What do you think?
Can the train take over the strain from lorries? Join the debate by emailing letters@westerndailypress.co.uk and including your name and address
voters are opposed to social justice, then and now.
They were outraged in 1948, when Labour’s Clement Attlee proposed that the most rational, reliable method to improve the health of every citizen was to support the
NHS by fair taxation, while retaining charitable institutions, on which the poor had depended.
But Conservatives have remained opposed to Government planning or paying for the training of enough consultants, so Britain has to depend on educated foreigners to make the NHS work. Students must enter into debts to attend university, which make house purchase difficult, totally rejecting the whole idea that the Government should fund the training of future experts in all fields which the nation needs.
The ‘return’ to the nation, from educated citizens, is incomparable. Tory beliefs, like Brexit, flourish in populist ignorance.
We need HGV drivers, which is ‘in the national interest’, but very few youngsters have the necessary funds to pay for training. Conservative voters do not favour ‘investing in people’ as a principle of all Government, as the only policy to prepare Britain’s future. Do we expect bus and train drivers to train themselves?
C N Westerman Brynna, Mid Glamorgan
I expect you have probably had letters regarding this issue and I want to add mine to the debate.
The alpaca Geronimo was found not to have bovine TB after three TB skin tests; four years later Defra said it had bTB. Why?
I believe Defra management and their scientists and so-called vets should be sacked. The incompetence of these people is beyond belief!
For many years now the bovine TB skin test has been known to be unreliable; only the blood test is the more reliable, and many farmers would agree with that statement. Many farmers have had their livelihoods stolen from them.
I don’t know how many animals have been slaughtered unnecessarily, including our iconic beautiful badgers. Maybe Defra could give us the overall cost of compensation to farmers over the past 30 years? I’m sure it would be enough to build a couple of hospitals?
If I was that incompetent I would never be able to work again. It would be sensible now for government to undertake a vaccination program for cows and wildlife, just like they came up with a vaccine for Covid!
When are the Government going to come up with and use a vaccine for bTB and stop this slaughter of wildlife?
John Creighton
Taunton
There needs to be more railway goods yards, where freight can be transferred to road.
David Kinley
Gloucester are immigrants, and this is terribly hurtful every single day.
In 2016 I had a job in the tourist industry which was due to start in two weeks, but they cancelled the training and the job because, following the 2016 vote, the pound had dropped so drastically that they couldn’t take on any new tour guides. It was a job I very much wanted. The drop in the value of the pound also meant that my holidays became hugely more expensive.
That is just the personal stuff!
The damage to this country is truly terrible, with all my various European friends aghast and sometimes laughing at Britain.
No intelligent, educated foreigner thinks for a moment that Britain has done a good thing, and of course there were three million EU nationals living here, believing they had every right to be here, who have been made to feel as though they are simply not wanted, even if they have the right to remain.
Britain’s reputation in the eyes of the whole of Europe is in the dirt, and it won’t recover in my lifetime. As a child I travelled around Europe and the British were so highly regarded that even as a small child I was aware of it. That has been destroyed forever by Brexit.
All my close friends voted remain and many of them have said to me that they have lost the respect they used to feel for this country. We all used to feel rather proud of our British passports when we travelled, and our country’s reputation in the world. Now, they tell me, they feel ashamed of the ridiculous, jingoistic things which our government is saying and which make Britain look so comically delusional.
Whether we like it or not, half this country is hoping that something can be retrieved from this tragic national disaster. I think most of us recognise that we will not be returning to the EU any time soon, but it is vital that we return to the single market and the customs union, before more people go out of business, more young people miss out on their opportunities and go to live abroad, more schoolchildren have to forego school trips, and there is more damage to our poor economy.
Elizabeth Smith
Exeter