IN the discussions regarding the abysmal voting turnout at the recent elections (Craven Herald letters) no one seems to have touched on the important question, namely, why? To me, the answer is clear. Voters are sick and tired of governments who seem unable or unwilling to do what they said they would do when trying to garner votes at an election, so they come to the conclusion, quite reasonably in my view, why bother?
We have just come through 14 years of a Conservative government whose achievements have been minimal and whose broken promises off the scale. The Rwanda scheme is a case in point. For years it has been obvious to anyone that the Human Rights Acts introduced under the Blair government, effectively prevents the deportation of immigrants who could not show a valid reason for their application to succeed. Therefore, the answer to the problem, clear to anyone who bothered to look would be to repeal or revise the act to allow a more balanced view to prevail. Clear to everyone it seems except the last government, who lacked the political will to do anything about it and instead came up with the Rwanda scheme which did nothing more than waste vast sums of tax payer's money.
What about the new governments? Well the omens do not look good. Within days of taking office, Rachael Reeves 'discovered' a £20 billion 'black hole' in the accounts. This despite various experts stating quite clearly that there was nothing new to find, and that all the pertinent figures were available prior to the election.
Then there is the fact that £10 billion of this figure was as a result of an inflation busting pay award to junior doctors. Now you may believe this was a good or a bad idea, but what it was not was 'hidden' This was a political decision by Reeves, paid for it seems by withdrawing the winter fuel allowance to pensioners. This after Wes Streeting the Health Secretary, gave an explicit assurance prior to the election that this payment would not be means tested.
Let's be clear, £10 billion whilst a large sum of money, represents less that one percent of total government expenditure. Ultimately it is a rounding error. Is the government really saying they could not find savings of that order without resource to bashing pensioners?
For as long as politicians take voters for fools and their votes for granted, it will continue to be the case that large numbers of the electorate will continue to say 'why bother'
Andrew Diggens
Eldroth
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