Readers' letters - March 6

Pensioners have given us a good standard of living
The elderly deserve a better standard of life says a readerThe elderly deserve a better standard of life says a reader
The elderly deserve a better standard of life says a reader

It would appear that pensioners are now under attack, aided and abetted by statisticians who gleefully announce that pensioners are now far better off than ever before, adding that their income percentage is higher than the average working man.

So what, I ask, is wrong with that?

Admittedly there are quite a few pensioners on very, very comfortable private pensions out there – some even smug enough to boast that their state pension isn’t required and wondering what to do with it.

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However the vast majority are not better off at all because of constant price rises and, especially, the ever rising extortionate heating and energy costs.

It’s all very well statisticians concocting these figures as they sit in warm and brightly lit offices – heating and lighting courtesy of their employers – but the elderly don’t have this luxury, with most leading a sedentary lifestyle either through illness or circumstances, which means remaining indoors with the heating on in an effort to keep warm.

It is only through the efforts of pensioners that we now have the current standard of living.

Nearly all worked hard through their lives, unlike the many shirkers that delight in exploiting the benefit systems today, and so why shouldn’t pensioners be respected and given a better standard of life?

Karl Sheridan

via email

Tory spending

is ridiculous

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I must give my thanks to reader M Fletcher for clearing up a mystery for me (WEP Letters March 3).

I had often wondered, and more so since the Copeland by-election, why anyone would vote for a cut in public services and austerity?

So the answer is to blame Labour and its ‘ridiculous spending’, a party which was last in power in 2010 – seven years ago.

But spending on Trident, HS2 and the London Garden Bridge is ridiculous, is it not?

Or the £360m refurbishment for Buckingham Palace?

Or the 10 per cent pay rise for MPs a couple of years ago?

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Or how about cracking down on the miscellaneous super-rich tax dodgers?

Maybe, if they paid their taxes like ordinary people and small businesses have to, the coffers would be a lot fuller?

But no, it is easier to cut benefits and public services, such as libraries.

Far easier to impose austerity on the poor and blame Labour for it.

I am no ultra-politically correct leftie or ‘snowflake’.

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In fact, in my view, to go too far left means losing your common sense.

However, to go too far right means losing your compassion.

All I wish for are wise politicians and a fair and compassionate society.

Jane

Via email

Block mobile phones in cars

A student dies of an asthma attack. It’s said a ‘life was cut tragically short’, and there are calls for defibrillators to be installed on all public transport, to help save the lives of others.

The lives of Seth ‘Smiler’ Dixon, seven, and Liberty Baker, 14, were cut tragically short – by drivers using their mobile phones – and the best we get is a doubling of the fine and the points. In 2015, 22 deaths were linked to ‘talking/texting at the wheel’.

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If we can have defibrillators on all public transport, then we can surely have a ‘call blocking’ system for mobile phone use in motor vehicles.

Especially when we consider there’s no limit to new technology which is built into new cars and phones to make them more ‘attractive’, user-friendly, and better protected from car thieves, internet viruses and cyber attacks.

Allan Ramsay (Member of RoadPeace)

Radcliffe

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