PLEASE keep your letters to 250 words maximum giving your name, address and daytime telephone number - even on emails. Email: letters@swindonadvertiser.co.uk. Write: Swindon Advertiser, 100 Victoria Road, Swindon, SN1 3BE. Phone: 01793 501806.

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

Was Napoleon right?

AS an avid reader of the Swindon Advertiser and its letters page I always find it interesting and inspirational to read the “Quote of the Day”.

Recently, there was a quotation by Napoleon Bonaparte which said, “In politics stupidity is not a handicap”. This quotation seems somewhat unfair. Politicians may not be the public’s favourite group of people but we do undoubtedly have many who are well read, well educated and intelligent.

I believe this quotation starts to have much more relevance at basic levels, such as parish councils, where we find the type of people who like to play at politics.

As I read the minutes of the Environment and Road Safety Committee, Wroughton Parish Council, April 3 I was reminded of the appropriateness of Napoleon Bonaparte’s quotation.

This is the same committee which requested and supported the construction of the pedestrian crossing on Devizes Road. It floods on a regular basis, becomes unusable for pedestrians and is a danger to motorists. Locals have known about the persistent flooding problem for years but apparently the parish councillors didn’t.

On April 3, Item 644 Parking on Devizes Road, “Members resolved to request that Swindon Borough Council be consulted on whether staggered yellow lines would be the best course of action to resolve the restricted access to Devizes Road due to roadside parking.”

Conversely, on Item 648 Proposed Traffic Regulation Order for Wharf Road, “Members resolved to respond to Swindon Borough Council proposal for yellow lines on Wharf Road stating that it believes them to be unnecessary and that Wroughton Parish Council does not support this proposal.”

Both of these locations are main access roads which are frequently busy with fast moving traffic and heavy vehicles. The crucial difference is, the yellow lines proposed for Wharf Road are situated within a school safety zone.

Could Coun Hewer, chair of the Environment and Road Safety Committee, give a clear explanation as to why he and his committee deem it to be appropriate for vehicles to park on a main road within a school safety zone?

Do they believe it is acceptable for vehicles to park on grass verges, park on and obstruct footpaths, do U-turns in front of on coming traffic and often mount pavements while doing so, cause damage to footpaths, grass verges and kerbs, reverse into residents drives to complete turns, obstruct dropped kerbs, put children in and out of their car doors on the road side and swing car doors open in front of oncoming traffic?

Why did the parish council support yellow lines being installed on the side roads, Perrys Lane and Markham Road, which are situated outside of the school safety zone but don’t want them, where they are most required, inside the school safety zone?

What is the rationale behind this contradictory decision making process? Why are the serious combined issues of road safety directly outside of a school, deemed by the parish council to be, of less importance than a case of straight forward obstruction?

MR K KANE

Wharf Road

Wroughton

What’s the point?

READERS, please think on the situation in court - the man in the dock is already on bail for a similar incident, now he is in front of the judge for an armed robbery charge.

As many readers will know, this government brought in an act that anybody carrying a knife faces a jail term of around five years, so this man had carried this type of attack now twice, so that should be 10 years or so.

But no, the defence stands up and gives the hearing public the normal “He’s had a poor upbringing or has had a hard life”. So this judge has now delayed sentence, to see if he can mend his ways, or will he up in front of the judge for a third time.

What do you have to do to get such a sentence? Kill someone?

No doubt the defence then will say he’s a changed man. Soft or what? What world do these people live in? What is the point of the police doing their job if the end result, is this. Utter disgrace.

T REYNOLDS

Wheeler Avenue

Swindon

We need the truth

MOST people say they believe in freedom of speech, freedom of press and freedom assembly. In reality, they do not.

In 2008, I challenged one of the tutors at my university why people in suits on our television sets use the word “democracy” when we do not have it in real life. “It works in theory,” was her response.

