‘I’m hoping for a bigger turnout on July 4’
ALL Party Parliamentary Groups (APPG) are formed afresh every year, or after a general election.
Today (Friday, June 7) at 4pm, nominations for the candidates to be our MP close.
In next week’s edition of your newspaper, it would be interesting to read which APPGs they would be seriously interested in joining or forming if they get elected as our MP.
It is to be hoped that the percentage turn out to vote on July 4 will be significantly higher than in this May’s local elections.
Philip Bladon,
Southcrest
‘Microchipping cats will help owners’
FROM June 10, all cats in England must be microchipped and registered on a database by the time they reach 20 weeks old.
Failure to do so could land owners with a hefty fine, and the legislation gives local authorities the power to confiscate cats and microchip them, before returning them to the owner and handing them the bill.
Recent reports suggest that 25 per cent of cats are currently not microchipped, which is almost 3million cats.
Once the new law comes into force, owners found without their cat microchipped will have just 21 days to have one implanted. After the 21 days, owners may then face a fine of up to £500.
We have done the hard part by getting the law changed.
Now it is down to cat owners to make sure this is the success we know it can and will be.
For veterinary practices, animal welfare organisations and local councils, it can be incredibly challenging to reunite unchipped pet cats with their owner if they are missing or have been stolen.
Microchipping is an inexpensive procedure, and is fairly simple and quick to do and can save owners the heartache of never getting their cats back, or never having closure should the worst happen and could save a cat’s life.
Sadly, we see it all the time where road accident victims end up being euthanised with simple cuts and bruises, simply because no owner could be located via a microchip.
When we say it could be a matter of life and death, we are not joking and as the UK’s only feline road traffic accident focus group, we sadly see it all the time – but owners can stop it happening to their cat simply by microchipping them and keeping registered details up to date.
When a cat is found roadside and taken to a vets, the microchip can be read with a scanner and the registered keeper identified on a database so the pet can quickly be reunited with them.
When they are not microchipped, it is at the vets’ discretion what they do but they are only obliged by law to administer pain relief, which could mean euthanasia.
We would urge owners to comply with the new law because it is working for them and their cats, not against.
CatsMatter
‘The nation’s voters won’t get fooled again’
ALTHOUGH broadly in agreement with your previous correspondent I Welch’s suggestion of compulsory voting, no one can be surprised at disillusionment with the political system.
In 1979 the unions brought us the ‘winter of discontent’ and had long been too influential, (hence Wilson’s comment in 1969 ‘Get your tanks off my lawn Hugh’ to AEU leader Hugh Scanlon).
The Labour government eventually went cap in hand to the IMF for a loan to keep the economy afloat.
Mrs Thatcher seemed to offer something better, power back with the government and sensible finances.
Within a few years this degenerated into unchallenged hostility towards the essential functions of unions – the so-called ‘enemy within’, the deification of greed, the Poll Tax, and rifts in society not seen post-war.
In 1997 we were told ‘things can only get better’ and promised a ‘New Britain’ as Tony Blair offered a new vision of society. Soon we had the expenses scandal, the country being embroiled in a dubious war and ended in such a financial morass (hence the Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury’s note to his successor ‘I’m afraid there is no more money’) that in 2010 the Conservatives had little choice but an austerity programme.
In 2019 Johnson promised to ‘Get Brexit done’ and won a landslide because the other parties and Tory rebels had shamelessly thwarted the referendum result in which far more people voted for Leave than had ever voted for anything in British democratic history.
We all know that ended in yet more sleaze, the Truss/Kwarteng financial idiocy and a PM who could not even get the support of his own party membership so had to rely on MPs only.
Now we have one main party wanting to give 16-year-olds the vote in the belief they will nearly all vote Labour and the other wanting to introduce some unrealistic version of National Service as though the societal changes of the last 64 years had never happened.
The greatest line in rock, the end of ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ by the Who, sums it up: ‘Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.’
People may be more inclined to vote if we had something worth voting for.
K Wass
EDITORS COMMENT
CONGRATULATIONS to Walkwood Middle School’s talented footballers for winning the national Utilita Kids Cup and bringing the trophy back to Redditch.
As well as helping put the town on the map, the team had a well-deserved outing at Wembley – not a pitch many people get to play on.
It could be the start of some fantastic football careers for these youngsters.
Let’s hope Gareth Southgate’s Three Lions can emulate Walkwood’s passion and success in a few weeks time in Euro 2024.
We welcome your letters….
We welcome your letters for the Redditch Standard on any subject.
Email them to [email protected]
