OPINION: Letters to the editor of the Newbury Weekly News
The Law of Reversed Effect, Lib Dem style
The Law of Reversed Effect. Quick wins or quick losses?
For the next few weeks the Lib Dem council is applying what it imaginatively calls ‘quick wins’ to Faraday Road. Allegedly to enhance its chances of attracting developers. Personally, I don’t think developers are that easily fooled.
These ‘quick wins’ turn out to be planting a few shrubs and trees in the car parking spaces along Faraday Road, called rain gardens.
This represents a loss of around 50 per cent of the parking spaces used by workers, the loss of revenue from these spaces and the loss of £315,000 grant money paid by taxpayers.
So there you have it, quick wins turning into quick losses and a perfect demonstration of the Law of Reversed Effect arising from a lack of forward planning
John Gotelee
London Road, Newbury
Only England and Belarus don’t have PR
I read the letters in last week’s NWN with interest , firstly we have Paul Foster’s assertion that PR “allows niche parties to gain influence greater than they deserve”.
In the 2019 election the Conservatives got 43.6 per cent of the vote and just ignored the other 56 per cent who didn’t vote for them.
We then had Chris Austin’s assertion that if Reform and the Conservative vote had been taken together they would have formed a coalition government under PR – the Conservatives had 24 per cent of the vote and Reform had 12 per cent.
In other words 36 per cent of the country were entitled to govern.
When Judith Bunting was elected as MEP it was under PR and for South East England.
The only European countries that do not have PR in their democratic systems are Belarus and England.
Why do I say England and Belarus, and not the UK and Belarus? Simple, because the three other parliaments in the UK all use PR.
England proudly stands with Belarus against PR against this tide of democracy. If it was good enough in the 17th century it’s good enough now.
Ian Hall
Ashampstead
Elections in UK need fair a voting system
West Berkshire Council debated a motion this month calling on our new local MPs to lobby for a change in the Parliamentary voting system to make it more ‘proportional’ to votes cast, specifically ‘STV’ for short.
To give it its full title: Single Transferable Vote in Multi-Member Constituencies.
The STV variant when electing a single MP for one constituency, which is the system many Labour Party members prefer and which my party (Liberal Democrats) has used for decades to select its Parliamentary candidates, is called the Alternative Vote (AV).
The council motion last week was submitted by councillor Adrian Abbs, who failed to be selected as Lib Dem PPC for Reading West and Mid Berks (RWMB) and then resigned from the Lib Dem Party.
However, he was absent on holiday and hence unable to move his own motion, so he asked his former party and council leader councillor Jeff Brooks to do that, which is what happened. The motion was passed easily.
Only the Conservative councillors present did not support it. They abstained, saying it was not the business of a council to interfere in how Parliament was elected.
Councillor David Marsh (Green Party) made the point in the debate that I would have made had I not now been made vice chair of council, which is an apolitical position.
He said we should instead have been debating reform of the voting system for councils in England, which is now the only part of the British Isles that doesn’t have a proportional system for electing councils.
The large majority that Lib Dems have on the council is a result of the current ‘First Past The Post’ (FPTP) system.
The last Conservative Government made it compulsory for elections at every level of government in England.
To illustrate how STV might work in West Berkshire for its district council, let us assume we had eight multi-member ‘divisions’, each having between three and six councillors.
The total number of councillors would remain at 43 and there would be roughly the same number of voters per councillor as now.
People vote differently when they are given a proportional system of electing their representatives.
Instead of using ‘tactical’ ways to try and prevent their least favourite candidates being elected, they would place a single ‘1’ against their preferred candidate’s name, then ‘2’ and so on until they had no preference at all. How simple is that!
In this letter, the editor won’t allow me space to explain how STV works. It is enough to say that:
A. It is ‘simple as 1 2 3’ to vote,
B. At least three quarters of voters will get someone they voted for to represent them,
C. The successful candidates would all be locally chosen and
D. All parties would be more equally represented on their council.
Note that currently West Berkshire Council has 26 ‘wards’, of which five are three-member, another seven are two-member and only 14 are single member.
So we could already have a significantly more ‘proportional’ system, with a mixture of AV and STV but without any need for tactical voting.
If we want more people to feel their vote will really ‘make a difference’ and so participate in our democracy, then sooner rather than later we need to try STV for English councils.
Tony Vickers
Liberal Democrat councillor for Hungerford and Kintbury ward
West Berkshire Council
Why are we enriching the Chinese economy?
Lord Robertson, who is leading the new Government’s review into defence spending, says that China presents the UK with a “deadly threat”.
This would be the same China that is suspected of a major cyber attack on the MOD within the last month or two.
So can someone – anyone – please explain why we should be encouraged to purchase anything at all from a nation who are so all-powerful economically?
You know, electric vehicles, solar panels, turbine blades and the like?
