QUEEN’S SPEECH MUST BOOST OPENNESS IN OUR DEMOCRACY

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NOTHING HONOURABLE ABOUT OUR CURRENT PRIME MINISTER

VIEWERS of broadcasts direct from Parliament will have got use to the rather archaic form of language used by MPs when they address the Speaker – Mr Speaker – since they are not allowed to address each other directly.

Names are not used but positions held, and many of them will by virtue of the posts they may hold will be referred to with the prefix “The Right Honourable”.

We have a Prime Minister who refuses to acknowledge, admit and accept that he has been found guilty of a civil offence.

We also have a prime minister who has deliberately misled members of Parliament and has lied to Parliament when he said he did not attend parties during a time when to attend such social gatherings was strictly against the law.

Breaking the law by attending a social gathering when they have been banned may not be seen a the most heinous of crimes.

To lie to Parliament is quite a different and much more serious matter. When it has happened – and it is a very rare occurrence – the member has resigned from office.

This Prime Minister has declined to do so and MPs in his own party excuses him on the grounds of reasons that I quite fail to appreciate, that he is indispensable to the wellbeing of the nation.

Surely his failure to honourably respond to such a serious breach should mean he forfeits the right to be addresses as The Rt Hon?

Don Frampton

ON MAY 10, the Queen will be in Parliament delivering this year’s Queen’s Speech announcing the Government’s priorities.

I believe that plans to improve our democracy should be at the heart of that speech.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has highlighted the vulnerability of democracy around the world. In response to this, the Government should take steps to strengthen and modernise our democracy at home.

Measures that would help include a fair voting system that ensures no party can achieve absolute power on the basis of a minority of the votes. We also need change to ensure more transparency and accountability

of our elected representatives.

With trust in politicians at an all time low, this Queen’s Speech needs concrete action to begin the process of restoring trust.

I hope our local MPs will support this call for change made by Unlock Democracy and other campaign groups.

Dr Peter Hirst

HIGH ENERGY COSTS NOT THE FAULT OF THE OIL BUSINESSES

IN RESPONSE to calls for a windfall tax on the profits of oil companies, it is not the fault of private companies that we are saddled with extortionate energy costs.

If we traded freely with all oil producing countries our energy costs would be much lower as would inflation.

The root cause of high energy costs and inflation eroding people’s income and savings is an incompetent Socialist government like Johnson’s Tories. Get rid of the many guises of Socialism and the economy will boom.

A windfall tax on the profits of companies would boost the government coffers, to be frittered away on yet another Tory vanity project providing zero benefit for the hardworking British taxpayer.

In fact, a windfall tax on the oil companies would take money from the pockets of hard-working people struggling to cope with Johnson’s Socialist government’s self-inflicted poverty plan.

This is because working class people, whom Labour allegedly represent, contribute to workplace pension plans which inevitably invest in oil conglomerates like Shell and BP.

So, everyone of us who works for a living has a stake in the oil companies. We lend them our money, via savings schemes, for them to make us more money in the form of capital gains and regular dividend payments. Share ownership provides Labour and Tory voters with an independent income stream and self-reliance.

People providing for themselves without government intervention doesn’t bode well with the Tories or Labour. They both want people totally reliant on government, hence Johnson’s plan for high energy costs, high inflation and irresponsible public borrowing.

It is time we all realize this fact and stop voting for either of them.

Robert Parker