Letters - March 3, 2018

Every Labourcouncillor should hang their heads with shame every time they walk into the Town Hall.

If they just looked over their shoulder and take in the horrible derelict site that was once the Yates’s Wine Lodge pub and reflect how long that eyesore been like that.

If I am correct, it was as long ago as 2009 when it was burnt down. So here we are nine years, yes nine years later, and still it looks an eyesore, in the middle of the premier resort of Great Britain.

Why? With all these millions being spent on capital projects in the Town, how much would it have cost to lay grass on the site, put a few benches in and uplift the site and area? To me, it is a no-brainer.

It cannot have cost anywhere near other projects currently going on in the town to make it a nice place to be. Sometimes, it only takes some small changes make a massive difference.

Come on, Blackpool Council open your eyes and see what’s going on. Be proud of the town that you represent. Perhaps part of the 4.99 per cent Council Tax hike that was recently announced could pay for it?

Gary Pennington

via email

POLITICS

England success may bring peace

When Boris Johnson compared the holding of the World Cup in Putin’s Russia to Hitler’s 1936 Olympic Games, he should have thought about the effect this would have on the millions of ordinary Russians who lost relatives in the ensuing conflict of the Second World War.

It may well not have been his intention to offend them, but that is how they will see it. Incidentally, Hitler’s racism ideals were severely dented by Jesse Owens, a black athlete, winning four gold medals.

Success by the English team could possibly have a similar effect on Putin’s sporting propaganda ambitions.

Denis Lee

via email

POLITICS

We need a second free Brexit ballot

The Brexit referendum is losing credibility by the day.

I have argued all along that there is nothing undemocratic in one referendum replacing and reversing an earlier one; just as since the beginning of our democracy it has been accepted for one Act of Parliament to replace or modify an earlier one where the electorate thought such a change desirable; the desirability of a new referendum is now increasing by the day.

We now know that the supposed £350m a week extra for the NHS as a result of Brexit was a fabrication of the leave campaign; together with much else.

We were not warned that the supposed ‘freedom’ to trade with all the world might well be a poisoned chalice.

Every day we see a government, propped up by and in thrall to the support of the DUP purchased with our money; a government which says the referendum vote must be followed, but cannot agree among itself what that means: a hard, a soft Brexit; or maybe a medium rare one!

The referendum had nothing to say on this. You cannot abide by a referendum vote which has not addressed the question at issue. As I have said, however, the matter is more serious.

As I understand it, the news now breaking suggests to me that the way in which a person was likely to vote might have been improperly influenced, in favour of a leave vote, by the use of personal information garnered from Facebook by certain agencies.

What is now urgently needed is a new referendum which does address the central questions; the conduct of which is properly monitored and the freedom of which is protected.

We are proud to differ from the Russian electoral system. Let us keep it that way.

mike harwood

via email

APPEAL

Who can help with a veterans quest?

My uncle Harry Ashmore who was born in Bolton, Lancashire, ended up some time fighting in Burma in the Second World War.

I do not know what regiment he belonged to. I am trying to get hold of his war record, and any photos. Is anyone able to tell me who is the best organisation to contact?

My email address is [email protected]

Charlie Telfer

via email