Bill’s support was of immense value
FOLLOWING the news of the death of former MP Bill Olner.
When I was appointed chairman of North Warwickshire Health Authority in 1982, against his local politician partners, Bill supported me in the expansion of the George Eliot local hospital into a district general hospital and now trust.
In a joint partnership, during his mayoralty he led the public appeal for a Mary Anne Evans hospice, opened by Princess Anne.
As our local MP, his personal support was of immense value in all of the changes we were able to undertake.
It was my pleasure that he joined us when the Queen opened the rebuilt hospital.
He will be greatly missed in Nuneaton.
Geoffrey Jackson, CBE.
Desperately need a real opposition
WHEN its membership recently voted for a return of Blairism and to controlled opposition where that party has become so obviously irrelevant during a huge terrible crisis there can be little serious future without a breakaway movement and a real openness towards building new progressive alliances.
If opposition can’t be effective at this period of huge inefficiencies and inconsistencies in response to a crisis where our performance ranks as almost the worst in the world, then at no point can that oppostion ever be effective!
Labour’s problem will be its tradition and its tribalism where people cling to the wreckage until that final moment when the vessel goes completely under. Meanwhile, things will get tougher and tougher for a cruel nation which has lost all its values.
Bill Haymes,
Coventry.