Letters: By neglecting pensioners, the Budget has alienated more of the Tories’ natural supporters
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
SIR – As a pensioner, I would like to thank the Chancellor for finally making up my mind about who to vote for at the next election.
There was nothing in Jeremy Hunt’s Budget (Letters, March 7) to help pensioners, who – as a result of fiscal drag – are paying more in tax with every year that passes.
Mr Hunt has forgotten where his core voters lie, and this Government has gone against traditional Conservative values, presiding over the highest tax burden in decades.
Stan Kirby
East Malling, Kent
SIR – Prior to Mr Hunt’s Budget, I – as a pensioner and lifelong Conservative voter – was preparing to be underwhelmed. I was not disappointed.
John Marsh
Sheringham, Norfolk
SIR – I don’t share other pensioners’ dissatisfaction with the Budget. We have profited from the generosity of the triple lock: a rise of almost 20 per cent over two years is superior to what most working people would ever expect.
Robin Nonhebel
Swanage, Dorset
SIR – Well done to Jeremy Hunt for finally making decisions in favour of the young. We older people are getting fed up with watching our children and grandchildren being taken to the cleaners.
Julia Sharpe
Salisbury, Wiltshire
SIR – Instead of delaying matters, Rishi Sunak should call a May or June election, put his cards on the table and set out a clear agenda. He could still pull off a surprise victory, as John Major did in 1992. Let the people decide on the merits of the Budget. All is not lost.
Dominic Shelmerdine
London SW3
SIR – When Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, is asked for her plans, I find her responses evasive.
By contrast, as Lord Lamont writes (Comment, March 7), while the Chancellor is not a magician, he does have a long-term strategy for economic recovery against a backdrop of great international uncertainty.
The choice before voters at the election would appear to be: the Conservatives, who have a credible plan, or Labour, a party with a disastrous economic record, offering little more than a promise to reveal all after winning power.
John Barker
Prestbury, Cheshire
SIR – Jeremy Hunt’s pathetic Budget will have done nothing to attract even die-hard Tories back to the fold.
We live in the most dangerous period in Europe since the Second World War, yet he has failed to ramp up defence spending. Had he done this, I would certainly have considered voting Conservative at the next election. Now, however, Reform will get my support instead.
Jo Bird
Slapton, Devon
SIR – A central duty of government is the defence of the nation. To forget this is to put our safety and prosperity in danger. We are already dropping down the ranking of defence capability within Nato.
The only defence I see in the politics of this country is our political parties attempting to defend themselves. This is unforgivable. The national interest must come first.
Major General John Stokoe
Sherborne, Dorset
SIR – I too felt that the behaviour of MPs during the Budget cast Parliament in a poor light (Letters, March 7).
It is a pantomime and needs to be sorted out.
Malcolm Allen
Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire
Hard-pressed parishes
SIR – Madeline Grant (Comment, March 6) is of course right. The Church of England is in decline, and the main reason for this is the huge burden that the combined bureaucracy of the central Church and the 42 dioceses (with their 112 bishops) is imposing on parishes.
This strain means that numerous parishes cannot meet their costs, of which the greater part is the infamous parish share paid to the dioceses. Consequently, many are being forced to close.
What is needed is a reduction in the number of dioceses, with the resultant easing of the parish share, together with a redistribution of the Church’s wealth to needy parishes, rather than it being spent on “deconstructing whiteness” officers and “reparatory justice” (Letters, March 7).
Donald R Clarke
Tunbridge Wells, Kent
SIR – Today there is little love lost between the Church of England and the Conservative Party, but they do appear to have one thing in common – a determination to repel their core supporters.
Derek Wellman
Lincoln
Passing mustard
SIR – Colman’s English mustard, like Gordon’s gin, no longer has the kick it used to have.
I use the powdered version (Letters, March 7) but mix and spread much more than in days gone by.
Christopher Burrows
Denbigh
SIR – May I suggest an even hotter recipe than mustard powder mixed with water? Use milk instead – the resulting kick is considerably bigger.
Gareth Jones
Cardiff
SIR – I suspect a lot of the talk about hot mustard is from people indulging in a spot of macho posturing.
The simple truth is that, rather than enhancing the flavour of whatever you are eating, Colman’s mustard is so hot that it masks it completely. This makes it an ideal accompaniment for roast turkey.
Vincent Hearne
Chinon, Val de Loire, France
SIR – Has anybody encountered English mustard labelled as such when dining in Scotland?
For many years I have only ever been offered “yellow mustard”.
