A downhill slide since the 1970s?
READER derek Bennett (Letters) was right on the nail about Leave voters being looked down on by many Remainers, including in my own family. But I do throw something back, which is that when we voted to continue our membership of the Common Market (as it was then known) in 1975, the country was so different.
In Stevenage, where I live, and the surrounding towns of Letchworth, Hitchin, Welwyn and Hatfield, skilled workers and tradespeople of all kinds produced aircraft, missiles, satellites, cameras, dustcarts, cranes and much more. There were research labs and pharmaceutical manufacturers. My mates and I, who had gone through our apprenticeships and training, voted to stay in the Common Market that we had joined two years earlier, as a whole new world of opportunity might open up.
Then the pen-pushers and bureaucrats began to change all that. As much of what we were proud of went into decline, we could see these suited freeloaders and spongers both here and on the Continent alter so much, often with no common sense. And that is how it has continued to this day. We, the skilled and practical voters who got us into Europe, then voted in our droves to get out, in the hope we could rise up once again.
But I fear it is far too late. We have lethargic politicians on all sides of the House and so-called academics who are supported by work-avoiders and job-dodgers working from home who have no spark. None of them seems to have the right mindset.
I often think the worst thing we did was vote Leave, as we no longer have the calibre of people or the skills needed to take us forward.
gleNN Domagala, Stevenage, herts. WHEN I was a councillor in the 1970s, I warned my council that its salary and pension scheme was not tenable and in 40 years’ time there would be no money for services, only salaries and pensions. This was disregarded because of the Government’s folly in putting large-scale reorganisation into the hands of local government officers. The pay scales in place had annual increments built into them, so officers received an automatic yearly pay rise plus any percentage rise to the pay scale itself. Some officers received between 12 per cent and 15 per cent for several years in succession. This was at a time when these scales were in the public domain.
There was a general aggrandisement of officers, too, with chief executives being created from the old town clerks on salaries well in excess of the Prime Minister’s. Council finances were not helped by government cuts to the rate support grant, which helped to lead to the current desperate situation. The insistence of senior officers that they must pay top wages to get the best people is not true, as employees on the ground have been removed and most services are contracted out. Officers just prepare and give out contracts, so there is no direct labour to fill potholes, for example. Councillors must carry some of the responsibility for not taking officers to task (fall out with the administration and nothing gets done in your ward). Local government needs to be reorganised again — but this time with an independent organisation in charge.