Government must do more to help families in cost-of-living crisis
IVERY much agree with other recent correspondents about the need for a windfall tax on energy and oil companies to help ease the cost-of-living crisis. It is not too long since the chief executive of BP described his company as now being like a ‘cash machine’ and earlier this week BP reported that its underlying profit for just the first three months of its current financial year had more than doubled to a whopping
£4.9 billion.
Mind you, even BP’s profit was put in the shade a couple of days later by Shell – whose own profit for the same three-month period virtually tripled to a ginormous
£7.3 billion. These are not ‘normal’ profits – these are ‘abnormal’ profits.
The government’s claim that imposing a windfall tax would be likely to deter these companies from investing as we move forward feels truly lamentable. It speaks volumes about this government that they seem to prefer to be on the side of the executives and shareholders of energy and oil companies, rather than the general public, many of whom are now facing real financial hardship and some of whom were already struggling to make ends meet before the current cost-ofliving crisis even began.
I suppose all of this shouldn’t come as a total surprise, given so many of the current government are totally detached from the reality of financial life for ordinary people – £840 for a roll of wallpaper, anyone?
I have to say I was still taken aback when Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak recently said it would be “silly” for the government to consider offering more financial help to people at the moment. What kind of a tin-eared attitude is that?
Changing subjects, it is becoming clearer by the day what a cesspit the House of Commons is becoming. We have a right to expect far better standards of behaviour from some of our elected representatives.
It seems implausible things will improve whilst Johnson is prime minister, though. He is part of the problem. The old cliché ‘fish rot from the head down’ never seemed more appropriate.
Steve Shackleton, via email
Labour duo left red-faced
OH, HOW events can turn. Labour has for months barracked Boris Johnson on Partygate. Then lo and behold out pops photos and videos of the dynamic duo – Angela Rayner and Keir Starmer – at a gathering enjoying a few drinks.
Month after month, the public have endured the same speeches in Parliament, news items and letters regarding “parties” at Downing Street. One was a surprise birthday gathering for Boris Johnson.
The key word here is surprise. Ms Rayner and Sir Keir were aware of the gathering which they were attending because they were invited. So where is the hue and cry of not fit for office, they must resign and one rule for some and another rule for others?
You know the old saying – the only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything. That sums up a Labour, a party who are devoid of ideas. A party who has a lot of stock in the blame game. A party whose membership deserve better.
A strong opposition makes for a stronger government.
Time to move on. RJ Bray, Shelley
Not convinced by road project
WORK starts to prevent hold-ups on major route (Examiner, Saturday, April 30).
If this scheme is going to be representative of past schemes, then traffic will be going nowhere fast. The article stated that the A641 Huddersfield-Brighouse road carries around 38,000 vehicles a day on average. The new scheme, which we have as yet to see, is to include cyclists and pedestrians alike?
Improved traffic flow and better transport facilities including road junction improvements, new cycleways and let us not forget the all important vote-catching ‘green spaces’ are to be included.
One thing of note which has similarities to the Waterloo to
Aspley ‘improvements’ is that nowhere does anyone mention the number of cyclists who use these highways.
And how are the schemes going to improve traffic flow?
The bus lane from Waterloo to Aspley has managed to turn this major highway into a single lane as drivers will not use the inside lane. This is due to poor driving skills and drivers being conditioned to not using the bus lane even when they are allowed to.
Sorry for my negativity on this scheme, it is just that most of the schemes we have introduced in and around Huddersfield have worsened the problems and I just have this feeling that this scheme will also be fudge.
As soon as cycle lanes along with bus lanes are mentioned, you know as a motorist that your average speed will be decreasing.
Have highways and councils ever thought that the longer traffic is stationary or proceeding slowly, then pollution is rising? Martin, Huddersfield
What will be PM’s legacy?
I WONDER if there are any moments of clarity to be had in the Tory Party. Does Boris Johnson ever contemplate his legacy and what history will record of him and his cabinet?
There must be times, while they cower in their bunker in Downing Street, when they must step back and survey their impact on Great Britain. Johnson claims he got Brexit done – he hasn’t thus far.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, minister for Brexit opportunities, recently put back the imposition on border checks and charges on foodstuffs entering the UK. The reason for this delay is that it would save the UK one and a half billion pounds!
If we were still members of the EU we wouldn’t have to pay at all.
He also said that ‘free trade’ was the way forward, forgetting that GB was a member of the most successful free trade area in the world.
Johnson claims that he got the big decisions right about the Covid pandemic. This is nonsense. His delays and prevarications over lockdown cost lives.
I suppose history will remember him and his colleagues as the most incompetent government in history. Trevor Woolley, Linthwaite
It’s insane not to complain!
RJ BRAY (Saturday, April 30) bemoans the letters in Feedback that seem so full of ‘angst.’
He worries about the sanity of many writers. Well others must judge my sanity but it seems to me there is a lot to complain about. Take the following sample: 1. Paying the mortgages of private landlords via housing benefit rather than build affordable, public housing, while selling off such publicly-owned housing that remains and homelessness increases.
2. State subsidies for low wages via in-work benefits rather than enforce a higher living wage. At the same time most chief executives of the largest companies are paid over 100 times the wages of their average workers.
3. A government led by a man fined for breaking his own laws.
4. That same government insisted that care homes were protected at the start of the Covid crisis when it knew there was a problem.
5. A government committed to free trade while taking us out of the largest tariff-free grouping in the world and then struggling to find benefits for this move.
6. A reluctance to tax the enormous windfall profits of the energy companies while prices for consumers rise steeply.
These are just a few examples of the crazy way things have degenerated over the last decade. One could add the problems facing th NHS, rising social inequalities, changes to the Electoral Commission and much more.
In the face of such madness it would be insane not to complain. Dave Verguson, Lindley
Loneliness in the spotlight
THIS year’s Mental Health Awareness Week is taking place from Monday and I am keen to ask that readers get involved.
The Mental Health Foundation wanted to provide a focus for us all on achieving good mental health, which is just as relevant today – if not more so – than when Mental Health Awareness Week was founded 21 years ago.
Each year a different topic related to our mental health is put into the spotlight, which this year is loneliness.
I personally think that loneliness is something that we can all experience from time to time, and it can have a devastating effect on our mental health. Loneliness is often confused with being alone, but this isn’t always the case.
Many of us have experienced that feeling of being alone in a crowd but thankfully this feeling can often be temporary, as if loneliness is a place that we are passing through.
The Mental Health Foundation are encouraging us all to familiarise ourselves with tactics to help us deal with loneliness which are available on the Mental Health Awareness Week website: mentalhealth.org.uk/ lonely
And to show that loneliness can impact every one of us, we would ask you to share an #IveBeenThere post on social media which captures how you have been able to overcome these periods, whether that’s through dance, music, or connecting with friends and family.
Good mental health has never been more important, and now it’s time to look after yours.
Dame Arlene Phillips, choreographer