Readers' letters - August 24

The history of the 19th and 20th century has been a constant struggle of ordinary people through their democratically-elected governments to control big business.

Our parents and grandparents had to stop charlatans using monopolies and cartels to fix high prices for food and fuel, as well as living space, and sell us defective and dangerous goods.

Now we see central Government cutting services like the NHS, along with local government and civil service inspectors.

Public services are undermined and we are left with no protection.

Tax inspectors have virtually vanished and governments are undermined by their inability to finance themselves.

Here we have to blame Whitehall.

Call-centre tax collecting and online self assessment has failed us in every way.

Our online state with online applications for everything is no state at all, wide open to abuse and fraud.

Grenfell Tower is just one example of the many dangers we, as ordinary people, are now exposed to.

The rich are retreating to walled compounds because they know the profound dangers in cutting frontline police.

The EU was never the threat to national sovereignty.

The undermining of the idea of the need for any government was always and continues to be the threat to national sovereignty.

Nigel Boddy

via email

tribute

You certainly did well, Bruce

I was upset to read of the death of Sir Bruce Forsyth. He certainly had an absolutely wonderful life, and will be sadly missed by a lot of people, not only in the UK but throughout the world

There is one programme that will always define him in my eyes and that was in the early 1960s during the Equity actors’ strike.

This meant that the usual Sunday Night at the London Palladium would not be screened on TV.

But thanks to Bruce Forsyth and his friend Norman Wisdom, they put on the show that night.

This was perhaps one of the greatest double acts in TV history. There was no band and the cameramen that night were called scabs, along with the rest of the people and technicians who put on Sunday Night at the London Palladium.

Can I digress for one moment?

A bust of Sir Henry Wood is put on display at the Royal Albert Hall during the Proms Season, and on the last night, a garland of flowers is placed around his neck.

Could something similar be done to honour Sir Bruce Forsyth in regard to Strictly Come Dancing?

What I’d like to see is a bust of Sir Bruce be commissioned, and put on display, when the BBC put on the next series of Strictly Come Dancing.

When the finals are held on the last night, a garland of flowers could be placed around his neck and over his shoulders.

It’s the least we, the British public, could do to honour this man who has brought so much joy and happiness to countless millions over the past seven decades.

Sir Bruce, together with other presenters and the contestants, made Strictly Come Dancing the by-word in elegance and charm, and there are many countries throughout the world who have taken up the Strictly Come Dancing format.

RIP Sir Bruce, you certainly did well.

Norman Tomlinson

Lancaster

veganism

It’s a selfish

way to live

I would like to comment on Sue Lister’s letter (LP Letters, August 15). I notice all her replacements for milk cannot be sourced (i.e. grown) in this country. They have to be imported. At what cost?

Living where I do, I can look out at the green fields and neat hedgerows all the way to Pendle Hill. I sigh, “Isn’t nature wonderful”. No, it isn’t. It is the farming industry that keeps it this way. Cows and sheep crop the grass. In meadows, farmers harvest the grass for silage or hay.

Incidentally, grass is the only crop that will grow in our climate, but one that does not turn into vegetables. Milk! Without the animals the “green and pleasant land” of the hymn “Jerusalem” will be but a memory.

Witness the land at the side of the M65 which has been left to nature. It is now thick impenetrable woodland.

This will become normal for all fields. A few pets will not clear it. Also, drainage will cease if there are no farms. Low lying land will turn into swamp. Is this really what we want?

A vegan diet will mean all our food will be grown somewhere else at a cost which most families cannot afford. I find this a selfish way to live.

David Wright

via email

postal service

Royal Mail’s not yet dead

Could the message go out that the Royal Mail is not yet dead?

In the last couple of weeks, I have received letters from several large organisations that shows an email address and a telephone number but no indication whatsoever of the postal address from which they have come. This has included British Gas, BT, Lloyds Bank and H M Revenue and Customs.

One would think that a letter coming out might admit the possibility of a letter going back!

Neil Inkley

Walton-Le-Dale

television

1980s bobbies on the beat

You know life isn’t up to much when, after a busy day, all you have to look forward to are repeats of The Bill from 1984. It’s all coming back, the old-fashioned bobbies on the beat, Reg and Jim, and all the crime solved in a day. If only it was like that on the streets today. I was taken aback slightly with some of the references to certain people of colour or gender. Obviously calling people names, even on TV, wasn’t frowned upon then. We have come a long way in 33 years. Jayne Grayson

via email

parking

Why should we walk on road?

I am sick of walking around areas of Preston, Deepdale, especially, where cars and vans are fully parked on the pavements. When is the law going to be changed?

I often have children with me and we have to walk in the road. If parking is allowed, when is a pavement tax going to be launched for the millions it is costing to replace all the damage? Too many people with too many cars. Get walking, you lazy lot.

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