Things can only get worse in Boris Johnson’s Britain – Yorkshire Post Letters

OVER the weekend I phoned my son who lives overseas to bring him up to date with events in the UK – and what a depressing picture.

Public transport fragmented, agriculture pulverised, distribution crippled, education stultified, care homes neglected, NHS overstretched, infrastructure crumbling, pensions and support inadequate, houses incrementally degrading, poverty increasing, the North further disadvantaged, fuel unavailable, HS2 stopped in its tracks at Birmingham, industry impoverished and just about everything set to get even 
worse.

The Government squandered £30bn on Track and Trace but can’t find 10 per cent of that to rescue the ever-growing numbers of people being put into distress though indifference and yet more to suffer as the extra costs of picking, processing and shipping are set to rise and be added to the higher wages demanded for shop personnel.

Where next? The tips jar on the back of the pub bar to become the subject of legislation? My son, a developmental manager, whose instinct is to improve and coach people, pointed out that development should always start with an achievable goal. The tips jar might just be the answer.

And, the depressing thing is that, as the ivory tower of privilege and detachment sinks slowly into the swamp of incompetence, it’s the top floor that gets swallowed up last.

From: Mike Baldwin, Raven Road, Nether Edge, Sheffield.

FACED with the present disruption to the hospitality, food, farming and supply sectors due to the loss of EU workers, Boris Johnson’s government has turned to clutching at straws in claiming this constitutes a plan for a high-wage, high-skills economy (The Yorkshire Post, October 6).

The disruption is not the sharp shock before we are led to the sunny uplands; the damage to the economy is structural and was predicted by the Conservative Party’s own Treasury report EU Exit Long Term Economic Analysis, November 2018.

It stated not only that a hard Brexit, as Johnson negotiated, would cost the Exchequer a staggering £72bn each year by 2035, but that the present immigration policy would itself inflict a 1.8 per cent reduction in GDP, resulting in a further annual loss of £23.9bn.

The latter is more than the UK spends annually on the police force.

It is a tragedy that this government combines disruptive ideology with lies and plain incompetence, all of which will inevitably lead to lasting damage to the economy.

From: GM Lindsay, Whinfield Gardens, Kinross.

UNTIL recently, the electricity price per unit was four times that of gas which would make the replacement of gas domestic heating by electricity extremely expensive. In the past couple of weeks the wholesale price of gas has rocketed fourfold, making it more compatible with the price of electricity resulting in a consequent increase in home energy bills. Is this what is known as levelling up?

From: William Loneskie, Oxton, Lauder, Berwickshire.

STANDARDS must be maintained in recruiting lorry drivers, especially tanker drivers. A tanker loaded with petrol is extremely dangerous. Terrorists will be desperate to get their hands on one.

From: P Carr, Outwood.

A QUICK correction to Jason Reed (The Yorkshire Post, October 7) – Gordon Brown did not bust UK plc in 2008. The probable causes were a rise in global energy prices, the collapse of US sub prime housing market, imprudent mortgage lending in the UK and the over exposure of UK financial institutions.

From: Tim Bradshaw, Slaithwaite.

PLEASE tell letter writer James Bovington (The Yorkshire Post, October 6) that we are fed up with his continuous Remainer views and that he should not class us as “a coalition of elderly and less educated English”. I’m sure many people, myself included, take great offence at this obnoxious and arrogant suggestion.

From: Eileen Fergusson, Moortown, Leeds.

COVID-19, shortage of flu jabs, gas prices going through the roof, no petrol or diesel, shortage of some foods due to shortage of lorry drivers. We can cope with all this, but six hours without Facebook – devastating!

From: Peter Hyde, Driffield.

WHOEVER signed off on Russia to be the main supplier of our gas should have foreseen that we are now at Vladimir Putin’s mercy.

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