Letters - January 1, 2021

The increase in online shopping, especially at this time of year, is indirectly adding to poor air quality on our urban streets due to the number of diesel-powered vehicles on the roads.

As well as fleets of vans owned or leased by courier firms, more items are being delivered by taxi drivers who are struggling to find work to make a living at the moment.

There are relatively few electric vehicles on the roads at the moment. Many courier companies use diesel vehicles for economy.

However, the short journeys, and lack of scheduled servicing, leads to diesel particle filters (DPF) being blocked, meaning that more poisonous particles are being emitted into the atmosphere.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, most of us, with the exception of key workers, have more time on our hands to shop and choose what we want and socialise safely.

Dave Ellis

via email

I live at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac and it has been frightening to see the frequency of visits by delivery vans on behalf of Amazon and other online distributors. There surely has to be some kind of tax levied on each delivery or pollution will get worse.

Thomas Reed

via email

Season

The small and fragile

We can feel quite small in the face of a global pandemic. It’s affected us all very differently.

But unless you’ve bought shares in hand-sanitiser, life on the whole has become smaller, more fragile, more challenging.

But here’s the thing: from ancient times, God’s work has been with the small and the fragile.

Micah, an Old Testament prophet, 700 years before the birth of Jesus, saw this:

“But you, Bethlehem, Ephrathah,

“Though you are small among the clans of Judah

“Out of you will come for me

“One who will be ruler over Israel,

“Whose origins are from old,

“From ancient times” (Micah 5.2)

God has a habit of choosing the small and the fragile:

A teenage virgin

A stable’s manger

Bethlehem shepherds

Why choose a young girl to mother the king?

Why choose to a manger for laying him in?

Is it too marvellous to understand…?

Thanks go to all our schools, our chaplaincies and our churches which have been so marvellous in this ongoing season of challenge. We have seen so much of the Spirit’s work across our county this year.

Micah’s prophecy continues: “He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord His God. And they will live securely, for then His greatness will reach to the ends of the earth. And He will be their peace.”

Our smallness, our fragility makes even more room for Jesus, our good shepherd, whose greatness reaches to the ends of the earth.

The Prince of Peace.

Rt Rev Dr Jill Duff

Bishop of Lancaster

Brexit

Deal weakens our rights

It has been an appalling deal that Boris Johnson has negotiated with our European neighbours.

A deal that is worse than the provisional one secured by Theresa May, over which Johnson himself resigned.

A deal that we were promised would give us “the exact same benefits” of European Union membership without any of the obligations or financial costs, but in fact inflicts all the costs

Johnson denied it ever would. A deal that serves only to weaken the rights and privileges that Britons have enjoyed for decades, while introducing a border in the Irish Sea and making the disintegration of the United Kingdom all but an inevitability, leaving England alone once more.

While there are undoubtedly dark days ahead, the progressive majority of our younger generations gives me hope for a brighter future.

And one in which a humbled, independent England will rejoin the European table so that together we can tackle the great issues of our time. This is certainly something I’ll be devoting much of my time to in the years ahead.

Jack Lenox

via email