Cash for diagnostic centre not new money

I seem to have hit a raw nerve with my letter about Dr Luke and NHS funding (“NHS and not Tories should take credit, HT, March 15).

I’m sorry if anyone is upset - if they are, they completely missed the point I was trying to make.

The point is this: why, oh why, do politicians always try to take the credit for other people’s efforts?

In this case the hard-working staff of the NHS.

What was the Tory answer to my letter? To shout and boast about the amount of money our MP Dr Luke has wrung out of the government for our local NHS. My point proven. I think.

My second point was that this is not new money. This is money already taken from us in taxation, some given to the NHS, which will then allocate it to where it is most needed.

If it was new money, where has it come from? This Tory government is against raising taxation to pay to good causes, in fact the last budget was a massive tax giveaway to the rich friends of the Tory party: 4.5 billion over the next five years to the richest few!

Check my facts I was told, before I deem to give an opinion. Well, if you want facts to check out, then check these:

2.1 million people in this country are using food banks. 14.4 million are living in poverty, including 4.4 million children; 3 million adults now find themselves in hygiene poverty; three in 10 girls cannot afford period products, one in four is going without toilet paper; there are 271,000 homeless people, including 400,000 children who won’t sleep in their own bed tonight. Malnutrition is rising, life expectancy falling.

Jeffrey Bannister