Readers' letters - May 11

Being a lifelong Labour supporter, I was pleased to hear Jeremy Corbyn announce that anyone earning OVER £80,000 would be eligible for tax increases and anyone earning under that amount would avoid tax rises.

Great, fantastic, about time but hang on a minute, where did this magical figure come from?

Was it pulled from a bingo machine or a random number selector?

Why not 50, 60, or 70,000, why the magical £80,000?

Some people may ask how much do MPs earn and which side of the £80,000 do they fall in?

It doesn’t take a genius to work it out.

Is this another case of MPs only thinking of number one again?

I would think more of Jeremy Corbyn and his ideas if it had been £70k because the MPs should fall into the “rich” category, in my humble opinion.

Dave M

via email

Decluttering helps charity

I want to thank your readers who have been supporting the British Heart Foundation (BHF) this spring by decluttering and donating items from their clear-out to their local BHF shop.

I work at The University of Manchester as a BHF professor and wanted to tell your readers about my current research project, funded by the BHF. My research focuses on how differences in the genes we inherit from our parents can increase our risk of cardiovascular disease.

This work could lead to the discovery of genes responsible for cardiovascular disease and develop new therapies which could help thousands of families worldwide.

My project is just one of over 1,000 research projects that the BHF funds at universities across the UK, investigating every aspect of heart and circulatory disease – from causes and better drugs to improving surgical techniques. Each of these projects is only made possible by generous supporters, and each unwanted item donated this spring brings us one step closer to the next big breakthrough in heart research.

There are currently 844,000 people living with cardiovascular disease across the North West and I’m sure every reader will have been touched by heart disease in some way or another, whether it be personally, through a family member or close friend.

If you are yet to have your clear-out or would like to support your local BHF shop at other times of the year, they are always in need of items to fill their rails and shelves so please do keep them in mind for your unwanted items.

To find your local shop, order free donation bags or find out more about the free home collection service, please visit bhf.org.uk/bagit

Professor Bernard Keavney

BHF funded researcher

Run, climb, sit in baked beans ...

If you want to do something for charity, why not help Anthony Nolan, which aims to save people’s lives from blood cancers like leukaemia?

To raise money, you can do anything – run The London Marathon, climb Mount Kilimanjaro, or sit in a bathtub of cold baked beans. Visit www.Anthony Nolan.org.uk/fundraising

David Ball

via email