LETTERS – Future generations will be affected

Now that our departure from the EU is finalised further discussion might be considered futile as we must look to the future where we are all going to prosper mightily, or is it mightily prosper, I forget, given the barrage of hyperbole and exaggerated metaphors to which we have been subjected for years.

What can we look forward to? Assaults on the BBC, the independence of the Civil Service, the judiciary and the legal system, the NHS and gradually and insidiously, a bonfire of regulations that ensure the safety and well-being of the people and in particular those that impede ruthless profiteering so beloved of free marketeers.

I sincerely hope that I am wrong but having spent nearly half my life as part of the EU I do find it difficult to understand why we should abandon what we have now for ill-defined promises.

I was taken to task in the issue of December 10 on the question of contempt and the use of the expression “swivel eyed loons”.

I wish that I had thought up such an accurate term however may I point out that recent usage has been attributed to a senior member of the Tory party under Mr Cameron and in reference to the ERG.

If the speeches in the Commons on December 30 by those of the ERG who are now the Common Sense Group can be described as “a breath of fresh air” then heaven help us!

With regard to contempt I plead guilty.

I admit to having great contempt for some individuals or groups. Examples which spring immediately to mind are: Prime Ministers who appear to have little if any connection to truth and reality and are a living embodiment of the Peter Principle; ministers who have transgressed in some way or other but fail to resign; MPs who, whilst allegedly championing their constituents actively vote for all measures which adversely affect the poor and under privileged; MPs who take on secondary employment; ministers who give contracts or make appointments to groups or individuals whose only qualification is that they are known to the donor, I could go on.

I was asked if I was contemptuous of people who voted to leave to the EU.

I am not, they were asked to make a decision and they did so.

I do, however, strongly challenge the evidence that was presented to enable a decision to be made.

The right wing press, some for dubious motives of their own, promoted every lie put out by the Leave campaign, prominent Tories and fanatic ideologues such as Farage.

Many statements from the right were not just false but aimed to give hope to people with multiple problems, none of which had nothing to do with the EU, having been caused mostly by a Tory government.

Much of the press appealed to a crude form of nationalism, giving truth to the saying that nationalism is racism with flags.

The Remain campaign had only facts to promote and these did not prove sensational enough and the Labour party, to its shame, made things worse.

I have to accept the decision but I fear that it is not my generation that will be badly affected but that of my grandchildren and beyond.

I thank the editor for publishing my previous letters and allowing me a final say and I wonder if I might add for the benefit of Mr Beal an example of real contempt: “What is Toryism but organised spivery? … No amount of cajolery can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party … So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin.” (A Bevan 1948).

I Sloan
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