Letters - Friday March 5, 2021

‘Post Haste return to centre’ (The Gazette, March 5)... and it’s not before time either as award-winning postmaster Azim Shaikh secures the position on Talbot Road (Bickerstaffe Square) for a decent post office in town.

This is long overdue, since I feel that WH Smith failed to serve the general public properly after the main post office closed on Abington Street to make way for their post office counters on the lower ground floor in Bank Hey Street.

This was never an ideal position from day one, and despite concerns about the counters being on the lower ground floor, they fell on deaf ears. It’s no wonder people like me boycotted the counters because of their inconvenient lack of accessibility.

Apart from a one time major stationary firm thinking they have always had the monopoly of custom, they have literally priced themselves of the market and, to be honest, they won’t be missed as we welcome Mr Shaikh (pictured) to Blackpool town centre.

Clifford Chambers

Blackpool

Politics

Strange they’ve got the answers now...

What do John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May all have in common? A capacity to solve problems today which when in office eluded them. Hindsight is a wonder virtue, but hypocrisy can also shine bright.

Peter Rickaby

via email

Politics

Starmer lacks real vision for Britain

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer recently gave a speech ‘‘A New Chapter for Britain’’.

The speech refers to a range of very real concerns about Universal Credit, child poverty, life expectancy, youth unemployment, the pressures on the NHS and schools, and the state of the high street.

It references the period of post war reconstruction, the creation of the NHS, the building of millions of homes fit for heroes (council housing for rent is a detail left out). It even references the Beveridge Report that laid out the road map for that reconstruction.

It offers generalities to deal with the concerns and supports ‘‘the dream of home ownership’’.

It promises a British Recovery Bond to give those who have accumulated money during the pandemic a safe and rewarding investment, that will also contribute to infrastructure development.

Fine, but government borrowing rates are currently low anyway. Starmer claims this as ‘‘bold and innovative’’, the same may have been said about the Consols introduced in 1751 to help finance government spending.

A Starmer government would, he says, work with trade unions and businesses. Nothing more is said about the unions or the workers they represent, but there is the promise of “a new partnership with British businesses as the only way” to secure prosperity.

A “new partnership with business” is Starmer says his “vision”, and that is pretty well it.

This is not a party that would be recognised by the old Labour left of Bevan, or the old Labour tight of Bevin, or even by the Liberal Party of Beveridge, the architect of the Welfare State. It is not even the Labour party of Blair that I left 18 years ago.

While we retain the absurdity of a ‘‘first past the post’’ electoral system, a strong, imaginative, crusading Opposition is essential. Perhaps the vision on the left has to be looked for with the Green Party.

Martin Hemingway

address supplied

Virus

Don’t come here asking for my vote

On March 8, I will not be allowed to shop for clothes, get my hair cut, go to the pub or a restaurant or go to a gym or library.

However an uninvited person from a political party will be allowed to come to my door to canvass for the local elections.

How idiotic and potentially dangerous for the vulnerable. I will note who calls at my door and cross them off my voting preferences.

Graham Brown

via email