Letters to the Fenland Citizen editor: February 17, 2021
Attitude of Tesco is disgusting
Like a number of your readers,we have encountered the rather ignorant door staff at Tesco in Wisbech.
Although my wife is severely sight-handicapped through AMD (age-related macular degeneration), we were refused entry.
One of those unpleasant people even told us to go to Asda (unbelievable!). In the event, we crossed over to Morrisons and the difference was remarkable.
There was no hassle on entry and there was help and assistance in store, so we filled our trolley and more at rather less than we would pay at Tesco.
So maybe they did us a favour – after all, “Every little helps”!
Regarding Tesco, their attitude towards the elderly and handicapped and carers is quite disgusting.
COVID or not, they are no longer worth dealing with.
Mr N Sennett
Wisbech
Money being spent in all the wrong places
On the front page of the February 3 edition of the Citizen there is the heart warming piece about Harry Barnard who has raised money towards an outdoor classroom for his school, St Peter’s, Wisbech.
As this generation of children are our future, it’s a pity that such fundraising has to occur and if there is a need why isn’t this money allocated from the education budget (local or national).
Contrasting with this are two articles in the same edition. One, £400,000 funding, a feasibility study, to deal with bad parking.
I rarely venture into March or Wisbech, but the last time I was in Wisbech’s Market place, there were cars parked in all places, even in loading bay areas.
There used to be people called traffic wardens , and they certainly recognised bad parking. Do we really need £400,000 spent on this?
Then there is another article, again the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority, in its largesse, is giving Wisbech Town Council £20,000 for measuring footfall in the town and has been described as a “rough guide” and can not be used as “an accurate picture” .
How much money would they need to establish a true picture one wonders?
When is this proposed study to take place , during a pandemic when there is less footfall or when lockdown restrictions are lifted?
Though to be honest I cannot imagine people flooding back to the town. Presumably the positions of footfall counters will be widely advertised to select the most suitable candidates and a rigorous interview process to match?
Donald Hardcastle
Upwell
We must fight to sweep out profiteers
Eddie King (Readers’ View, 3 February) is being a bit harsh in his criticism of our NHS.
I suggest Mr King tries living in the USA where 48 million people don’t have health insurance, and another 50 million have limited cover.
The biggest causes of personal bankruptcies in the USA are unpaid medical bills.
Whilst Boris Johnson claims credit for the mass COVID-19 vaccination programme, real credit should go to our NHS and the people who work in it.
How is it that the UK has managed to lead the way with vaccinations?
Put simply, as expressed in an article in the Financial Times: “The success is because of a combination of strong planning, a willingness to spend and the centralised structure of the NHS.”
All this goes to prove what the apologists of capitalists have always desperately tried to deny: the planning of production and distribution is far more efficient than the profit-driven market.
This, in turn, requires public ownership. After all, you cannot plan what you don’t control; and you cannot control what you don’t own.
As Mr King implies in his letter – we must fight to sweep the profiteers out of our healthcare system.
This means bringing all services and staff back in-house, reversing privatisations, ending outsourcing, expropriating private health providers, and nationalising Big Pharma.
Only with a socialist planned economy – with all the key levers under democratic workers’ control – can we fully fund the NHS and put lives before profit.
John Smithee
Wisbech
Traders still using it for storage
Fenland District Council says it is against charging to park in its car parks.
Well, if they did this would prevent the problem here in Chatteris car park in Furrowfields Road, which is used for car storage by traders.
The council has been aware of this ongoing problem for some length of time but
chooses in main to ignore it.
We have been advised on several occasions this is being monitored by the street scene team, yet still nothing gets done.
Charging to park in the car parks will stop this or at least bring in funds to the council.
Make it free parking for two hours, then charge a fee after that.
Fenland, like other councils, says it has no funds to do things, so get out there and and bring money into the town.
We should always remember car parks are tax payer-owned. It seems to
myself that Fenland and indeed local councillors need to get out more and while
doing so notice how the town could do with looking like a town.
If you want a tea and cake, haircut or estate agent you are okay... but we don’t even have a DIY store or shops that sell shoes or clothes.
The council must move into modern times before the town is finished.
Geoffrey Taylor
via email
It is not fair to lay all the blame on PM
To blame (prime minister) Boris (Johnson) for the horrific death-toll is like blaming a passenger on the Titanic for the ship sinking – the wheels for the tragic loss of lives were set in motion long before any PM stepped aboard.
There have been many mistakes that have led us to grieving over 100,000 lives lost, but Boris Johnson has learned so much in 14 months as Prime Minister.
He has taken his fair share of the blame for the second wave, but what of the others?
The MPs that forced him to release the first lockdown too early for the sake of the economy, and the children’s ‘lost three months’ of education?
Or the scientists that broke the rules by visiting their second homes, or having their lover travel around London for a trust, the footballers and celebrities that flouted the restrictions, stupidly encouraging others to do the same?
How about all those that went abroad for non-essential purposes, (i.e holidays in Dubai, so they could be photographed as an influencer), or those that flocked to the beaches, maskless and without a care about social distancing?
As soon as Eat Out to Help Out was up and running, they weren’t, they were just driving and visiting eateries and other venues, purely in the name of a few mouthfuls of cheap grub.
The same as when the pubs opened, they were there in their droves, just as when drinking establishments closures were forced, the revellers took the chance for ‘one last blow-out,’ but how many ‘last blow-out’s’ have they had in the last 10 months?
The maskless, venomous, frothing and spitting BLM protesters, the anti-virus, anti-mask, anti-vaccine protests.
Ashley Smith
March
It would be the House of Tories
Is it true the Tory Party is considering gerrymandering (manipulating the electoral boundaries) Cambridgeshire a second time in the last 10 years.
Not content with changing the constituency boundary to pick up valuable sure votes, they now propose to break up Cambridgeshire and create smaller individual constituencies and promote the more reliable old boys into the new roles as MPs.
Are they concerned about losing this Cambridgeshire sure seat over a public enquiry over the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, or Brexit?
I always thought the Tory Party wanted to create a smaller state with less public sector involvement.
So clearly the new town constituencies plan means our MP Stephen Barclay for the town of March, MP David Connor for Doddington, and no guesses for who would be put forward as the MP of Chatteris.
I suppose if such an experiment proved successful at the Tory testing grounds called Cambridgeshire, it would then be rolled out across the UK.
It just concerns me that each new MP and their secretary would push taxation up again.
Then, if it was rolled out across the UK, this toffs job creation scheme could cost tax payers millions, while the unskilled, unemployed working class numbers four million.
Obviously it would create a great advantage in the House of Commons as all the Labour Party , SNP etc would be evicted to make space for the new majority , the House of Conservatives.
Mark Burton
Chatteris
EDITOR: There is no recent progress on plans for boundary changes that I am aware of.
