Readers' letters - January 26

Don't target the disabled
Your used postage stamps can help horses  see letterYour used postage stamps can help horses  see letter
Your used postage stamps can help horses  see letter

I find Iain Duncan Smith’s proposed cuts to part of the Employment and Support Allowance very cynical.

The ‘work-related’ doesn’t mean that the claimant is actually ‘fit’ for work by the so-called DWP medical professionals.

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It means “given the right help and support, the claimant just might be able to do a job which they deem is appropriate for their needs”.

This benefit is nothing like the JSA, as the people on that benefit are all classed as ‘fit to work’.

As PM David Cameron has suddenly found an extra £20m to assist Muslim women to learn the English language, the Government is now going to take this money back from doing what it does so well – by raiding the disability benefits budget. How fair is that?

The Government seems to hold a grudge against people who, for no fault of their own, claim some sort of disability benefit and they, now, are all being penalised for doing just that – claiming what they are fully entitled to claim.

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Why class the work-related scheme on the Employment & Support Allowance the same as JSA, when they are two completely different benefits and are for totally different types of people?

Although these proposed changes are happening in 2017 and they are for alleged new claimants only, it’s now up to the people who are set to vote on this issue – the House of Lords. Will they all vote the same way as they did on the ‘tax credits’ fiasco?

We’ll all have to wait and see.

But to keep targeting the vulnerable and the disabled in this way – no wonder suicides among those affected by these draconian welfare benefit changes are up.

Leave the genuine disabled and vulnerable people alone – and also leave their money alone.

Darryl Ashton via email

animal welfare

Stamps can save horses

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Established in 1968, Bransby Horses is one of the UK’s largest equine welfare charities dedicated to improving the lives of horses, ponies, donkeys and mules. They have rescued and rehabilitated, re-homed or retired hundreds of animals, and are working harder than ever to continue making a positive difference to equines.

They rely solely on the generosity of the general public to carry out their vital work, and one of the ways they generate funds is from the sale of used postage stamps.

Would you help them by saving your used postage stamps?

Whether they are standard first and second class, special editions or foreign stamps. Bransby can use them to generate money.

Just pop them in an envelope and send to Bransby Horses, Bransby, Lincoln, LN1 2PH.

Visit their website at www.bransbyhorses.co.uk

Josephine Harwood

Address supplied


Talking to murderers

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Like Jeremy Corbyn, I too would like to live in a peaceful world and I believe that too often people rush into conflict before thinking of negotiating first. But this depends on the enemy at the time surely?

I don’t think we could have talked sense to the evil Nazi Party in the 1930s, and, alas, I don’t think we can talk to their present day equivalent, the so-called ISIS.

I agree with Disgusted ex-Labour voter (WEP January 23), these are mass murderers who don’t believe in anything except hate, power and murder. If Jeremy can talk sense into such hate-mongers I would be truly amazed. Good luck with that Jeremy.

CJK via email