Letters - Tuesday, November 2, 2021

In the wake of the terrible death of Sarah Everard at the hands of a serving police officer, we have all learned a great deal about the darker side of misogyny.

The situation is indeed bleak, with a woman killed by a man (femicide) every three days, most cases involving a current or former partner. The instances of a woman attacked and killed by a stranger, although they feature in headlines, are rare.

Misogyny also manifests itself in sexual harassment and assault.

Over 60 per cent of schoolgirls report harassment, and 70 per cent of women experience some form of sexual harassment in public. The appalling rate of prosecutions – less than two per cent – of rape gives women little confidence that reporting this crime will result in action against the perpetrator.

Drastic reductions in police manpower (around 20,000) and budgets for the courts since 2010 contribute to this shameful record, but police attitudes and culture also play a part.

There are attempts by campaigners to change things, spearheaded by Stella Creasey MP, who is working to make misogyny a hate crime, requiring recording and action.

My own small effort was to table a motion at the county council last Thursday, requesting various actions to support this, including requesting that the county CEO contact Kit Malthouse, Minister for Crime and Policing, make misogyny a hate crime.

Unfortunately, the ruling Conservative group didn’t support the concept of misogyny as a hate crime and amended the motion, which was then passed almost unanimously.

However, despite this there was a good debate as this issue was discussed for the first time in the chamber.

I will continue to campaign on this and would welcome any contact from residents and local organisations on this issue.

Jean Parr

Lancashire County Councillor

Shadow Cabinet lead for Community and Cultural Services

POLITICS

Cop26... a pricey political jamboree

Cop26 will prove to be a gross waste of time and money. The wining and dining bill will be eye watering apart from the other costs.

A declaration of intent will be signed by delegates and like those who signed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol signatories will know they cannot and will not achieve what is in the document.

It is an expensive political jamboree held to try and convince the world’s peoples that governments are dealing with an issue that many climatologists still maintain is exaggerated.

Despite the almost daily claims by David Attenborough, Prince Charles, the Cambridges, and Greta Thunberg, neither one of which has any relevant scientific qualifications, that our planet is heading towards extinction, targets set by developed states to reduce CO2 emissions and reduce global warming are way beyond the means of poor developing countries.

One third of the eight billion inhabitants of planet Earth are either Chinese or Indian. Tens of thousands of them suffer from crippling poverty. Neither state can afford the colossal costs of ditching hydrocarbons on which they depend for energy. They rightly argue that these prohibitive costs should be borne by the West as they created the problem now being addressed. So far this has fallen on deaf ears. Neither will be in Glasgow.

We should cease lecturing developing states and have the honesty to admit that if we had, say, been told in 1840 to stop polluting Britain with our industrial revolution we would have ignored the demand. Hypocrisy has no place in this debate.

After the junketing, delegates will go home no doubt claiming they have saved the world when in reality all they will have achieved is to have added more hot air to our warming climate.

Dr Barry Clayton

Thornton Cleveleys

POLOITICS

The disposable generation

Triple lock on our pensions removed, no free TV licence after 75, free prescription age raised, no mention in the Chancellor’s free spending Budget.

After keeping the economy afloat with our taxes in our working years, we have now become the disposable generation.

Hilary Andrews

Address supplied

POLITICS

Beaten Labour at their own game

Well, hasn’t Tory Chancellor Rishi Sunak beaten Labour at their own game well and truly?

By a ‘hat trick’ of taxes frozen or cut, public sector pay rises and more public spending all around, all Rachel Reeves, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, could do was carp on about the ‘wealthy’ sipping Champagne at the news.

Perhaps she needs to remember the old adage of “those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones?”

DS Boyes

Address supplied

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