Our readers from across the county give their weekly take on the biggest issues impacting Kent and beyond.

Some letters refer to past correspondence which can be found by clicking here. Join the debate by emailing letters@thekmgroup.co.uk

Badenoch could solve gridlock in government

What connects Kemi Badenoch to the tailback I sat in towards Bluewater the other day?

They might seem far apart but could become more connected than you might think.

National Highways found congestion at the Dartford Crossing has a spillover effect, creating delays on the A2 and across the south east.

This means, even if you're just heading to the shops rather than crossing the river, how well traffic flows out of Dartford into Essex affects how long you're waiting at the next junction.

As an engineer, Kemi Badenoch thinks about the whole system to understand these knock-on effects. And much like the A2, government is gridlocked.

The proposed Lower Thames Crossing, that could cut journey times and reduce congestion, is delayed again.

Much like the knock-on effect of congestion spilling over between areas, the problems blocking the crossing are consequences of choices elsewhere.

One well-meaning environmental rule added here, another planning rule there. A consultation stage here, leading to exploitation by climate activists there.

These all interact and complexity builds. Eventually years are wasted on paperwork and meetings, nothing gets built and residents don't know if it ever will. Meanwhile, we are all stuck in queues on the A2 that can feel almost as long.

The same thing is happening across the country. Energy prices rise while power stations are blocked. Prisons are full while building capacity is blocked. People arrive in the country illegally and deportations are blocked. Houses are built while the infrastructure to support them is delayed.

These things are all connected by a system that isn't working. Not easy to squeeze into a soundbite but it impacts on our lives.

It's this Kemi Badenoch is focused on. Rather than throwing out commitments of however many houses or however many fewer immigrants, her promise is to fix the system that continues to make other leaders fail to deliver theirs.

Campbell Steven

Sense of community made people happier

Whenever you listen to the older generation the general theme is that life has got worse rather than better.

I remember the celebrations at the end of the war and the celebrations that greeted the Labour election victory. This brought an amazing transformation of life for working people.

I do not glamorise those years. Life was very hard.

Families were faced with rationing; fuel for heating was at times very scarce.; the government faced a severe financial crisis; men and women worked extremely hard, much harder than people do nowadays.

It was common for working men to retire after long years of hard work only to die shortly afterwards.

But what people remember was the sense of community. We all used the same buses, the same hospitals, the same shops, markets and fairs, children went to the same schools. We listened to the same BBC radio programmes. The centres of social life were the chapels, the pubs, the clubs, the cinemas and the local football club.

The change came with Harold MacMillan, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, who continued the process from community involvement to the individualism that blights modern society.

These changes were brought about in order to allow a small minority to profit immensely whilst the large majority lost the gains that had been achieved in those earlier years.

Just think how much better life would be for everyone if the wealth, the scientific gains in medicine and other fields and the vast progress in technology were all used to benefit the whole world population.

How much better community life would be if we were prepared to sacrifice a little of our personal advantages in order that the whole community could share those advantages.

Despite the deprivation faced in those immediate post war years, people remember that they were happier.

Ralph A. Tebbutt

Politicians need to be brave

Once again several of the usual suspects complain about the state of Britain today but offer no real solutions.

Granted things were never going to be rosy after 14 years of Tory austerity and nearly 40 years of right-wing deregulation and privatisation.

Plus, despite the foolish denials of some on these pages, the increasingly worse effects of man-made global heating causing mayhem, with still too little being done about it. We have to act urgently to rectify things.

In the UK the so-called £22 billion black hole, alongside the £54 billion in local council finances, could basically be closed if the Chancellor cancelled giving banks a 5% bung on their profits annually, introduced back in 2006, whilst blocking the banks from passing costs on to customers.

This is likely too much in one go, of course, so maybe just cutting it to 2% a year for four to five years and reviewing near the end may help fill the so-called 'black holes'.

Plus, create much more leeway for some judicious spending on rebuilding our public realm, including our NHS.

We surely need to legislate to turn all the privatised public services into ethical, eco-friendly, not-for-profit social enterprises, with all surpluses used only to maintain them, alongside community dividends, for everyone's benefit and stop overseas investors syphoning monies out.

It will take the bravest of politicians here or anywhere to begin to take on such tasks but do it they must for all our sakes.

Ray Duff

Why are pensioners singled out for cuts?

I have just received in the post a letter informing me because I am slightly over the Pension Credit qualification requirement and do not claim any of the qualifying benefits, I will not receive the winter fuel allowance.

This despite the fact I am disabled and suffer from a congenital lung condition; no consideration whatsoever was made for disabled people within their rushed policy.

