Time to vote tactically in the last-chance saloon
AS HASHTAGS seem to have broken out of social media, mainly at the insistence of Boris Johnson, to dominate the debate at large, what about instead of #GetBrexitDone making a push for #GetBrexitDUMPED?
That is what, at heart, this December election is all about and what the next Parliament will really be all about – getting Brexit Done or DUMPED.
And with three general elections in four years, it is a Parliament that’s likely to be as short as its immediate predecessors. After that we might get back to party politics – though not quite as we knew them!
Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson doesn’t help her own campaign to #StopBrexit when she says she will not support Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister. The Lib Dem-Green-Plaid Cymru pact to campaign to #VoteTactically to #keepBorisout has been much touted.
Yet, if she is successful in that, instead of working with the only other possible contender to attack the very task she has set herself, she would prefer yet another general election. All she is doing there is pushing along her nemesis of a Boris-Farage axis #NoDealBrexit.
This country will make a historic decision at #GE19, Let’s hope it is not a historic mistake.
We are in last-chance-saloon – the last chance to save our NHS from the depredations of the American drugs markets; the last chance to save our society from the riots on the streets, food shortages and absence of medical supplies forecast in Yellowhammer’s #NoDeal preparations.
It is time to #VoteTactically to #GetBrexitDUMPED.
Jean Silvan Evans Peterston-super-Ely
Do we still have principles?
THE first time that I voted was 74 years ago, for Clement Attlee, who was able to introduce the NHS, which was an organisation based upon a clear ethical “belief” and “principle”, against ferocious Conservative opposition. The NHS organisation is still with us, valued by most because their family will benefit, but sadly damaged by Conservative Government neglect, which might be a deliberate strategy, to be able to privatise it, just like other national assets, with crocodile tears.
But what is no longer present in British people is the belief which burned in Clement Attlee, after the sacrifice of the bravest and the best, of a “universal” Welfare State, that all of us shall be proud, that the least of us is valued, as a stakeholder in our nation, contributing as best we can. Clement lived and died for principles, which most citizens today, will live and die, and never know that they existed.
CN Westerman
Brynna
Steelworkers must get pensions justice
LABOUR has pledged up to £58bn, over a five-year period, to the women affected by the change to the state retirement age. The retirement age was raised, for women born in the 1950s, and Labour has stated that if it is not done now some of these women will no longer be with us.
A great injustice was also done to the steelworkers who lost their pensions in 2002. Around 60 of these men are already no longer with us. They’ve passed away without getting the money that was rightfully theirs. Their families have had to bear the continued hardship. Couples
who worked hard all their working lives at least had the prospect of a happy retirement to look forward to. That was taken away from us by daylight robbery.
The Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has promised the women between £15,000 and £30,000 each in compensation. This is a great gesture which should win a lot of votes. The only real justice for the steelworkers would be full reinstatement of our stolen pensions but, as with the women, £15,000 to £30,000 would be a big help. In a fair society you can’t give to one and not the other. Some recompense for the steelworkers would not cost £58bn either.
Labour has always been the party for the working classes. Prove it. Kevin J Wilkinson Rumney, Cardiff
This country will make a historic decision – let’s hope it is not a historic mistake Jean Silvan Evans Peterston-superEly
Britain on the brink of US-style civil war
ABRAHAM Lincoln famously said “a country divided cannot stand”. As in all major historical upheavals, there is a lot of hypocrisy surrounding the American civil war. Paramount among the porkies is that it was about freeing the slaves – in fact the major issue was states’ rights. In a last throw of the dice to forestall the war, Lincoln proclaimed: “If I could save the union by freeing all of the slaves, I would. If I could save the union by freeing some of the slaves, I would. If I could save the union by freeing none of the slaves, I would.”
The reason for this long preamble is the dire situation we citizens of this “sceptic isle” find ourselves in – the non-stop barrage of half-lies, lies and statistics we have been subjected to by both parties.
As the choice of whether we are to be governed by the obscene or the absurd has shortly to be made, whatever the result, it leaves us in a far more dire situation than the ante bellum United States and this led to a civil war. “Beam me up, Scotty”. James Barry
Gabalfa, Cardiff
Attack on my right to choose education
AS A parent of three children, I am appalled by Labour’s attack on one of my basic human rights: the right to choose how and where my children are educated.
Their plan to attack independent private schools shows absolutely no respect for my faith nor for my desire for my children to be educated in accordance with my beliefs.
Their senseless plans to “integrate all private schools into the state sector” would also cost local education authorities across the country more than £3.5bn per year. A vote for Labour is a vote for oppressive statecontrol over our children and their education.
Andrea Doling
Pontlliw, Swansea
Nativity scenes are guilty of idolatry
FURTHER to your article that “a thief stole baby Jesus from a charity Nativity scene in Cardiff” (Echo, 7/12/19), whilst the Eighth Commandment
stipulates “You shall not steal” (Exodus 20:15), the Second Commandment states “You shall not make for yourself a graven image” (Exodus 20:4). This latter forbids any visible depictions of the Son of God, whether in paint, stone, plastic or porcelain. According to the Bible, the only visual aids to the Christian Faith permitted – indeed commanded – are water, bread and wine, namely the water of baptism and the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper. Significantly, these draw our attention not to Christ’s cradle but His cross, for redemption was procured not by Christ’s birth at Bethlehem but by His atoning death at Calvary.
Dr Timothy Cross Grangetown, Cardiff