Dear Editor, The Budget is giving the over-60s a £50 increase in winter fuel payment and the over-80s, a £100 increase. This is far from adaquate and an indictment of just how badly we treat our elderly people in this country.
The nationalisation of Northern Rock by the Government has proved that they can find money when they want to.
Pensioners are being treated like second-class citizens, having to rely on a meagre state pension and means-tested handouts following 30, 40 or 50 years of work, during which they funded the system for a thoroughly adequate basic state retirement pension.
This generation's rights are being swept under the carpet by the severe lack of coverage by the television media.
Consequently, leading MPs are not being challenged half as much as they should be. The BBC should let pensioners ask the questions, and not their pundits who are merely media puppets.
The BBC should drop its "political impartiality", stand in the pensioners' corner and fight for their rights to dignity in retirement, in state care, in state pensions, health, and community care.
It is this generation which fought for all of us. Rather than ignore their plight, we should be helping. It is now our duty to fight for them, to help them.
Our MPs must be challenged. They must be reminded of the contributions people who have now retired have made to this country, to provide adequate state pensions for their own generation when they were working, to provide money to run our NHS, to provide money to pay for the free education of our MPs, and to found the prosperity of the whole country.
This is the language that must be used by the television pundits because our MPs treat our elderly people as a nuisance, surplus to requirements, and a burden to society as a whole.
The TV media run this country because, as a nation, we are largely apathetic to other people's needs. We are largely a politically docile nation.
If what is happening to Britain's 12 million elderly people was happening in other EU countries, it would not last five minutes, let alone almost 30 years.
I am ashamed to be British because of the way we treat our elderly people, and this recent business with the elderly man, Jack Tagg, who is losing his sight for want of an operation, is just the tip of a very nasty iceberg.
I thank God for Mr Tagg's doctor, Martin Wrankin. His words on the BBC news, about also being ashamed to be British, hit home, because he was right.
This generation has given us everything and yet, from the top down, we fundamentally ignore them. Jack Tagg's situation is fortunate because at least he has a house he can sell.
What about those pensioners in Mr Tagg's same situation [2014] those who live in rented accommodation, who have no assets to fall back on?
This New Labour Government is a disgrace. They should not be allowed to continue running this country under the banner of a "Labour" Government.
Traditional Labour was the architect of the welfare state, of the NHS, of community care, of upholding the state pension without means-testing but by linking state pensions directly to national prosperity through the earnings link.
But New Labour has reneged on everything traditional Labour stood for.
I hope that the BBC TV media responds to this because Britain's elderly people are being treated like everybody else in the name of media impartiality, and they should not be treated like everybody else because our pensioners are a special case.
I would ask just what kind of nation are we to treat our elderly people like this?
It is not about cost; it is about attitude. The money is there, but why the attitude?
Why isn't old age in Britain revered?
MICHAEL THOMPSON
By email
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Legal plight of pensioners after 999 call
Dear Editor, A recent incident in Louth, Lincolnshire, has caused alarm in pensioner households.
Two elderly pensioners, married, had cause to call an ambulance because the wife was having an angina attack.
Two ambulance men were soon on scene. They entered the house, while one left to collect a stretcher. On his return, the security light failed and the ambulanceman fell and damaged his ankle.
Two further ambulances were called [2014] one took the elderly lady to hospital and the other transported the injured ambulanceman to a second hospital.
Some two months later, the elderly couple received a letter from a firm of solicitors representing the injured ambulanceman, who were seeking damages for the injuries.
This was due to the security light failing and the fact that the ambulanceman was not covered by insurance because he was injured outside the ambulance.
He has not sought the help of his local authority but was carrying out his claim on the advice of his union.
As I understand it, owners and tenants without a public liability insurance could be in a difficult position. Whether the insurance cover for Lincolnshire ambulancemen is the same throughout the UK I do not know, but I intend to find out.
JOHN MELLOR
National Pensioners Convention, Wolverhampton
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Smothering our traditions and freedoms
Dear Editor, MP David Davis is an extremely courageous and truthful man who wrote a letter to the press stating facts about excessive immigration.
Smouldering anger and whispering having taken place for many years among the indigenous population of the UK regarding the overwhelming presence of illegal and legal immigrants swamping our country.
Mr Davis put words to those feelings.
