Budget shows Tories’ true blue colours

GEORGE Osborne’s Budget showed the true colours of the Tory led coalition in giving more to the rich while taking from the most vulnerable, that being the pensioner.

As a baby boomer it was our parents and our generation that has built up the country from the war years, and it is mainly our generation that have worked all their lives and who have bought their own houses and saved for their future, unlike some of the modern generation, but that’s not our fault.

The hard facts are that the Tories during the Thatcher years sold off the silver to get themselves out of the mire, and it was under Thatcher we saw the decline of the manufacturing industry resulting in the job situation we have today.

That’s not to say New Labour were saints – far from it, with expensive initiatives such as ID cards and many other absurdities that cost the country. However New Labour did promise pensioners a fair deal and a better pension!

What I don’t understand with this government is why we are allow ourselves to be hoodwinked like this – the over 60s have the majority vote in this country yet we stand and allow ourselves to be taken to the cleaners. Are you all dim or merely content to be walked all over?

Come on you pensioners, stop being taken in by the spin (we had stuff that from Blair) and start protesting – this budget isn’t fair and is taking from the poor to pay the rich!

From: Alan Carcas, Cornmill Lane, Liversedge, West Yorkshire.

MY income in retirement has been under attack at every budget since Gordon Brown became Chancellor in 1997. This time I might just stay ahead of the game. Just! Thanks to George Osborne and the changes in the lower tax band.

Those whiners and whingers about the so-called granny tax, it ain’t, should remember, this could very easily have been a Labour/Lib-Dem coalition. It very nearly was, thanks to the media, which helped to create the original situation at the last general election with their ridiculous lauding of Nick Clegg. But it could well be next time.

We’ve now had a two-year taste of Lib Dems in government. Frightening, isn’t it?

From: N Bywater, Airedale Terrace, Morley, Leeds.

WHAT a rip off. George Osborne wants to “simplify the VAT system”. But he seems to want to simplify it upwards, on everyday goods too.

Other countries have higher rates of VAT than the UK, and that is a good way to raise money. But surely everyday food items should not be subject to VAT.

Make bingers pay for folly

From: David Quarrie, Lynden Way, Holgate, York.

I TOTALLY agree with the Government that something has to be done to substantially reduce the curse of binge drinking (Yorkshire Post, March 24).

The damage done to people, property, privacy, the police and our NHS is so great that it must not be allowed to continue. It is very difficult to educate those who do it, or are tempted to binge drink, and trying to alter the “culture” of this madness will take years.

The Government is right to introduce a minimum unit price for alcohol. Much of the cider and lagers are cheaper than in the 1980s, and the amount “binge drinkers” consume at home before ever venturing into our towns and cities is increasing all the time.

The new laws will be fair, they will not increase the price of a pint of beer in the pub, nor the price of wine in a restaurant, so overall the sensible drinker and the poor and pensioners will not be too badly affected.

From Terry Duncan, Greame Road, Bridlington, East Yorkshire.

MILLIONS have been drinking the same amount of alcohol over thousands of years.

Half of those millions have gone on to live a healthy long age. The others have succumbed to the message that this world has ended for them, including those who have never passed a tipple over their lips.

OK, there are binge drinkers, younger folk who wreck our streets on a weekend evening. But that is not an excuse to raise booze taxes for the rest of us, as the former will continue on their wayward ways, no matter the cost and probably paid for from benefits.

The answer is to put the drunken louts into a jail without TV, without proper toilets and no exercise for a couple of months, in fact deprive them of all until they sober up and get the message, not punish the rest of us.

No respect for flag at Games

From: Jack Lewis, Jubilee Close, Isleham, Ely.

I AM appalled at the desecration of our national flag by Stella McCartney and those who accepted her design for the British Olympic athlete’s uniform. Where is the red cross of St George and the red cross of St David?

This is yet another assault on our Britishness and the traditions that our forefathers fought for. There are people in this country who have no sense of respect for their own homeland.

This can be laid firmly at the door of the now discredited multi-culturalism engendered by our membership of the EU and immoral liberal policies.

You do not need a degree in sociology to observe the destruction that membership of the EU has caused to the identity of this once great nation.

However the worst crime that has been committed is by the public and it is called “apathy”!

Until all the people speak out against this destruction it will continue until speaking out becomes illegal.