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PM was outfoxed

ANALYSIS of the General Election results has raised some interesting observations.

I believe Bill Williams’ letter, “Fox hunting faux pas” (SA June 17) gave an excellent account of where Prime Minister May began to lose the plot and her majority in the House of Commons.

Many factors contributed to the Conservatives’ dismal election result.

I suggest the beginning of the end, for their predicted substantial majority, came when Prime Minister May said she was in favour having a Parliamentary vote on the reintroduction of fox hunting.

This was the first sign of her General Election arrogance and taking her lead in the opinion polls for granted.

The spineless ones who would like the opportunity to participate in legalised fox hunting describe it as a sport.

To the majority of the British population, 70 to 80 per according to RSPCA, it is an antiquated barbaric activity which belongs in the past, along with other equally obnoxious activities such as bear baiting.

The UK has a reputation for being a nation of animal lovers.

Our compassion towards animals has given us some of the most progressive animal welfare legislation in the world. Nobody has the right to ill-treat or be cruel to animals.

Almost as soon as the election campaign commenced an acquaintance, who I regard as a typical Conservative supporter, sent me an electronic petition link opposing the Conservative’s manifesto proposal to have a Parliamentary vote on the reintroduction of fox hunting. I signed and dispatched it immediately.

During the election campaign I spoke to a fellow Brexit supporter who said, “Why on earth did Mrs May resurrect the toxic issue of fox hunting?”

I watched a TV political analyst who said, “the fox hunting issue alone is enough to cost the Conservatives votes.”

Prime Minister May has proved to be indecisive and out of touch with ordinary people’s concerns.

Even with the farcical gaffes made by Diane Abbott, Shadow Home Secretary, Jeremy Corbyn managed to address voters’ concerns and run a popular election campaign.

It seems to me that although the Labour Party gained seats it was the Conservatives who were really responsible for losing them.

With such a substantial opening lead in the opinion polls this has got to rank as one of the biggest electoral disasters for any political party.

Bill Williams gave a poignant summary when he said, “Mrs May wonders why she is now in charge of a minority government, I don’t.

“And she won’t be for long I strongly suspect.”

I think Mr Williams is spot-on. If a re-run of the election was called today I believe Prime Minister May would soon need to pack her bags and vacate number 10.

K KANE, Wharf Road, Wroughton

Tories lack ethics

THE British economy of 1806 was supported by both Conservative and Whig Parties, who thought it an ideal form of efficient economics, that slave labourers in our West Indies got no wages at all.

It was essential to feed them, but one had to accept some handicaps. There is a direct parallel between that form of economics and present Tory economic theory, where many Tory voters believe that any kind of Minimum Wage is a handicap to the success of British business, as an unnecessarily high operating cost.

Tories intend to conserve the 1806 standards of justice in our nation.

For 18 years William Wilberforce had tried to explain to them that, not only was slavery inhumanly cruel to slaves, but the very idea and institution of slavery was degrading to the minds and lives of every person who accepted it or who gained benefit from it.

Such persons made themselves subhuman, living as lower than the beasts of the field, because they had rejected all the natural ethical principles which were the inheritance of humankind.

Wilberforce revealed, for all time, the nature of evil in human hearts, which may still hide in you and me, in different guise.

Just as there never had been any good reason in this universe, for slaves to be whipped and tortured in order to put sugar on aristocratic tables, so there could never be a reason for some to have so little, while others had so much.

Two hundred years later, Tory voters still have no grasp of ethics.

There can never be any valid reason for the super-rich to have billions, while some citizens do not possess a den to call home.

Details have been changed, but the immoral values of the Conservative economic system remain the same.

This economic system possesses neither the intention nor the desire to serve all the population.

CN WESTERMAN, Meadow Rise, Brynna, Mid Glam

Fight is on for schools

I READ with dismay the article about Lawn Primary School’s funding situation, particularly the comment from MP Robert Buckland who claims to have secured extra school funding for Swindon.

Let us be quite clear that the extra funding he refers to is for new free schools, not, as is so desperately needed, for existing schools where rising costs are compromising educational outcomes.

As a school governor myself, of Watchfield Primary School, I have worked hard to find ways to keep costs down while supporting the senior leadership team to deliver nothing but the best education for our children, but there comes a point when you are letting valuable staff go, that those results will suffer.

As was made clear during the General Election campaign, priorities on public expenditure are a choice, a political choice.

I strongly believe that a lack of investment in our children is a lack of investment in our country’s future, and the very poorest of political choices.

Campaigners, such as I, along with the National Union of Teachers, the National Governance Association and others, are not accepting the failure to increase per pupil funding in line with inflation, nor a reduction to the Education Support Grant.

It is not true that we cannot afford to properly fund comprehensive state education, but it is true that those of us who value a good education for all children are going to need to keep fighting for it.

SARAH CHURCH, Manor Close, Shrivenham

Keeping kids safe

THE internet can be a wonderful resource for young people to learn, socialise and get support. But leaving social media sites free to make up their own rules when it comes to child safety is unacceptable.

We need legally enforceable universal safety standards that are built in from the start.

We’ve seen time and time again social media sites allowing violent, abusive or illegal content to appear unchecked on their sites, and in the very worst cases children have died after being targeted by predators or seeing self-harm films posted online.

It makes no sense that in the real world we protect children from going to night clubs or seeing over-18 films, but in the online world – where they spend so much of their time - we have no safeguards to protect them from harmful strangers or violent content.

Enough is enough. Ahead of our annual How Safe Are Our Children? conference in London we are urgently calling on the Government to bring in safe accounts, groomer alerts and specially trained child safety moderators as a bare minimum to protect our children.

And websites which fail to meet these standards should be sanctioned and fined.

Government must ensure young people are safe no matter which social network they’re using.

INGRID ANSON, Service Manager – NSPCC, Albert Street, Swindon

What bad advice

I WAS astonished to read in the national newspapers that the Prime Minister of our island had allowed a pair of unelected advisors on the alleged salary of £140,000 a year each, to bully and swear at democratically elected government ministers.

Namely Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill , the so called chiefs of staff. Sacked, not before time, when the confetti hit the wind, to put it politely.

As my dearly beloved late mother, who died at 86, used to say, it all comes out in the wash.

What beggars belief is that the two of them got away with it behind the scenes for so long. If the democratically elected government Cabinet Ministers put up with this outrage how can they guide us with strength and commitment through the British exit from the European Disunion?

More serious, as well as dangerous in these turbulent times, than that is the fact a British Prime Minister allowed this to happen due to her weakness of character regarding making her own decisions without advisers.

All my life I have made my own decisions. As have the hard working people of our country of all colours and creeds who have no choice but stand on their own feet without advisers paid ridiculous salaries at hard working taxpayers’ expense.

BILL WILLIAMS, Merlin Way, Covingham, Swindon

I do want gallery

IN REPLY to John L Crook’s letter “ We don’t want gallery” I, too, wonder where were the community supporting the museum and art gallery project.

As part of that community why wasn’t I invited? There must be hundreds, if not thousands, of like-minded people who would have been there if invited.

There is a small, but very vocal, group of Swindon people that oppose anything modern. They moaned about the Great Blondinis as being too lifelike.

They moaned about the water feature in town as being too abstract. They moaned about the decorative windows in Wat Tyler House. They moaned about the Renault building.

Mr Crook, can you explain what is wrong aesthetically with the planned building?

We must preserve our heritage like the Mechanics Institute and the Carriage Works and the Coate diving board, but we must also have new things otherwise instead of building a museum we will be living in one.

STEVE THOMPSON, Swindon