Your Letters: Overseas aid, poverty and the Redditch Lottery - The Redditch Standard

Your Letters: Overseas aid, poverty and the Redditch Lottery

Redditch Editorial 25th Jul, 2021   0

I WAS saddened to see that Redditch’s Conservative MP voted to cut the amount of aid the UK sends abroad to help the most vulnerable children and adults around the globe.

I’m sure she had her reasons but it is abundantly clear that it wasn’t so the money can be spent helping the most vulnerable here in the UK.

After all, she voted against extending free school meals to cover the school holidays when millions of people were furloughed because of Covid and I am yet to hear her condemn her party’s plans to strip £20 every week from those claiming Universal Credit, many of whom are in work and struggling to make ends meet.

I am proud that my party, the Liberal Democrats, have consistently fought to protect the most vulnerable in our country and around the world.




A Thompson,

Liberal Democrats, Redditch


I WAS interested to read Councillor Rouse’s letter about the Redditch lottery (Redditch Standard), where he claimed that the funds raised were supposed to just be ‘a little extra’ for the community.

Redditch Borough Council has received £6,448 over the first 18 months.

That sounds like a lovely little extra until you realise that Redditch Borough Council paid out £10,000 in set up costs for the first year, and another £2,500 for the running costs of Year 2.

So this means the council is £6,000 out of pocket. That sounds like a gambler on a losing streak to me.

The biggest winner here is Gatherwell, the private company running the scheme. They’ve received £4,279 through their cut of ticket sales, and I’m willing to bet Redditch won’t see a penny of that.

S Harvey, Southcrest

DID I read Councillor Dormer’s comments correctly on last week’s front page of the Redditch Standard? Namely that he would be prepared to see the Abbey Stadium, Pitcheroak Golf Course, the Palace Theatre, Forge Mill Needle Museum and sundry community centres, Arrow Valley Park etc go to the wall rather than bail them out?

I can understand the council is not made of money and cannot keep subsidising a failing business, but who put them in this position? The council, by creating Rubicon Leisure.

Obviously coronavirus has caused no end of havoc, but isn’t the government meant to be handing out wads of money to put everything back? Where is Redditch’s share?

I voted Conservative at the last elections and I didn’t think when I did so that I’d be voting for a party that is prepared to let the jewels in the crown of Redditch go bust.

What happened to ‘levelling up’ and ‘building back better’?

From all the evidence it simply isn’t happening and I fear things have got worse, much worse.

T Cunningham, Church Hill

EVEN after two vaccinations it is estimated that one in 360 people infected with Covid will die.

Looking at reports of long Covid, one quarter of those infected are still suffering after 12 weeks.

That would be about 3.6million people out of 50million adults.

So why does the government keep telling us we will be safe? The answer is money.

The government’s failure to shutdown quickly and firmly enough in February 2020 has left us with a national debt of £2,191billion costing every tax payer £1,300 every year in interest – all of my tax – so that none is left for the services we need to survive.

As a result of the actions of the government another 130,000 people are being put at risk of dying from Covid.

Of course by doing this they will reduce their expenditure on state pensions, the NHS budget, and social care.

It could be argued that more Covid deaths solve all their problems which could explain why they have now opened up three times just weeks before Covid would have been almost eliminated in the UK and they continue to allow travel to other countries with Covid infections.

If you do not want to volunteer to die for your country, and in particular our greedy politicians, please continue to wear a mask and keep a distance from other people.

Take care.

M Bish, Abbeydale

I READ with concern the report in the Redditch Standard on 17/07/2021 about new research by the TUC which finds that 112,000 children of key workers in the West Midlands are living in poverty….such a depressing state of affairs in this day and age.

Noting our MP Rachel Maclean never – ever writes press releases about poverty.

In fact she hasn’t so much as even said the word ‘poverty’ in Parliament since October 24, 2018 and then it was to attack the Labour Party while praising Universal Credit for lifting people out of poverty!

Maybe our MP might like to now apologise and revisit her thoughts and conscience about voting against the pay rises for key workers, the cut of the £20 to Universal Credit of millions and also the one in five children of workers employed in the frontline of the pandemic who live below breadline.

Somehow I feel I might be waiting a long time for this to happen.

A Berry, Redditch

 

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