Letters - July 5, 2017

When it comes to children on the beach subject to serious injuries caused by irresponsible people discarding portable barbecues, as in the case of six-year-old Megan nearly losing her foot (The Gazette, July 3), it turns your stomach to think that there could well be sharp discarded metal or glass lurking under the sand’s surface where once we could walk bare foot without fear of standing on anything much more than seaweed or a pebble.

Personally I don’t think barbecues should be allowed on the beach and it’s just a pity we don’t have beach wardens to enforce the litter laws.

I would like to say that people my age brought up in the 1950s and 1960s were taught by our parents to dispose of our litter responsibly, but I’ve seen people my age, and older, just drop rubbish so can’t confirm that all my generation respect our surroundings.

Thoughtless, selfish, couldn’t-care-less attitudes, and disrespect for other people’s safety, causes accidents like this, not only on the beach but in back streets, green areas - you name it.

We’re disgusting and never used to be like this!

Clifford Chambers

Ashton Road

Blackpool

GRENFELL

Lethal cladding link to climate change?

It has been reported that John McDonnell, the Shadow Chancellor, claimed the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire were ‘murdered by political decisions’ and that it happened as a consequence of austerity.

How can this possibly be true, it is illogical, when the building had £8.6m spent on it for insulation and aesthetics purposes. He would have more credibility as an opposition politician, if he had questioned the spending of £66,666 of taxpayers money on each flat.

I suspect the reason for the cladding was to help reduce our carbon emissions. This is something he and all other MPs (apart from five) voted for under Ed Miliband’s 2008 Climate Change Act. Even the current Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn did not vote against it. It is a pity he did not listen to his brother, a meteorologist, who has stated in the past that temperatures are not rising as claimed.

In effect we have MPs trying to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions when we produce less than two per cent globally, by spending £8.6m in an attempt to reduce household energy bills which have risen due to green subsidies.

Instead of trying to save the planet, our MPs should be giving priority to the social care funding crisis. Some MPs have complained about the brevity of the Queen’s speech which covers the work to be undertaken over the next two years; as far as I am concerned this is a good thing, because it reduces the damage they can do.

It is nonsense to accuse anyone of murder over the Grenfell fire, but spendthrift incompetence is a factor, as only fools would spend this amount of money for so little benefit, especially when times are hard.

Alan Machin

Via email

PAY CAP

What MP would vote for austerity here?

Last week the Tory benches rang out with cheers when they won the vote on the Queen’s Speech to continue with pay cuts for public sector workers.

A shameful display of arrogance, which the three MPs from Blackpool Fylde and Wyre joined in with, with delight.

Paul Maynard, Ben Wallace and Mark Menzies feared another election, given that their leader Mrs 
May-hem has caused with her misjudgment of the mood the electorate were in following seven years of Tory government.

May’s cry before the election was clear: “There is no magic money tree.”

What this means for our public sector workers is more debt, more pay day loans, and likely more dependency on credit cards.

What kind of MP will vote for more austerity in a town like ours? Clearly Paul Maynard can; despite the fact that the main part of his constituency is one of the most deprived towns in the country.

When May’s gamble with the electorate failed to give her more seats, the ‘Magic Money Tree’ miraculously showered £1bn in order to buy votes from the right wing DUP! This act of crass stupidity has however rattled the cages of some of her own front bench, having realised that praising bravery and commitment from our police, nurses and fire fighters is not enough. When it comes to putting their support into action they have fallen woefully short.

It is sickening to realise that while the money is not there for all our public sector workers, it is there when the Conservatives need it to keep in office!

The penny seems to have dropped with some cabinet members though as Johnson, Gove, and others are calling for a re-think.

The only way for the Conservative MPs in the Fylde to stay in power now is to listen to us and support our hard working public sector workers, for this may be Maynard’s only chance to keep his seat!

Roy Lewis

Haddon Road

Blackpool

BULLFIGHTING

Dark Ages sport is cruel and barbaric

So during a bullfighting festival in France, a Spanish matador tripped on his cloak and was subsequently gored to death by an enraged bull.

This was a bull he was needlessly torturing in a cruel and barbaric ‘sport’ that belongs in the Dark Ages.

I don’t suppose the bull lived to tell the tale.

Ken Johnson

Via email