Immigrants are benefiting from our hard work

I DESPAIR at the way this country is going on.

From the day I started work in 1968, like a lot of fellow countrymen and women, we paid our way, taxes, national insurance etc.

Then, if we were ill, we wouldn’t be on our uppers.

Now people from all over the world come here to benefit from our years of hard work.

Getting handouts without paying in a penny. Rubbish, the pot is only so big.

The NHS is crumbling, hospitals closing, waiting lists growing.

Blair let more than three million immigrants into this country in 2004.

More have arrived since. Some are beneficial to this country, but most are not.

If we didn’t have this many immigrants, our health services wouldn’t be under so much pressure.

Six hours waiting at A&E, unable to get your child in a school of your choice, police needing interpreters for foreign offenders.

Take us out of this shambles.

The people of this country are being done the dirty on.

The pensioner who has paid in for 40-50 years get done the dirty on regularly.

It’s disgusting. Brian Godley Rochdale

WEAPONS POSE GRAVE RISK

THE grave dangers we face in Rochdale because of the UK’s nuclear weapons programme were highlighted again, last week.

On Wednesday (February 22) the Nuclear Information Service (NIS) released a report discussing the accident record of the programme over its 65-year history and describing the most significant incidents in detail.

The report describes 110 accidents, near misses and dangerous occurrences, including serious accidents related to the production and manufacturing of nuclear weapons and many incidents that have taken place during the road transport of nuclear weapons, including vehicles overturning and other road traffic accidents.

They include 27 fires and eight explosions. Seven workers have died in industrial accidents at the Aldermaston nuclear weapons factory, and at least nine have died as a result of suspected radiation contamination.

A further 100 are estimated to have died from cancers caused by the 1957 fire at the Windscale reactor which was producing fissile materials for nuclear weapons.

NIS suggest that “this represents the tip of the iceberg”, noting that the Ministry of Defence “has acknowledged 180 engineering and operational incidents that occurred during the road transport of nuclear weapons over the period 2000 – 2016 alone.”

Given the nature of nuclear weapons, the risks that they pose to public safety are substantial and grave.

Nuclear weapons contain not only radioactive materials, but also high explosives and toxic chemicals.

The principal radiological hazard arising in an accident where a nuclear weapon is damaged, for example when being transported along the M6 motorway, would arise from the combustion of plutonium and uranium and their subsequent release into the environment as airborne particles.

The only way to eliminate the risks posed by an accident involving one of Britain’s nuclear weapons is to eliminate nuclear weapons themselves. We need an international ban on nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, negotiations will begin this year at the United Nations on a nuclear ban treaty which would prohibit the use, deployment, and manufacture of all nuclear weapons.

These negotiations give us an opportunity to get rid of nuclear weapons for once and for all.

We need to demand that our government and politicians embrace this opportunity. Philip Gilligan on behalf of Rochdale and Littleborough Peace Group Dean Head Littleborough

HELP CHILDREN OF DISASTER

SATURDAY, March 11, marks the sixth anniversary of the terrible tsunami, three catastrophic nuclear meltdowns, hydrogen explosions and uncontrollable releases of radiation at Fukushima in Japan.

Miraculously no-one died in the explosion but since then radiationinduced diseases such as thyroid cancer have been affecting people in the area at the time, especially the children.

A Littleborough artist and his Japanese wife lived in Fukushima at the time with their son. They eventually managed to get back to England but since then have worked tirelessly to help those children whose lives have been blighted by cancer.

On Saturday they have organised a Fukushima Festival to raise money for the 183 children suffering from thyroid cancer and for the children of the town orphaned by the tsunami.

In contrast to the sheer terror of that day and the nightmare of radiation leaks since, the festival promises to be fun for all the family. There will be ceilidh dancing, with your children in the afternoon, without them later, Japanese brush writing, a raffle, refreshments, cake and pie stalls.

You can get your children’s portraits done, see Geoff Read’s exhibition of collaborative portraits made with Fukushima’s children, take part in a play between 4pm and 6pm and then from 7pm there will be a folk concert, followed at 10pm by music and alternative dance.

It’s only two minutes away from Littleborough station at the Con Club on Peel Street, starting at 1pm.

Please come and support the children of Fukushima. Pat Sanchez High Peak Littleborough