Coalition Government best thing in politics for decades

SO we had 30,000 highly-paid off-duty policemen in a pointless journey to Downing Street to protest about a 3.2 per cent increase in their pension contributions and a 20 per cent cut in their numbers.

The police retire early on very good pensions and any increase in contributions is well within their means. Many of them, after retirement at 50, go on to start new careers in security services with another pension at the end of that.

Spare a thought for the millions of OAPs who have seen their cherished investments over the last three years produce virtually no income due to unprecedented low interest rates, kept low in order to pacify householders with mortgages way beyond their means and which banks should never have allowed.

At the same time we have our fickle electorate switching allegiances because the coalition hasn’t immediately satisfied their Utopian dreams. Who could have imagined three years ago that Lib Dem MPs would ever have the possibility of seeing any of their manifesto aims actually come to fruition, let alone hold Cabinet Offices?

Yet even so their voters grumble. Apparently, some voters would prefer to return to the profligate spending of borrowed money on badly thought-out schemes carried out by the Labour politicians, which dragged us into the current financial disaster.

The coalition Government is probably the best thing that has happened in politics for decades, serving to curb either too far Right or Left ideas and giving us at least a semblance of the consensus of opinion from both Conservatives and Lib Dems.

From: Dr Glyn Powell, Bakersfield Drive, Kellington.

DESPITE the nation’s economy being in meltdown, the lunatic Government focuses its policy programme on undermining civil liberties, reducing state pensions for many and further welfare cutbacks in the Queen’s Speech (David Davis, Yorkshire Post, May 11).

Undermining civil liberties by proposing a Bill allowing the state to snoop on mobile phone calls, text messages and websites visited. Further erosion of civil liberties are outlined in proposals to introduce secret civil court cases. Such proposals make the state in George Orwell’s 1984 tame in comparison.

The proposal to introduce universal state pensions of £140 per week, whilst benefiting some, would steal money from those whose State Earnings Related payment (SERPS) would have realised pensions well above this level.

The proposed legislation also includes automatic increases to the state retirement age on the pretext that we’re all living longer. The truth is that successive governments have spent National Insurance contributions on wasteful projects. This, allied to a destroyed economy means they now want people to work until they drop.

As for the vulnerable amongst us, unemployed, disabled and sick, further welfare cuts are proposed. Resulting in further poverty and despair for millions. These people need not worry, however, as food banks will continue to issue free food parcels to the most needy.

Reminiscent of the 1930s soup kitchens. How the Tories love turning the clock back!

To stimulate the economy, an employer’s right to sack people will be strengthened by a new Employment Bill. This will make what is currently unfair dismissal fair, leaving sacked workers no recourse to Industrial Tribunals. Sacking people, therefore, is the Tory method of rescuing the economy and creating jobs.

Finally reform of the House of Lords – a measure I can support – will be debated, but not happen, as the Tories will not allow this antiquated institution to change.