Immigration over the centuries has been good for this country, but we must remember that England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland collectively can fit 72 times into the joint countries of India and Pakistan.
With the current freedom of access for European immigrants, our small nation is rapidly being smothered to death.
Due to our own Government's inefficiency and stupidity, places like Birmingham, Bradford, Leicester and Peterborough have lost many of their British traditions because local councillors are scared stiff of the Racial Discrimination Act.
The late Edward Heath, of course, had a lot to answer for when he sold us down the river and fraudulently took us into the Common Market.
We are now owned, lock, stock and barrel by a totalitarian regime run by Germany and France.
Our small land harbours people of many faiths [2014]Christian, Scientologist, Jewish, Muslim, Buddist, Hindu, Sikh and so on [2014] who are all under the protection of a just and fair law devised by the people of this land, The Magna Carta.
The essence of this law has since been emulated by civilised countries throughout the world.
Why should our taxpayers support the wives and children of Polish workers in Britain through our benefits system?
Surely that should be the responsibility of their own Polish government.
So many times I have heard builders and their workmen complaining about the pettiness of some of the health and safety laws.
Many are absolutely necessary, but must a qualified electrician be brought to a site to change a lightbulb?
Most EU directives are over the top and idiotic... and worst of all is the political correctness farce, plus of course, yards of red tape.
Our culture, our traditions, our freedom (due to CCTV), our police, our Army, Navy, air force, our children's education, our country and our national pride are being disintegrated into nothingness.
Wake up Britain.
JUNE ALEXANDER
Ross-on-Wye
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No middle ground in Iraq war of words
Dear Editor, reflecting on your coverage of the March 15 anti-war march in London, it seems to me that it was pseudo-liberal balance at its finest.
That is, setting a well-made case against a poorly-made case (Clegg leads call for troops to be pulled out of Iraq / Lessons in life for Jason, the oldest sapper in Iraq, Post March 17).
To balance-up a well-written column about opposition to the Iraq war [2014] by Joe Churcher and Daniel Bentley, who led with Nick Clegg's ringing denunciation of the US/UK position [2014] we were then expected to plough through a long piece about a teacher who had "thrown himself into the war zone" at 33.
Why had he done this? Sapper Watson's only justification for joining a war that the UN Secretary General condemned as illegal (and which makes Blair and Brown and their cohorts prima facie war criminals) is that his father and grandfather were soldiers too.
Has he never sought to reach a genuinely balanced presentation of opposing views, as teachers are required to do in line with the 1996 Education Act, Section 406?
If he had, he might then have found that Blair and Bush are entirely discredited, and that between them and Nick Clegg there is no middle ground.
PHIL BRAITHWAITE
Kings Heath
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Seeing red over green snub for Jaguar
Dear Editor, As a nation, we are increasingly used to the contempt with which Labour treats us, but we in the Midlands seem to suffer more than most and the recent decision by our illustrious leaders to ditch Jaguar and Range Rover in favour of Toyotas is yet another sign of their disregard.
The use of prestigious British marques by our politicians and dignitaries has always served [2014] not only to get them about [2014] but also to promote British manufacturing and engineering on across the globe.
Both these makes are made in the Midlands and many jobs in the Midlands depend on the success of both of them.
Yet here we have a government switching to Toyota because they think it's the green thing to do.
Jaguar and Land Rover have spent millions on developing cleaner engines, and instead of ditching them the Government should be promoting them even more in recognition of their drive to produce cleaner and greener cars.
All our local Labour MPs should hang their heads in shame over their failure to oppose this decision.
I believe that Richard Burden in particular, as chair of the All Party Motor Group, should explain to us why his party are yet again putting local jobs at risk by not backing our local automotive manufacturers.
No doubt we will get the usual spin.
KEN WOOD
Longbridge Conservatives
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Fuming over lack of support
Dear Editor, Toyota Pious should be the new name for all Government cars, as set out in your front page story of March 20.
My firm offers engine conversions at fraction of the cost of a new car and the converted engine fully complies with Euro Four emissions standards. It is a struggle to get either grants or loans under many apparently Government-backed schemes.
Here is a chance to show positive support for a Midlands-based, environmentally-friendly company, but [2014] other than Lord Jones [2014] it is, as usual, ignored by a Labour Government whose deafness can only be put down to the inefficient NHS it continues to promote.
STEVE MILLS
Clean Fuel Systems
