“We are, in effect, a colony of international big business and foreign wealth”
Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher(Image: PA)
The latest reader letters in our sister print title The Herald discuss safeguarding the countryside and… the general state of the country.
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A country no longer worth fighting for?
Lord George Robertson, the former Labour Defence Secretary and ex-Nato Secretary General, says Britain is undefended after years of mostly Tory mismanagement of the economy, defence cuts and an ever-rising welfare bill.
The question I pose is, if a foreign invader took over, what difference would it make to most people’s lives?
When Thatcher basically sold off the country cheap, it was snapped up by foreign enterprise who couldn’t believe their luck.
Now just about everything in the UK, our power, our utilities, our manufacturing and large swathes of our land is owned by foreign entities. We are already, in effect, a colony of international big business and foreign wealth.
Why would anyone risk their lives fighting for the benefit of some foreign corporation, billionaire or their lap dogs in Westminster? Those who would be the ones most likely to lose their cushy lifestyles and hefty pensions, should an invader arrive on our shores?
There are millions of people stuck in the poverty trap with the system rigged against them and no way out, no matter how hard they work.
They have become reliant on dignity-destroying state handouts because wages are so poor, handouts paid by those in power using our taxes, not the rich, who never pay their share, to stop them from revolting against the well-to-do elite.
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If this country is invaded, why would the “no hope” underclass, the usual recruiting grounds for the armed forces, risk themselves for the status quo, so that the smug, self satisfied land-owners and rich can lay safe abed at night?
When Thatcher said, in her small-minded, little England way, demonstrating her ingratitude to those who gave their lives in the Falklands which kept her in power, “there is no such thing as society, only people looking after their own interests”, in an instant, dying in defence of one’s country became a meaningless sacrifice.
When this country becomes ours again, then it might be worth defending. A time when people feel a part of something bigger than themselves instead of the Thatcheristic “me, me, me, I, I, I”, the cold, frosty empire of the one.
The feckless, self-interested politicians of the last four decades, and more, all continued this Thatcherite theme, even Blair. The Tories were the biggest danger to England since Napoleon and they have ruined us by their selfish actions as they unwittingly became Russia’s fifth column, hollowing out our once great nation behind the smokescreen of their flag-waving, while the recently emerged mercenaries of Reform, like treacherous allies of old, wait to see which side will win in the battle before rushing to join the victors, be it Putin or Trump.
My father, a strong patriot, which he imbued in me, fought in three wars for his country. World War Two, where he landed on D-Day and saw all his mates killed; Korea, in the Marines as a gunner on HMS Illustrious; and finally, while in the RAF, a year on deployment, on Masirah Island, in the Arabian Sea, a part of the “secret war” in Oman.
In 1966, he came back home and was informed by the MoD that, as the rules on discontinuous service had recently changed, he would now no longer receive a pension and gratuity. Under the Heath government of 1970, we were thrown out of the family married quarters and on to the street. So much for thanks from a grateful nation.
Maybe when the rich start paying their way, when England has a more equal distribution of wealth and opportunity, when we get rid of the self-serving, the febrile apologists, the confidence-sapping wokery and deniers of what we once were; until then, under threat of war, I’ll be telling my kids, fight for yourself if you need to, not for your country, it has lost that privilege.
Paul Whiteley
Our countryside has to be safeguarded
Hilary McGrady, Director General of the National Trust, tells us that our governments have failed miserably in keeping to the strict rules of wildlife protection, and this Government is one of the worst.
On behalf of all our struggling Wildlife Trusts and specific groups of certain animals, butterflies, birds, bees, fish, fauna and flora, sea and rivers, weather and temperatures, Ms McGrady implores every one of us to approach our governing bodies about the shame of letting our country, which not so long ago was well known for the protection and the retention of our natural world, now become one of the worst countries in the world for the rapid loss of this vital part of our country’s health and existence.
This campaign by the National Trust aims to confront our present Government with its serious disobeying of protective laws for all nature in the country.
The provision of proper help must return for farmers and others. The frightening increase in sickness in young people due to pollution and decimation of trees and green spaces gets worse.
So let us insist our present Government and all local governments stop hiding behind this uncontrolled and lax excuse for ruining our beautiful countryside with the excuses of housing and road building.
The decimation of trees and wild places, the wicked pollution of rivers and seas, is horrendous.
Mary Truell