I hope you believe in freedom of press, both in theory and practice. Share this letter with those men please. It’s the truth. I perfectly know that most people disdain the truth and prefer the invented reality - the narrative of the news readers, pseudo intellectuals, talk shows and television programmes which aren’t correspondent with reality. After all, we’re living in a celebrity culture.

AXMED BAHJAD

Fleet Street

Swindon

Honesty is best policy

RE Question about God. ( Adver 13/4/17). Sorry to hear that Janet Woodham, when a small child, was slapped every time she failed to properly recite the Lord’s Prayer perched upon her mother’s knee.

Shame her mother lacked patience; Christianity is not something to be shoved down one’s throat.

At age ten she asked where did God come from but never got a reply (to whom was the question addressed?). Hence from that day she believes God is man-made. No more searching; probing the Holy Bible; asking questions; pulling it apart; persisting; just gave up.

Not quite, Janet changed direction, becoming a medium: the occult. How curious.

Janet lovingly wrote this in September 2010.

“I see no wrong in paying to go full of hope that you may get in touch with a loved one who has passed over by using a medium. If it is a lie, what harm has been done if a person derives comfort from it?”

What harm has been done Janet? Do you teach your offspring it’s fine to lie, provided a person “derives comfort from it?” Where does it all end?

Who in their right mind pays good money to be lied to? The deceived. The vulnerable. The gullible. Those who have lost loved ones, and seek comfort by consulting mediums who exploit them for every penny mercilessly, not out of compassion, but money.

Little wonder she gave up the search for God.

JEFF ADAMS

Bloomsbury

Swindon

Gamble could pay off

SO Mrs Theresa May, our Prime Minister, has taken on all of them by her surprise move to call a General Election. Good for her, she has seen the way certain people within Westminster have been acting and additionally the way the idiots in Brussels seem to think they have a right to tell Britain what it can or cant do.

People should realise that if we have a larger majority for the Government then it automatically makes it easier and better for our negotiations. They, these non-entities in Brussels, will realise that more and more of the British public are getting behind the Government and Brexit. That things are not going to be as easy as these so called leaders of the EU imagined that they would be. That, in point of fact, Britain is quite a large market for all EU goods. And where are they going to be if we source these goods outside of the EU? They will be losing out to the tune of several billion pounds each and every year.

Yes, we see all the Opposition trying to look as if they know what’s going on but we are all aware that Jeremy really doesn’t have a clue even when swathes of Labour supporters voted to leave.

Then we have a little bit of sniping from certain journalists. One who springs to mind is Laura Kuenssberg of the BBC news team. Always just a little critical and most of it with a leaning towards the Left. Seems to be a journalistic trait.

But for me I am glad that the PM has come out and called the Remoaners’ bluff.

If all goes to plan we will all be better off. But it is a gamble. Sometimes you just have to go with a gut feeling and chance it. Let’s hope it comes off.

DAVID COLLINS

Blake Crescent

Swindon

Not your job, John

JOHN Stooke, in my opinion, is an articulate and regular contributor to these pages.

But may I reluctantly state, I have a bone of contention regarding his recent letter regarding his admirable, but misguided actions in picking up litter from his residential area of habitat?

This then ponders the question, is that not the job of the council’s designated employees, instructed by their six figure salaried bosses? Not to mention 539 of them in England receiving higher salaries than the Prime Minister.

With all due respect to Mr Stooke, do not compound the felony by encouragement. My recent council tax increase wiped out my pension inflation rise. I suspect I am not alone in that prognosis.

I consider myself a law abiding citizen with my community at heart, as Mr Stooke obviously is. But I would not under any circumstances do the job for nothing that I am already paying for in no uncertain manner on a ten month basis.

This is to make us feel good regarding the two months we do not pay. It’s an insult to my intelligence to supplement the salaries of the buffoons who have systematically ruined my adopted town over the last 40 years.

BILL WILLIAMS

Merlin Way

Covingham