Letters - May 25, 2017

As a supporter of Corbyn and the Labour party as well as an employee of BAE Systems I find this blatant lie extremely offensive; the Tories since 2010 have consistently cut all the armed forces numbers and as for BAE systems they scrapped the Nimrod project leading to site closures and job losses, scrapped the recently refurbished GR9 Harriers, scrapped our aircraft carriers and now plan to scrap HMS Ocean, all essential for the defence of the nation.

To add insult to injury the Tory government has now ordered replacements for the scrapped Nimrods direct from the USA to the tune of $8 billion with no work to be done in the UK! For him to imply that it is Jeremy Corbyn who is a threat to aircraft manufacture in the Fylde and the defence of the country not his government is frankly laughable.

Steven McGuinness

Freckleton

ELECTION

Return the 1970s? That sounds great!

Peter Hyde tells the letters page of the Gazette last week it would be a disaster to return to the 1970s with the Labour manifesto.

In the Labour manifesto, there are commitments to renationalise the railways, buses, Royal mail, and set up a publicly-owned energy supplier. This has been met with the predictable cries of ‘the hard left’ wanting to take us back to the 1970s by the right wing press.

It is important that people don’t get misled by the establishment attacks but remind people calmly - with facts and figures, of how the post-war mixed economy, with high levels of public ownership, worked much better for the majority of Britons than today’s privatised, zero hour, banker-friendly model.

Only the most blinkered ideologue or self-interested fat cat could argue that the situation in regards to rail travel, buses and energy supplies is better for the majority than it was in the 1970s.

Prices have risen sharply above inflation and wages, causing real hardship to millions, services have been cut or greatly reduced and the taxpayer has been left out of pocket as huge sums have been shovelled to the private operators.

Labour’s manifesto can only be good news for the ordinary British citizen who has been ripped off since Mrs Thatcher started to restructure the economy for the benefit of banking and financial elites. Back to the “dreadful” 1970s, when we could hop on a train or bus at the drop of a hat without worrying about the ticket price and didn’t dread the next energy or water bill landing on our door mats? Yes,please, Jeremy Corbyn. Do bring it on

Royston Jones

Anchorsholme

GOOGLE MAPS

Why let nude kids at front of the house?

How on earth can someone complain about nude children being shown on Google Maps, albeit with pixilated faces, when they are stupid enough to let them play in the nude in their front garden in a paddling pool in the first place!

The nudity is for all passers-by to see and take pictures, if they are that way inclined! Absurd complaint!

Keith Hallam

Via email

CRIME

Internet has let genie out of the bottle

Tim Berners-Lee would surely have kept his invention to himself, if he could have looked into the future.

Once the genie is out of the bottle, it is impossible to put it back in, but now given the downsides of the internet, we must realise the monster that has been released.

The good things that the internet brought into our lifestyles at first made everything possible.

It changed the way we lived, both at work and at play.

However, we are now seeing its downsides, and what downsides.

Online grooming of the young, bullying, terrorism and cyber fraud, the list is endless.

And now to add to the list we have the hackers. Both of the state persuasion and criminal.

But after this latest attack by hackers, which can cripple whole institutions and leave countries vulnerable to ransom demands by criminal elements, surely the time has come for a worldwide position to be adopted to police the internet, especially as those currently in control cannot or will not police it themselves.

Alan 
Ogden

via email

ENVIRONMENT

Let’s put the planet first for a change

Is there anyone in agriculture, politics or any decision-making position who puts the only place we have to live at the top of the priority list –planet Earth?

We live on, are fed by and kept comfortable by a live, loving and extremely generous planet, yet we have over-used and abused it until it is now in imminent danger of no longer able to support any life at all due to the massive pollution of air, soil and water.

It never ceases to amaze me that only a tiny minority can see how close we are to destroying that truly wonderful gift by our constant, non-stop pursuit of the three Cs – comfort, convenience and cash.

Research has proved how close we are to total extinction, yet the three Cs are still the main concern.

What utter fools we are.

Terry Fletcher

Via email