Letters - Wednesday, September 1, 2021

The world seems a crazier and more dangerous place than for many, many years. However, it seems to me that with the current American President, Joe Biden, it is even crazier.

When Mr Biden was first elected and asked by a BBC journalist did he have anything to say his response was “I’m Irish”!

I thought it was an inane remark from someone who is supposed to represent a country of multi-ethnicity built on migration. This was the man who was replacing Donald Trump and was supposed to be a better option!

Since then we have seen him and his second in command, Kamala Harris (who seems to laugh at every question posed to her), give either non-answers or a garbled response.

At the moment America seems short on leadership, and short on Hollywood stars (i.e. the constant churning out of an ex-Prince and his actress wife!).

When oh when are we going to have decent politicians and decent stars?

The media is serving us dish after dish of negative stories and inane, self-pitying, laughable excuses for intelligent human beings, when the world is in desperate need of healing.

Can we at least continue to promote the wonderful Paralympians and the wonderful countryside we have here? Only this will keep us sane.

Marilyn Shaw

Address supplied

SOCIETY

Keep £20 Universal Credit increase

The Lancashire Association of Trades Union Councils (LATUC) is very concerned that the £20 a week uplift to Universal Credit will end on October 6 and many people will be pushed further into poverty as their income is reduced by £1,040 a year.

The £20 a week increase in Universal Credit (UC) and Working Tax Credit (WTC) has been in place since March 2020.

At the start of the pandemic, 2.6 million families were claiming UC but, since then, the number on UC has nearly doubled to five million in February 2021.

The Nuffield Foundation found that “the £20 uplift represents a significant share in entitlements for many claimants – in particular those who are single without children, are not liable for rent, or are not judged to have a work limiting disability – all groups that have increased in frequency since the eve of the pandemic.

“For many of these people UC is their only source of income, with a majority of those on UC out of work and without a working partner.”

The LATUC has sent all Lancashire Conservative MPs a copy of a letter written by two fellow Conservatives, John Stevenson MP and Peter Aldous MP, urging the Government to make the increase permanent.

The letter supports the suggestion made by other Conservatives that “cuts to social security spending in the decade leading up to this crisis went too far.”

This confirms the Nuffield Foundation’s comment that “It is worth noting that the UC expansion represents the first significant real terms increase in entitlements for out-of-work claimants without children in half a century, despite the fact that earnings have doubled in that time (and therefore financial incentives to work have been substantially strengthened over this period).

“This lack of real increases has also left the safety net for those without children unusually thin by international standards, well below the average among developed countries.”

LATUC Secretary Peter Billington

The Lancashire Association of Trades Union Councils (LATUC)

SOCIETY

GB becomes feeble Britain

Does anyone care about the state the country is in after years and years of various government crises and failures of management?

At the moment a large percentage of the population seem only to think about enjoying holidays, shopping, eating out, farcical TV soaps, internet surfing and gaming.

Where is the type of leadership we had after the Second World War victory? Tragically gone, lost in action.

What we need now is a party of national unity obsessed with the desire to unite a divided nation. A party whose only concern is to build and strengthen every square mile of our country again, making a weak feeble Britain into Great Britain again.

Derek Varley

Address supplied

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