In a few words
Barclay versus new teachers
In the early 1970s, new teachers and MPs earned about the same. Today, Todd Barclay is on $165,000; a new teacher with a three-year degree approximately $46,000. Could any teacher skive from June till December on full pay, like Barclay? National is abusing taxpayers morally and fiscally. Ursula J Rose Christchurch Central
How busy is Barclay
Jamie-Lee Ross in his capacity as senior Government whip assures us that Todd Barclay is ‘‘working on constituency business’’. When challenged if he had any evidence to support that view, he responded that he ‘‘didn’t audit what an MP did in their electorate and took them at their word’’. He might do, but I and many others don’t. Chris Brown Lyttelton
Barclay and three nurses
The salary National brat Barclay continues to draw, for doing next to nothing, would pay for three nurses, who could do so much. Glen McAdam Kainga
Post-Trump the problem
The real danger with Donald Trump is not what he will do as president but the things his successor will do. In 1930s Spain, beforfe the civil war, that country’s richest man, Juan March, failed with a financial coup detat. He then spent the next two decades supporting General Franco’s dictatorship. It is not the will to power that is at stake but the public’s will to resist blatant falsehoods and financial corruption. Simon Rolleston Bromley
The new world order
Go East – where change resistors are turning the clock back with modern weapons. Go West – where the PC brigade is making everything gender neutral. In Britain they are now expected to open a meeting with ‘‘Hello everyone’’ instead of ‘‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen’’. Brian Brodie Mairehau
Perils of pretend snow
There is an irony in the well-intentioned provision of an Ice World plastic bubble in the CBD. Children can play in this with piles of pretend snow; it looks like fun. Unfortunately the pretend snow is made of finely shredded plastic that is now spreading over Cathedral Square – microplastic particles (formed from the breakdown of plastics) that are destroying the pristine wilderness and fragile ecosystem of the Antarctic. Perhaps a rethink is in order. Lindy Harward Woolston