Letters - February 6, 2019

Private bus companies are raking in billions of pounds while fares rise and services decline.

A new report last week reveals how bus fares will soar over coming years with private companies making record profits.

Since 2010, fares have risen higher than wages. Elderly and disabled numbers are set to fall by 20 per cent with 5,000 fewer bus routes over the country.

Private companies have made a massive £3bn in profit since 2010.

Labour have urged the government to remove its ban on local authorities forming their own companies and re-regulate local services.

I remember well in 1984 the Tories saying privatisation would improve bus services, but all they have done is run bus services into the ground while making billions in profit.

For too long the bus industry put profits for a few before millions of passengers.

Labour will also bring in a new free bus service for under 25s to encourage bus use for young with widespread improvement services for the disabled and elderly.

We used to have a perfectly good system of public transport in the years before ideologically blinkered Thatcherite reforms wrecked it - and there is no reason why we can’t have the same again.

Royston Jones

Anchorsolme

APPEAL

One-year landmark is cool for cats

On February 23, Cats Protection is celebrating the first anniversary of our Cleveleys shop. The past year has been very successful and we would like to thank everyone for their support and generous donations.

We hope to see many more cat lovers popping into our shop at 23 Victoria Road West, Thornton, where we have for sale a number of items including secondhand clothes, accessories, household goods, books and media, bric-a-brac and cat related products.

Funds raised by the shop help us to continue our essential cat care work, both locally and further afield, including the neutering of both domestic and feral cats, providing information for cat owners, as well as re-homing unwanted or abandoned cats and kittens.

We always welcome new helpers, and are particularly interested to hear from those with a flair for visual merchandising, or anyone keen to gain retail experience. Volunteering is a great way to make new friends! Anyone interested can contact us by emailing [email protected].

Joanna Hastie

Cleveleys Shop Manager

POLITICS

Broken system needs looking at

Some recent votes in Parliament have shown that some MPs can vote with their conscience and against their party leadership.

However, that is unusual for MPs.

I have witnessed, when the division bell in the House of Commons has rung, MPs summoning their aides to ask how they should vote, should they go through the aye lobby or the no lobby?

So MPs, not having listened to the debate in the House, and not taken an informed view on deciding how to vote, simply troop through the particular lobby as directed by the whips and the party leaderships.

Most MPs have ambitions to climb the greasy pole and so are willing voting fodder for the party leaderships and, what is depressing, these same MPs are defenders of our precious democracy. Both nationally and locally, the two-party system is broken and out of date.

Voting Independent has to be the way forward - it is time for change.

Peter Gibson

Leader Wyre Independents
Breck Ward

POLITICS

They say anything to win an election

Everyone loves Barack Obama don’t they.

The first black president who came to power on a powerful slogan: “We must bring peace to America.”

He pledged to shut down Guantanamo Bay and many saw him as the reincarnation of Martin Luther King, especially after his speech at his inauguration.

And yet what people don’t know is he came to power after a fast-track political career in Boston, a hotbed of corruption if there ever was one.

He also kept the US at war for every single day of his eight-year tenure and never shut Guantanamo Bay.

When will people learn that politicians say one thing to get to power and then don’t deliver on their promises, even the beloved Obama.

Julie jeffries

North Shore