'Joke of a pension rise just isn’t funny'

You may recall that, last week, I had a moan about the BBC trying to cancel the free TV licence for the over 75s (LP February 12).
What do you think of the state pension?What do you think of the state pension?
What do you think of the state pension?

Of course, I am part of that.

This week’s moan is on a different thing completely.

The postman dropped a brown envelope through the door, and it was from those nice people in Belfast, The Pension Service.

It was indeed notification that my pension had rocketed up by nearly £5!

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So obviously I wasn’t planning anything spectacular at that moment, until I saw the biggie at the bottom of the page that announced that, because I would soon be 80, I would receive a further 25 pence a week!

I remembered then about my late friend Colin Brewer appearing in print when this happened to him years ago.

I honestly believed that the bandits in Westminster had stopped this.

I don’t wish to sound ungrateful (yes, I do ) but it must cost much more to pay this than it’s worth.

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I always believed I had a good sense of humour. I don’t think its going to last.

Allan Fazackerley

via email

politics

Shakespeare’s take on Brexit

So, Anna Soubry, pictured, Sarah Wollaston and Heidi Allen, have decided to switch their loyalties to a new party. Hmm, could that be to the ‘Conversatives’?

Now remember your lines ladies: “When shall we three meet again, In thunder, lightning or in rain ... or possibly the next day in the House of Commons but now on the opposite benches”.

Then we have Macbeth say, “This supernatural soliciting cannot be ill; cannot be good.”

Hmm, sounds to me like the Brexit negotiations!

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There again, Macbeth also says, “If it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well it were done quickly.”

Now MPs, it’s taken two years and you are still arguing. Mark this well, oh ye MPs. Just for crying out loud, get on with it.

This uncertainty is just killing industry - industry we will need if we are to succeed post-Brexit.

Stop all your bickering and remember your manifestos in which all agreed that you would support the decision of the nation i.e. to leave the EU.

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Yet here are some of you looking like you are buttering up the EU into giving you a well-paid job by trying to score your little point here and there.

Give some of you lot a dagger and we’ll have the combination of Macbeth and Julius Caesar with Theresa May as your victim.

Et tu Boris, sorry, Brute? Also, beware the Ides of March ... plus a few more days!

And finally in a slightly different form to that which Brutus spake, “Not that I lov’d the EU less, but that I lov’d the UK more!”

But parting is such sweet sorrow!

Neil Swindlehurst

Walmer Bridge

energy

Take advice

of experts

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So when it comes to fracking, who would you choose to believe? The rants of a loud and noisy minority - or the expert views of 50 geo-scientists? I welcome the academics’ call on the Government to review the earthquake limits for fracking sites, in order to allow the industry to grow in the UK. They say that the existing “traffic light” system, which suspends fracking if it produces earthquakes above the 0.5magnititude limit, is “extremely conservative” – and far below the levels set in other countries, or for other comparable industries in the UK, such as quarrying.

Of course, no one wants their property damaged by tremors or for the wells to become damaged, but there have been no such problems at the Cuadrilla site in Preston New Road, with the largest tremor recorded being a 1.5 ML tremor. In the US, which has a far more developed fracking industry, the limits are set between 2.7 and 4.5 depending on the site.

Surely the Government has a duty to deliver on its commitment to review the existing limit – as was agreed after consultation with the industry at the very outset.

The anti-brigade argue that the limit should remain for all the wrong reasons.

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Ministers should take the advice of experts to decide a more appropriate limit that is still safe but that also facilitates more effective fracking.

Steve Mellor

Lytham Resident

POLITICS

Country first

Re: Three MPs have left the Tory party. Good on them! These MPs have put country over party, evidence over dogma, national interest over personal.

Tom Henry via email