Letters - July 10. 2019

There is a growing body of evidence regarding the scale of the obesity problem in the UK.

While we are very much aware of the health risks associated with smoking, less effort has been thrown behind tackling obesity, which is now a major cause of cancer.

The Government is dragging its heels in introducing measures to restrict the advertising and promotion of unhealthy food and drink and, as such, we have reached an all-time high for childhood obesity.

The severity of this problem must not be underestimated. As well as the pressing need to raise public awareness of the worrying link between obesity and multiple types of cancer, we need to see a reversal of the cuts to public health funding so we can prevent children and adults reaching this critical stage.

Failure to do so will continue to cost lives.

Professor Dame Parveen Kumar

BMA board of science chair.

POLITICS

Hunt is decent man and must win poll

John Major has now said loud and clear what one has being saying for years, namely that Boris Johnson deliberately misled the public during the referendum campaign.

I retained flyers and leaflets with his name plastered all over them claiming that massive savings would be made if we left the EU

It was and is a lie and an ignorant public fell for it.

News that Mrs May withheld top secret intelligence from him when he was Foreign Secretary because of his indiscreet talk is yet more evidence that this man is not fit to be leader of the Conservative Party let alone Prime Minister.

Hunt must be the winner. He is a decent, very experienced and able politician as well as being a family man.

Dr Barry Clayton

Thornton Cleveleys

POLITICS

Can Johnson keep promise on police?

I understand that Boris Johnson has made a promise to replace the 20,000 police officers that Theresa May and her allies took off the streets.

This is a promise that just could get him the top job but – and it’s a big but – can he keep that promise?

Both Boris Johnson, and Jeremy Hunt, have made wonderful promises, as politicians do, to persuade the public to support them.

The question always remains – can and will they do what they say they will?

As far as these people are concerned, at 87, I have become sceptical.

Let’s hope I am wrong.

Peter Hyde

via email

THEATRE

An insult to the songs’ composers

We thoroughly enjoyed the Blackpool & Fylde Opera Company’s (BFOC ) performance of ‘42nd Street’, hearing songs sung professionally and how they should be sung, and a live orchestra makes all the difference.

What cast members didn’t do was scream down a microphone like they did in the recent performance of ‘Putting on the Ritz’ we endured on Friday July 5 at The Grand. They were supposedly direct from London’s West End (we took that with a pinch of salt).

BFOC were spot on, a pleasure to listen to and we left the theatre on a high. Not so with ‘Putting on the Ritz’ when it seemed each cast member tried to overpower the other. The only two numbers acceptable were ‘We’re a couple of Swells’ and the hand and leg clapping routine sat on the foot of the stage, but even then it was hard to hear the effect when as with the tap routines, the over orchestrated backing track, obviously pre-recorded on an electronic keyboard imitating instruments, drowned them out. The belted out numbers and backing track distorted and basically murdered the songs.

Having heard the iconic songs performed many times by iconic singers past and present, this was unbearable and an insult to the composers who wrote them.

Granted, the costumes and the dance routines were stunning but the ‘singing’ was not, and we were relieved to get out!

Clifford Chambers

via email