Paul May
Woldingham, Surrey
Beating burglary
SIR – In 1966 I was a detective sergeant in the Metropolitan Police criminal investigation department, stationed at Borehamwood, London.
Our clear-up rate for burglary (Letters, March 6) never fell below 24 per cent and in some months exceeded 100 per cent, as a result of a persistent burglar being arrested and confessing to previous offences, which led to more crimes being solved that month than had been reported. Our success was based on good local knowledge.
K L Davies
Stanmore, Middlesex
SIR – Sixty-five years ago, when I was living in Oxford, my bicycle was stolen. The next day, however, it was returned.
How times have changed. I never used a padlock either.
Elizabeth FitzGibbon
Burghead, Morayshire
National Trust charges
SIR– Like Jonathan Yardley (Letters, March 4), my wife and I, both keen gardeners, have visited Overbeck’s – the National Trust house and gardens near Salcombe – almost every year since 1976.
No more. As non-members, it now costs us £6 to park our car and £17 to enter, with reduced facilities available. Hatfield Forest, my local National Trust property, charges £8 for parking even if I just want to walk the dog for 20 minutes, so I park elsewhere.
Lord Sumption and others have highlighted how the Trust has lost its focus, and I see no evidence that it has connected this with its diminishing popularity.
Martin Henry
Good Easter, Essex
SIR – In the 1960s, working with the Youth Hostel Association, the National Trust opened some of its properties for adventure holidays, which included activities such as pony trekking. I had two weeks at Overbeck’s, living in the house and learning to dive in Salcombe estuary – an education for a young lad from Birmingham.
Steve Mills
Guildford, Surrey
Safe passage for toads
SIR – As regards the unfortunate squashing of migrating frogs and toads (Letters, March 7), a “toad tunnel” was dug under the main road between Henley and Marlow, so that they could access the Thames safely.
Stephanie Stevenson
St Martin, Guernsey
When Canary Wharf was at the cutting edge
SIR – I was saddened to read Lucy Burton’s description of Canary Wharf (“Banks are bailing out of soulless Canary Wharf – and who can blame them?”, Comment, March 5). If this is true – and the extra funding for the area in the Budget doesn’t make a difference – it really is the end of an era.
When I was a young boy in the 1990s, one of the coolest programmes on television was the BBC’s spy adventure series Bugs. Much of it was filmed around the then newly regenerated Docklands and Canary Wharf area, and its gleaming bridges and towers bedazzled me. When combined with the hi-tech, computer-hacker capers of the show, the very pavements seemed to pulse with excitement as a brilliant vision of the future.
That charge may have depleted over the decades, but – to me – Canary Wharf has always had a strong character and vivid soul.
Robert Frazer
Salford, Lancashire
Cross-party complicity in the NHS’s downfall
SIR – I agree with James Bartholomew (telegraph.co.uk, March 6) – the NHS is now a national disgrace.
When I was a GP in the 1970s, we saw every patient on the same day or the next. If they could not get to the practice we visited them – even at night, and on weekends and bank holidays. If we suspected that a patient had cancer, we could arrange for them to be seen by a consultant within days. Patients received personal, continuous care. It was stressful but satisfying, for both the patient and the doctor.
This has all been destroyed by successive governments, who have put managers rather than clinicians in control of patient care, and form-filling before medical expertise. I do not have an answer to this problem – but at my age, I may not be around too long to suffer under a failed system.
Dr Peter I Vardy
Runcorn, Cheshire
SIR – My mother, who is 90, was in hospital for a week with a kidney infection, then cleared for discharge. (Let’s skirt over the 24 hours she spent on a trolley waiting to be seen, or 12 hours waiting for an ambulance.) When she finally left, she asked for the pills that she had taken with her, but was told this was not allowed. She came home in an ambulance – followed by a taxi, which brought her pills. Reason? Cost?
Geoff Greatorex
Freshwater, Isle of Wight
SIR – When my wife and I visit Australia, we see a specialist to check for cancers. We arrived last Friday; my wife had an appointment and some on-the-spot treatment on Tuesday, with a follow-up appointment yesterday. Yes, it costs a little money, but it’s done immediately.
Ted Franke
Wexham, Buckinghamshire
Letters to the Editor
We accept letters by email and post. Please include name, address, work and home telephone numbers.
ADDRESS: 111 Buckingham Palace Road, London, SW1W 0DT
EMAIL: dtletters@telegraph.co.uk
FOLLOW: Telegraph Letters on Twitter @LettersDesk
NEWSLETTER: sign up to receive Letters to the Editor here
