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NEWBURY NEWS LETTERS

Thursday, April 16, 2020 15

Newbury Weekly News

Your views POST : Newspaper House, Faraday Road, Newbury, RG14 2AD EMAIL editor@newburynews.co.uk talk to us Email letters to editor@newburynews.co.uk with your full name, a terrestrial address and daytime phone number. DEADLINE: MONDAY NOON

Pet of the Week

your letters page – to find loopholes in a measure announced by a hard- pressed Government and implemented by a stretched police force were politely answered by some precise, legal clarifications. What part of “stay at home” do these dissenters not understand? One wonders if, in the early 1940s, their predecessors were writing to the papers telling Churchill how he had got things all wrong and lecturing him on what he really should be doing to defeat Hitler. I WANT to pay tribute to Newbury council for the extra effort they are putting in to help us all Thanks to Steve for checking on boaters Bravo, Mr Wood. EDWARD ORR Newbury

Instead of paying back debt,oTries raised it WHILST we are in the midst of the coronavirus (C), I wonder if we could perhaps look back on austerity (A) and Brexit (B)? In politics it’s often about what you don’t hear rather than what you do, so given the sacrifices of the people of Newbury over austerity how far has the debt gone down in the last 10 years? Not in cash terms but as a percentage of debt to GDP – well it hasn’t. The Government may have preached austerity, but they have risen the percentage of debt to GDP from 69 per cent in March 2010 to 84 per cent in 2019. This is why Alan Law or Richard Benyon don’t write to the NWN saying how well the Government has done on cutting the deficit. Instead of paying back the debts, they have raised it. So let’s look at Brexit shall we? The biggest payments to the UK were from the CAP and big estates like Englefield received eye-watering amounts of money. The last figures I had for the Englefield Estates showed an EU go wrong for me, it wouldn’t be long before Steve found out and helped me. JENNY MAXWELL Newbury

subsidy of over £440,000. In 2018, the UK Government pledged to maintain this subsidy to 2022, but have since backtracked with English farmers facing cuts of up to 25 per cent. So large estates like Englefield will see reductions. As for the coronavirus, people may have seen the Government has waived billions of pounds in repayments from the NHS – very headline grabbing – but it is really the Government waiving its own debt. Eye-catching, but that’s about it. Laura Farris will tell you very proudly that we have never spent more on the NHS. The reality is that in 2015 David Cameron set in force a phased reduction in spending that meant the NHS budget as a percentage of GDP would reduce. A friend of mine has a daughter who is newly qualified, earning £25,000 a year from the NHS with ‘eye- watering levels of debt’ and working all hours. We know that the levels of protection afforded NHS staff are like the supplies of ventilators – insufficient. Maybe if the Government had taken on board the results of Operation Cygnus we would not be in this mess. Now my point is that Johnson and Co campaigned to leave the EU to spend money on the NHS, so why should we pay money to wealthy landowners to run their big estates whilst the spending on the NHS as a percentage

is at its lowest level since 1951? Maybe we should waive the student debt of our NHS workers instead of giving it to wealthy landowners? Going back to my friend’s daughter, not only is she landed with huge piles of student debt but her generation will actually be paying for the tax cuts of this Government, whilst the older generation face the cuts in the NHS It does seem to me the wheels of the bus for the Tory Party’s twin obsessions of cutting tax and deregulation are coming off. But we shouldn’t mention buses, particularly ones with £350m written on the side. IAN HALL Ashampstead PS I see MPs working from home have given themselves an extra £10,000 for the privilege Shame we don’t spend that sort of money on the NHS instead? At the same time I learn that three nurses have tested positive for the coronavirus, their protection bin liners cut into makeshift aprons. In 2017 Jeremy Corbyn proposed a slight additional increase of one per cent for NHS workers. This was defeated by the Tories who loudly jeered him, the same MPs who are now cheering NHS workers. The same workers they blocked a modest pay rise for. Have they no sense of shame or decency? Or don’t they teach that in good public schools?

Name: Smudge Owner: Christopher Naish From: Wantage Likes/dislikes: Smudge is an idle cat who was a stray Christopher took in. As you may observe, his favourite pastime is sleeping, but when he’s not doing that he also enjoys eating and patrolling his territory when he’s awake. Would you like to nominate your pet as our Pet of the Week? Just send a nice picture with your pet’s name, breed, your name, where you’re from and your pet’s likes and dislikes to: editor@ newburynews.co.uk

through this difficult time. In particular, as a boater moored at West Mills, I’d like to mention councillor Steve Masters,

pictured , who checks on the boats at least once every two days to make sure we are all managing. I am on my own and it is reassuring to know that, if something were to

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INSIDE: A colour-in rainbow page to thank our wonderful NHS staff

See page 8

TOGETHER WE’LL BEAT CORONAVIRUS

Confusion as police stop people driving for walks

Woman drove five times the limit ‘to visit a friend’ A DRINK-driver has been charged for flouting new restriction of movement rules. Officers from Newbury arrested the woman, aged in her 20s, on suspicion of drink-driving on Saturday. Tests showed that she was five times the legal limit. Posting on social media, Thames Valley Police said the woman told offi- cers that she was driving to visit a friend

Force chiefs are told motorists should not be punished for driving reasonable distance to exercise