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

Do more to stop shoplifters

Once again and for the fifth time in as many months I have seen shoplifters scampering out of the supermarket door loaded up, mainly with booze.

I could see for myself what these two cretins were, by their stance and behaviour but unfortunately supermarket managers seem oblivious to it, or are not bothered and are quite happy to shove the lost profits upon those who do pay.

Supermarkets do little themselves to stop these activities, which are gathering pace every day, by leaving the exit doors wide open with little or no security, which is practically inviting the shoplifters in.

It should in my view be virtually impossible for anyone to pass out through their doors without some form of barrier or security.

It seems to me that the supermarkets cannot be bothered to not only protect their goods from theft, or indeed their staff who get threatened with knives or needles by the shoplifters if they approach them.

In the meantime, the shoplifters are making hay whilst the sun shines, as security tags appear not to bother them.

Sid Anning

Animal cruelty laws must be enforced

I was shocked to read your recent report of the cruel attacks with weapons on wild creatures in Kent.

Despite the numerous television programmes by naturalists such as David Attenborough and Chris Packham, abuse of animals continues. I blame
social media, parents and teachers for not instilling in children respect towards the other creatures who share our planet.

Animal cruelty is the essence of cowardice, as the creatures have no way of defending themselves. It should be remembered that those who have
carried out appalling attacks on children, first were cruel to animals. Little James Bulger is a prime example.

There are laws to protect animals, such as the 2006 Cruelty to Animals Act, which carries fines of up to £20,000 and a prison sentence of up to five years for those found guilty of heinous crimes against our beautiful animal friends. But such laws are of no use unless they are enforced.

Similarly, I was distressed to see the pictures and read the report on litter being left in beauty spots, such as the Pegwell Bay Nature Reserve.

Again, it is the wildlife suffering from the thoughtlessness of those who have no feeling for the beauty of these wild places.

I'd like to see notices erected with this famous countryside code for visitors: "Leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but memories, kill nothing but time."

Vivien Clifford

State pension needs an overhaul

Jean Rolfe in her letter missed the exciting increase when we get to 80 years old - an additional payment of 25p per week!

The State Pension needs an overhaul with all these small payments, including the winter fuel payments and Christmas Bonus, being swept into the the amount awarded to the recipient.

The government should also consider increasing the amount earned free of tax to a level higher than the State Pension, to ensure pensioners who only have the State Pension as their income, don’t have to pay tax.

Roger Wright

Main parties’ fear of real democracy

Bob Britnell's letter ‘Be careful with voting reform’ and his desire to shut down discussion of proportional representation - "hopefully, now Labour has shown it can win big on first past the post, the subject of PR can be dropped for the next five years" - highlights why both the Conservative and Labour parties have much cause for concern, if not to fear, from allowing real democracy in our voting system.

The First Past The Post system increasingly lost credibility once there was a real prospect of challenge from at least a third party, resulting in the “winner” receiving less than 50% of the total votes cast.

For much of our history there was only a Tory candidate and at most a Whig candidate standing against them in a constituency. The Tories evolved into Conservatives and the Whigs morphed to become Liberal Democrats.

Even the general election held by secret ballot in 1880 - the first without landlord influence in Great Britain and Ireland of there being a public hustings for tenants to declare who they were voting for - was corrupt, including in the City of Canterbury.

“All electors are equal, but some electors are more equal than others”, to paraphrase one of George Orwell's quotations from his book Animal Farm, which was published 79 years ago in August 1945.

Richard West

Stop blaming Tories for Labour’s mess

I am sick to death of turning on the news every morning and listening to a succession of Labour ministers complaining that they are having to deal with a multi-billion pound deficit bequeathed to them by the previous Conservative government.

While I have little respect for the way in which the Tories behaved during the last couple of years they were in power, I find it the height of hypocrisy for Starmer et al to be using the budget deficit as an excuse for targeting the least well off in our society.

It was Keir Starmer who, when he was in opposition, warned the government not to scrap Winter Fuel payments.

When the Conservatives came to power in 2010 THEY inherited a budget deficit from the previous Labour government (remember the incoming Tory Chancellor being left a note to say that the country was virtually bankrupt?)

