NHS privatisation by stealth

It is now clear that privatisation has been the central theme of this government since 2010. After being studiously hidden from public view the transfer of an almost endless supply of government money to big business is now coming to light– money that should have been available for the whole country.

It is an issue exasperating the ever-growing divide between rich and poor, with huge inflation of property values at one end of the wealth spectrum and food banks at the other.

The ultimate prize for big business, and the ultimate achievement for this Tory government, is the privatisation of the NHS by a long process of attrition. The gain to the hovering vultures of big business is the £130bn a year currently spent – even despite determined government austerity – on the NHS.

Is it too much to ask the media to direct its attention away from petty scandals and towards the secret scandal which the government would like to hide until the NHS deal is done?

Andrew McLauchlin Stratford upon Avon

The legal tax iceberg

In Sunday’s letters, Graham Powell makes very good and heartfelt points about tax evasion and the widely accepted norm of payment of tax that is legally determined as due. As he correctly points out, we need tax to "fund education, health, welfare and other services that are essential”.

It would appear that the greater part of tax avoidance by the wealthiest is done so by perfectly legal mechanisms; trusts and tax havens, frequently used in concert. Both are permitted by law and are specifically designed to facilitate the nonpayment of tax that would otherwise be payable – and there is a lot of it.

Cases of illegal evasion which come to light often include those two elements. They are events that coincidentally place in clear view the tip of a very large and perfectly legal iceberg. The law is skewed, and for its beneficiaries very successfully so. While we are all free to use them, for most of us the cost would massively exceed the benefit. The major factor distinguishing the beneficiaries from the rest of society is the possession of excessive wealth, and by its virtue the ability to avoid payment of loads of tax. The rest of society are their benefactors by default, picking up the tab for the shortfall.

Significant wealth is an essential prerequisite of use, from which the vast majority are automatically debarred. It is a "freedom" under the law that most citizens cannot exercise, and its legality runs counter to the principle that society is best funded by a fair system of progressive taxation.

As the EU were recognising, prior to our convenient facilitating Brexit, it is a bad law that should receive attention.

David Nelmes Newport

We’re subsidising the wealthiest

Let’s not be drawn in by Rishi Sunak’s assertion that the decision to sack Zahawi was based on the shocking revelation from the ethics adviser’s investigation that the ministerial code had indeed been broken.

Is it a coincidence that it has happened on the exact same day that press reports are saying that Sunak was warned in October about the risks of appointing Zahawi to post?

The question is, are the press and the opposition going to just let it drop? Will sacking Zahawi make it all go away now?

This debacle has highlighted the arrogance and pure “the rules don’t apply to us” attitude that seems to have seeped into the DNA of the Conservative Party.

Zahawi’s crude attempt to evade his tax obligations is an affront to every working person in the country. Rishi Sunak’s attempt to help him evade the consequences of his actions is an affront to our democracy. How low do parliamentary standards have to slip before someone – anyone – puts a stop to it?

Karen Brittain York

Migrant mismanagement

A perception persists of migrants, and sometimes even refugees, as willful and content with becoming permanent financial/resource burdens on their host nation.

There is so much unwarranted contempt for these people, yet so many are rightfully despondent – perhaps enough so to work very hard in exchange for basic food and shelter.

And they do want to pull their own weight through employment, even if only to prove their detractors wrong.

Often conveniently ignored is the fact many are fleeing global warming-related weather events and chronic crop failures in the southern hemisphere, which are widely believed to be related to the northern hemisphere’s chronic fossil–fuel burning.

Migrant labourers should be treated humanely, and receive timely access to proper work-related bodily protections, but too often are not.

If they feel they must, critics of refugees and migrants should get angry at the politicians who supposedly allow in “too many” migrants; just please don’t criticise the desperate people for doing what we’d likely all do if we found ourselves in their dreadful position.

Frank Sterle Jr Address Supplied

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