I mean, we all understand that China has built more coal-fired stations in the last year or two than we’ve ever had, and their carbon emissions grow at almost exponential speed, but that aside, why on earth are we enriching China in this way?
And how on earth are we supposed to be confident we can trust anything they say if our own Government thinks them a “deadly threat”?
I know money makes the world go around – but it seems to me we’re actively assisting the enemy.
Stephen N Price
Stanmore
I shouldn’t have to pay for all these BBC repeats
The new Prime Minister is showing his true colours in a short time as he isn’t for the people.
He says the BBC can keep the licence fee, but that is wrong as everything is changing, but not to please everyone.
They are talking about doing away with cash bank books and statements, replaced by the website.
You can no longer get who you want on the phone.
BBC repeats in one week:
Monday: BBC1 6; BBC2 13
Tuesday: BBC1 10; BBC2 14
Wednesday: BBC1 7; BBC2 15
Thursday: BBC1 10; BBC2 13
Friday: BBC1 12; BBC2 9
That’s what we have to pay for.
Keith Haines
Poplar Place, Newbury
Did school just make you more compliant?
Do you regard yourself as educated; at least to a basic level?
Did you call the business of being educated ‘going to school’?
In your mind, were education and schooling, effectively, the same?
Was schooling, in reality, the mechanics of education?
Could those mechanics have subtly programmed you?
Is education (as expansion of intellect) broadly a positive activity?
Is schooling – even to facilitate education – at best, an imposition?
Did school dominate one-fifth of your life and most of childhood, without you realising?
Are you now, inevitably, but undetectably, the product of your schooling? Could you have been a very different person, had schooling not existed? With modern technology, could education be achieved without school?
Could schooling have made you more easily compliant with state wishes?
There is much talk of ‘change’ in the political world. Is this the change we need?
Barrie Singleton
River Walk, Shaw
Unfair criticism of our former MP Laura Farris
Since I first heard Adrian Foster-Fletcher speak at the Newbury Bypass protests in the 1990s I have been extremely impressed by his campaigning on environmental issues, including his many cutting edge comments in the NWN.
It was therefore somewhat disappointing to read his vitriolic comments about our former MP Laura Farris, in last week’s edition, as well as in some earlier letters.
Reference by surname only, and terms such as “useless” are disrespectful and lower the tone of debate.
I feel Adrian’s comments are over-personal and unwarranted.
Many letters criticising Laura were justified, but some were, frankly, blatantly misogynistic.
Laura was one of many hard-working MPs who would otherwise have been re-elected, but lost their seats as a result of the activities of Messrs Johnson and Truss.
Her defeat in no way reflects her service to the local community, especially her work on behalf of children with special educational needs at The Castle School.
I am particularly impressed by her support for Black Lives Matter, at a time when many in her party, including its leader, were making culturally divisive comments.
More admirable than anything was her long-term and ongoing work in defence of female victims of abuse and violence, reflected in her appointment as Parliamentary undersecretary of state for victims and safeguarding.
This more than anything prompted me to vote for her in the General Election – the first time I have voted Tory for 54 years.
While congratulating our new MP Lee Dillon, I send my best wishes to Laura Farris for the future.
JE Turner
Thatcham
I hope Laura will be Newbury’s MP again
I take issue with the accusation that Laura Farris was hopeless, far from it she was an excellent constituency MP.
She certainly didn’t deserve to lose, she only lost because of the failings of others in her party
I know she worked tirelessly for all her constituents and in my experience she was always very supportive and helpful in many different ways.
I and I’m sure many others hope to see her back as our MP again at the next election.
Mike Willis
Curridge
Lee’s grace contrasts with Adrian’s attack
I have met Lee Dillon MP on a few occasions and he was always charming.
The gracious way he thanked his defeated opponent Laura Farris for her help in succeeding her sets a standard I think all politicians should adopt.
In contrast I thought Mr Adrian Foster-Fletcher’s letter attacking Laura Farris was appalling (Newbury Weekly News, July 18).
He should hang his head in shame.
Clive Williams
Pangbourne Road, Upper Basildon
I found Adrian’s letter about Laura unpleasant
I have to take issue with Mr Foster-Fletcher regarding his assessment of our former MP, Laura Farris (Newbury Weekly News, July 18).
I did not vote for her in 2019 (I did not want Boris Johnson as our Prime Minister) and neither did I vote for her this time.
However when I had a rather complicated issue she dealt with it really well, passing me on to the correct department promptly and efficiently and following up afterwards.
It was a rather protracted process.
I thought her a very good and efficient MP, even though I didn’t support all her politics.
She was neither hopeless nor inadequate as our MP.
Mr Foster-Fletcher is a poor judge and I found his letter unpleasant.
Eleanor Mullens
Hamstead Marshall
