Public services need change after nine years of austerity

From: Mark Vesey, Scarborough.

IF you are confused or plain fed up with this election, my advice is to lie down in a quiet darkened room and think about what is important to you and your family.

I just read a report that shows that the less equal and caring society is, the unhappier everyone becomes. Most important, of course, is our own health and the future of our children.

If we look back at the past nine years we have seen our hospital and schools brought to breaking point with budget cuts and austerity. I know several staff members who worked in these sectors and have left because of the strain on their mental health and wellbeing. They are a great loss to the organisations with all their experience, but they were let down by a system under immense strain. We must make a change in December for all our sakes.

From: Alan Shipman, Leeds.

LOOKING out of my kitchen window, a young woman passed by, with a child in a pushchair, and a second infant, by her side, hardly able to walk, no doubt on the way to a day nursery who, incidentally, are doing a roaring trade, and just another example as to how money is slowly destroying family life.

Children barely out of nappies should, at 7.30am, on a cold November morning, be at home, tucked up in bed, and it’s difficult finding words to describe whoever is responsible for looking after these children. Heartless would be a good start.

From: Peter Horton, Ripon.

ON Labour’s manifesto (The

Yorkshire Post, November 22), I wonder where Jeremy Corbyn has left his reindeer and sleigh. All these bountiful gifts are to be showered on the population at the festive season and, if you still believe in fairies and Santa Claus, you can vote for the old man with the white beard.

From: Peter Rickaby, Selby.

A “MANIFESTO for real change” – Jeremy Corbyn has never uttered a truer sentence. National bankruptcy, mass unemployment, serious poverty within sight. A disastrous Marxist future awaits the “many not just the few”.

From: Brian H Sheridan, Lodge Moor, Sheffield.

TOM Richmond has drawn criticism from some readers for not making it clear which way he intends to vote in the General Election (The Yorkshire Post, November 23). Unlike some oneeyed columnists and readers he can usually see both sides of an argument; an invaluable quality in a journalist, I would have thought.