Readers' letters - December 21

Is there too much litter on our streets?

Having just retired from the day job, I’ve reintroduced myself to the pleasures of taking a daily walk to blow off the cobwebs.

What has struck me is the total impossibility to walk more than 10 yards without encountering a discarded drinks container.

Plastic and aluminium have become the defining scourge of 21st century living.

My daily trek is blighted by the overabundance of waste plastic and aluminium.

It staggers me to contemplate how we have allowed our cityscapes and woodlands to be turned into landfill sites by a mindless generation that cares nothing for its surroundings.

The beau monde – being attuned to the spirit of the times – reacts in horror when Saint David (Attenborough) expounds the folly of filling our oceans with a tide of plastic waste.

Do they not perceive the obvious connection that nothing enters the oceans without having first been strewn around the cities and this discarded waste proceeds along the waterways which spill out into those oceans?

To stem this repulsive tide, the government has but a single option: to set a date from which the sale of soft drinks in units of less than two litres will be banned, unless sold in 100 per cent bio-degradable containers.

Neville Martin

via email

waste

Unwanted surprise

I had an unwanted Christmas surprise a few days ago, courtesy of South Ribble Borough Council.

It was a leaflet informing me that I will have to pay an extra £30 charge on top of my yearly council tax bill to use the brown bin from April 2018.

There is nothing like paying twice for the same service.

It would seem Scrooge is alive and well at South Ribble BC this Christmas.

Is this extra charge just the tip of the iceberg?

What next? Charging for blue and green bins?

Before we know it, we’ll be snowed under with all these extra charges.

South Ribble Council leader Coun Mullineaux blamed Lancashire County Council for withdrawing their £1m cost-sharing agreement due to Government cut backs. He went on to say “we unfortunately face no other option than to introduce these extra charges”.

So that’s a Tory-run borough council blaming a Tory- run county council, who will no doubt blame the Tory Government for all these cutbacks and extra charges.

David Cameron was right when he said “us Tories are all in it together”

And a Merry Christmas to you as well (not).

I S Houghton

Much Hoole

brexit

MPs elected to serve voters

Looking at the most recent parliamentary Brexit discussions, MPs (across all political parties) who are opposed to Brexit are still doing their utmost to undermine the Government’s negotiations in trying to achieve a mutually agreeable Brexit for both the UK and the EU.

I am not a political scholar but my understanding is that, in the UK, the purpose of Parliament and its elected MPs is to serve and they are subordinate to the democratic will of the people.

People like myself who voted to leave the EU voted to regain our sovereignty and control of our money laws and borders. We voted to restore UK Parliamentary democracy that serves the national interest and is subordinate to the will of its citizens. Whilst the anti-Brexit MPs, across all the political parties, are perfectly entitled to express their views, their actions reveal that they believe the will of the people is subordinate to the will of MPs.

If constitutionally they are correct, then what was the point of having a referendum? And just as pertinent, this indicates that our parliamentary system is not fit for purpose!

Mike Gleeson

Fulwood

brexit

Leave behind futile arguments

The comments of Labour’s Rebecca Long-Bailey, pictured, on BBC’s Question Time must surely help to put the final pieces of the jigsaw in place for those still forlornly campaigning to defeat Brexit. The Shadow Business Secretary re-stated that Labour does not favour holding a further referendum on Brexit.

This means there will not be one, as was already obvious to those giving the matter serious consideration.

It would be nice to think that, as the old year moves to a close, we could leave behind the futile arguments over whether Brexit is going to happen and instead have a constructive debate about the best way of ensuring that our democracy is fully restored to us, without the long arm of the EU prejudicing our right to rule ourselves.

Thomas Jefferson

via email