put there? We waited nearly 18 months for the layout to be finished and it’s worse now than it was before.

The council could have just put traffic lights on the old layout and saved all the upheaval and millions of pounds that was spent on the new one.

For goodness sake Swindon Council, get the lights sorted out, before you start on the next lot of roadworks.

On Wednesday, October 12 we went down to a meeting about becoming a parish, then in the Swindon Advertiser I read our council tax is likely to go up to pay for the mistakes this council has made.

I thought we would have to become a parish so that this council would get away with not doing a lot of what our council tax is supposed to be used for.

If the council tax is to go up why do we have to become a parish? With all these new houses that are being built surely that would go a good way to providing the shortfall?

And if the leader of the council didn’t have such a big increase in his expenses that would help.

L TOWNSEND

Rodbourne

Swindon

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Take iron with caution

I FELT I ought to contact you regarding the article on iron deficiency in your family pages (always a good read I might add).

The article sets out the need for taking iron supplements.

I have, along with many others, something called haemochromatosis.

This is an iron overload disorder which has many of the same symptoms as a lack of iron.

This affects men and women and needs to be properly diagnosed. I do see ladies and gents at hospital getting treated.

Taking iron supplements if you have the symptoms listed in your article without medical advice has the potential to make the condition worse and cause irreversible damage.

There is a treatment but no cure for haemochromatosis.

The internet can provide more information on the treatment, condition and dangers of having it.

My reason for writing is that while some may need iron supplements there are others that don’t and your article was biased and not balanced, in short it did not give the other side of iron in the body.

I know there is almost an obsession with iron these days – added in cereals etc – but I do believe some research and caution when preparing articles would be in order.

Sorry if my mail seems a bit strong but I lost a cousin as a result of late diagnosis.

SHAUN GODFREY

Swindon

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Council’s costly plot

I’M sorry Allan Woodham didn’t understand my letter, (Fall in pound an excuse, SA Oct ober24).

I was making the point that he should not be surprised that oil companies set their prices at “what the market will bear” regardless of the cost of production.

I then went on to say that the large construction companies who have a virtual monopoly on new house building do exactly the same.

To my mind overpriced houses are causing far more damage to society than a few coppers on the price of petrol.

A very recent local example of unjustified price rises is the increase in allotment rents proposed by Swindon Borough Council.

It has been said that these are reaching levels which some plot holders, particularly pensioners, cannot afford.

Perhaps the council’s true intention is to drive people off the plots so that the land can be sold for development.

Otherwise why aren’t allotments being devolved to the newly-created parishes along with street sweeping, grass cutting and open spaces?

After all, it’s parishes that provide allotments in the rest of Swindon and have done ever since 1974.

DON REEVE

The Pinnacle

Horder Mews

Old Town, Swindon