You may have noticed Labour have only singled out pensioners for their harsh and draconian measures.

Some say it is because most pensioners vote Conservative; I for one voted neither.

What have I done to deserve such treatment as this?

David Grummitt

Pension rise not given to all

The government has been less than honest when arguing that next year's rise in the state pension by £460 (now £472) will compensate for the loss of the Winter Fuel Payment.

Apart from the fact that much of the increase is to compensate for inflation, only the small proportion of pensioners receiving a full, new state pension will actually receive that amount.

The vast majority of pensioners will receive considerably less.

Only a quarter of pensioners receive the new state pension and only about half of those will be entitled to the full increase (if they survive until next April).

Derek Wisdom

What next to plug the black hole?

Keir Starmer has gone from riding high in a landslide election victory to seeing his popularity plummet dramatically, particularly amongst older voters, millions of whom have been deprived of their Winter Fuel Payments.

The freebie-gate row certainly put a dent in his standing and Rachel Reeves’ upcoming budget is expected to heap more misery on the catalogue of Labour’s woes.

The Prime Minister has given us warning of the hard choices he will have to make in order to plug the black hole.

The public can only wait in nervous anticipation of what horrors Ms Reeves might disclose.

Michael Smith

Road charges hit poorest hard

This idea of charging for using the roads is another tax which will hit the working class.

We already pay a tax through fuel duty and now, thanks to the government who gave electric car drivers a free ride, they now find they have a deep hole in their finances.

Not that this money raised is used on the roads, it is used for other things.

As we see, those who can afford an electric car are all for this and so those with petrol or diesel vehicles are forced to cough up to fill this hole.

In London there are many people who do shift work and have to live outside London because of the cost of housing; so now they are to pay another tax.

It is ironic that the present government is bringing about the very things it says it fighting against.

Stephen Bennett

Health benefits of congestion zones are ignored

Last week you carried a story concerning the ULEZ scheme that has been put in place by TFL to try and cut down airborne pollution in London.

Yet in this story, you seem to have missed out the very essence of the main issue - freedom; the freedom to breathe clean fresh air, to protect the health of our young children and senior adults.

It is quite clear that although this issue is shared with most big cities, London is one that has faced up to the problem and is doing its best to alleviate the source of inner-city air-borne petrol fumes that we have come to expect as normal.

The article gave the impression that anyone in Kent is in real danger of not being able to visit any part of London because of ULEZ fines.

But it does depend how old your car is. A modern car with an up-to-date engine pays no ULEZ at all. If you live in any part of London and have a car which is too old, so that it’s engine could not be updated to modern specification, then it is possible to give your car up for scrappage value of up to £2,000.

Of course, if you have a car worth more than the scheme could pay, it can be sold somewhere outside London, such as an Ashford auction, for its true value.

We overcame smoky old coal fires in the 1950s and cigarette smoking in pubs earlier this century and that has made a complete difference to all our towns.

All that we lost then was the freedom to choke ourselves to death as we walked to work or school.

Car exhaust fumes were not too much of a problem then because we had far fewer cars.

Derek Munton

Too many cars a problem in our towns

We hear a lot about 'the war against the motorist' but as soon as a bus lane, or cycle route is proposed, there is often some kind of campaign of outrage, where hyperbolic phrases are trotted out that catastrophise possible outcomes in the most lurid terms.

Since 1945, we have convinced ourselves that the motor car is the most emancipating conveyance that man has ever invented. We are sometimes oblivious to the harm it causes, until we are affected by the noise, pollution, nuisance and inconvenience that mass car ownership has wrought on urban and suburban communities.

Those of us living in the rural heartlands find the motor vehicle a boon and I agree.

However, when they come into town, the car becomes a problem. Even if tomorrow all cars became self-driving pods, there will still be congestion, as sometimes some of us will want to be somewhere at the same time as everyone else.

Politicians want to be popular, and so they have created urban sprawl to accommodate the car, the only problem being is that it takes up a lot of land, looks ugly, is demoralising to live in and it never solves the congestion problem.

I think too often the decision makers and their technocrats don't live in the areas that they administer, never use public transport and don't believe they will ever get old.

The baby boom generation is getting older and will have to face up to not being able to drive, through ill health or impairment. How will they get around if there is no public transport?

A well-functioning bus network is both a planning tool to reduce congestion, pollution and accidents and is the provider of what I call mobile community centres.

Because instead of being isolated at home, a bus enables all of us to travel and to meet freely, which is better for our health and wellbeing.

Richard Styles