HARD CHOICES DUCKED ON NHS FUNDING VOTES FOR WOMEN WITHOUT THE TANTRUMS
Further to your report about the NHS deficit (10 October), it is clear that the income needed for the NHS and other government services can come only from growth in the economy or higher taxes.
Ever since the Second World War, successive Chancellors of the Exchequer have failed to achieve the former, the necessary growth. Where is the politician with the guts to tell us the truth about the latter? William Haines Shrewsbury We are overspending for a simple reason: hospitals are undertaking more and more treatments and requiring more and more staff. We have to reduce the treatment provided if we are to reduce the cost.
This means we have to radically alter our prioritises as a society: reduce in particular food and drink and other activities that have a negative impact on health and well-being.
It is our NHS and it is our illness-inducing behaviours that contribute to the high cost. We cannot afford all the expensive procedures required any more. Richard Bryant-Jefferies (NHS manager, retired) Epsom, Surrey Well done Patrick Walsh, for pointing out the role of the suffragist movement in gaining women’s votes (letter, 10 October).
The suffragists knew that if women were seen as sensible and law-abiding citizens it was only a matter of time before they won the support of Parliament. Yet just as they nearly had, the impatient Emmeline Pankhurst and her fanatical suffragette groups smashed that chance through their appalling violent methods.
Suffragettes were extremists whom society frowned upon, so women’s votes were frowned upon, and the only sensible thing they ever did was stop those militant “deeds not words” tactics after the outbreak of the First World War. It would be then British women’s vital role during this hard time (serving and working in many positions previously the preserve of men) that reminded people that the original suffragists had made a good point and helped to change attitudes.
The suffragists were feminists who stood for women’s rights. The suffragettes were like girls having tantrums. Emilie Lamplough Trowbridge, Wiltshire