Readers' letters - August 4

I am a recently retired local GP and have spent nearly 40 years working in the NHS.

Despite its flaws, I know it to be a fantastic service which we can all rely on in our time of need.

I am therefore astonished to learn that our GP out of hours service is to be privatised.

A private company has won the contract to provide urgent care and GP out of hours care for Preston, Chorley and South Ribble.

There has been no public consultation about this.

The service is currently provided by local GPs.

It is highly respected by patients and has been rated as one of the best in the country.

I personally worked for it for many years and witnessed the dedication and commitment of the staff providing a local service for local people.

Now when you need to see a GP out of hours, it will no longer be one of your local doctors.

This is creeping privatisation of our NHS.

Do we want a quality service that people trust or an inferior service which goes to the lowest bidder?

I challenge our local MPs and anyone who values our NHS to stand up for it.

Dr Anne Allister via email

Turned down for Kyle show

Labour MPs’ arrogance and self-interest show no bounds as they continue to sell out the members and Labour voters rather than take on those on the opposite bench and their vile policies.

It’s being run like a posh boys’ debating society to defend the status quo.

They are so dysfunctional that Jeremy Kyle has turned them down for his show!

The rabble of plotting MPs now resemble the Grand Old Duke of York…marooned at top of the hill with the members at the bottom telling the MPs – not in our name.

The MPs involved have lost the plot and made themselves look very silly.

They now have a stark but clear choice.

Some may listen to members and get back in line, roll their sleeves up and do their jobs. Show loyalty and fight the Tories.

Or stand for immediate re-election and get a fresh mandate.

Or resign so we can select Labour MPs to fight the Tories and their policies. Or defect to the Tories or UKIP?

Ged Dempsey, address supplied

UKIP: Staunch Thatcherites

It came as no surprise when I caught a few minutes of Channel 4 news on Tuesday, July 26, when a reporter in Brussels reporting on the EU Referendum went into a UKIP MEP’s office, and on the wall was a picture of Thatcher.

I’ve always classed UKIP as Tory Mark 3, as Blair converted Labour to Mark 2.

Why is UKIP still here?

We’re out of a parliament they claim to detest but are still milking it for all they can.

But I always knew they were Tories and Farage a staunch Thatcherite, and look what she did to the UK.

S Ellis via email

Taking Trump more seriously

Now whether or not I support Trump in his quest for the highest office in the States is of little or no consequence, but surely a man with such a wonderful record of success in business has to be a serious contender.

I wonder how many of our 600 or more incumbents in the House of Lords have anywhere near the same experience?

Or is that a mere bagatelle?

I have nothing to say about Hillary Clinton, other than to point out find her raucous to the extreme!

Ernest Lundy 
via email

Education not prohibition

I agree with EJ Tilley highlighting shocking abortion statistics (LEP August 2). More than eight million abortions, since they were made legal in 1967, is a startling figure and work should be done to reduce numbers.

This should be done by improving sex education in schools and beyond rather than through prohibition – banning abortions would just move the problem underground rather than eradicating it.

EJ Tilley slipped into his/her letter that abortions are procedures “to kill babies”. The term may have shades of truth as an abortion can be carried out up to 24 weeks, when a foetus will be well formed and will look like a baby. But, in my opinion, to use such language is loaded with anti-abortion meaning and unhelpful. Abortions are and always should be a basic right of any woman and will happen regardless of us branding it as baby killing or not. The Oxford Dictionary definition of ‘baby’ is: A very young child, especially one newly or recently born. This definition does not cover pre-birth.

SM, Preston

Always blaming someone else

First it was C&A Stores, then Littlewoods, Woolworths and now BHS who have all given up on the High Street in Britain.

According to our politicians, this has nothing to do with the attitude of government to business. Anything which goes wrong in this country and causes thousands to lose their jobs is the fault of someone else. Should we believe a word of this?

Paul Brown, address supplied

Make voting compulsory

We seldom get as much political excitement as there is just now. Will we ever return to the famed ‘silly season’ summers when nothing important seemed to happen?

One thing I learnt was apparently just 24 percent of the electorate voted for our Tory Government. Until we do something radical, our governments will not be representative of the country.

The Aussies, who are more bolshie than us, have compulsory voting. It seems to work for them and they get 90 per cent turn-outs at general elections.

Max Nottingham via email