And THAT Labour government had not had to deal with the triple whammy of Brexit, the pandemic and Russia’s murderous war against Ukraine. The total cost of tackling the pandemic alone was an estimated £300 billion-plus!

Starmer is using the budget deficit as an excuse for tearing up his manifesto promises.

Of course, the people who will benefit most from this present government are its Union paymasters.

Bob Readman

Just get on with governing

I am so disappointed with this government already.

Being a pensioner, my husband and myself find it really hard. We worked all our lives then when Labour come along they take it all away.

It seems MPs are only in the government for themselves, not for the everyday people.

I know Labour blame the Conservatives but that's not unusual - all governments when they get in blame the other party. Why don't they just get on with what they are supposed to be doing instead. Most MPs are not in the real world.

The Conservatives had a really rough time, what with Covid, but tried their hardest. I am not sure if Labour could do any better.

Maureen Horsham

Use foreign aid cash to smash smuggler gangs

“Two into one won’t go.” “You can’t squeeze a quart into a pint pot.”

These are two of the "common sense" sayings that have stayed with me from a very young age. I am now 85 and they still hold true.

But it would seem the present and previous governments don’t understand or see how that works. We are a multi-cultural nation and that for me works okay but for the government to allow persons who have no right to be here is totally wrong.

Riots are now happening in part because of this.

We have a border force who are not turning the boats around at the three-mile limit. I understand the government has an overseas aid pot - use part of this to send operatives over to the area where the people smugglers operate and break them up.

I’m sure there is someone out there who has common sense and is in touch with people like myself.

The present government is not looking after those who voted for them.

Richard Mummery

Don’t bring back Rwanda migrant plan

Only after a few days in office, Labour had overturned the Conservative’s scheme to deter asylum seekers from crossing the channel by sending them to Rwanda.

The Tories’ ambitious plan never gained traction but the cost to the taxpayer amounted to £700 million.

Tory leadership contender Robert Jenrick has made it clear that if he becomes PM, he will revisit the Rwanda plan.

Just when we thought enough time and money had been squandered on the project which had become an albatross around Sunak's neck, the spectre of it coming to the fore again is disturbing.

M. Smith

Time to take a reality check

If Britain is no longer a free country, then why has Mr Bullen's bile-filled letter been published on this platform?

It is yet another boring rant.

What Mr Bullen, the Daily Mail and some sections of the Tory Party need to do is study the July election result and undertake some sort of political reality check.

Steve Tasker

Driving is a privilege, not a right

I am afraid it is a truism, that those with the loudest voices get the attention.

Rather than use evidence and reason, they prefer to spout exaggeration and misinformation while catastrophizing over an outcome that will probably never happen. So it is with Howard Cox and his fair fuel band. I don't know what the Chancellor is planning, any more than he does.

I don't like paying tax, nor paying more for the petrol my car burns up but I also know that there is no such thing as a free lunch. If we want potholes fixed, the NHS waiting lists reduced and our national defence strengthened, then we all collectively have to pay for it.

As a pensioner I am walking more and using the bus, while leaving the car at home wherever possible.

Even if Rachel Reeves does jolt fuel duty, I can save by using the car less, so it is not a catastrophe.

‘Is your journey really necessary?’ was the old wartime exhortation. Maybe driving less and using other forms of transport might be better for us all.

What I would say to the Howards of this world is that your freedom to motor at will has a price and that price is paid by others who have to suffer the noise, sometimes excessive speed and pollution, that living near a road entails.

I am happy to pay that price if those driving motor vehicles understand that they are doing so not as a right but as a privilege and that they should exercise that privilege with care and kindness, by not exhibiting a Toad of Toad Hall mentality towards, pedestrians, cyclists and horse riders.

The expanded ULEZ is also a year old and the vehicles that were non-compliant are becoming older or are facing an appointment at the scrapyard, so it's hardly worth manning the barricades for the right to drive an 18-year-old Corsa through the streets of London without paying the charge.

All I am saying is that I understand that there are many who don't support the new government - after all it was elected on a minority vote - but perhaps it would be better to complain when they really goof up which, being human beings, they will at some time in the future.

Richard Styles