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

Right to be angry over Commons sleaze

The really shocking thing about the expenses scandal is that the politicians think they have done nothing wrong at all.

The offering and acceptance of 'gifts' of any kind should be criminalised as it undermines Parliament and turns it into a bourse for the highest bidder.

Apologists may deny it all they like, but the fact remains that these 'gifts' come with strings attached and those who make them expect favours in return. Favours they otherwise would be unable to get. Only a fool would deny that.

And they invariably come from the wealthiest and most influential sections of society who think they are - or ought to be - more equal than everyone else.

This process contaminates, corrodes and corrupts public life. Sleaze has been with us since the time of Walpole and shows no sign of abating.

Someone wrote in last week to say what an angry nation we have become. Well, folks have not only every right - but also the duty - to be angry and this is just one more problem the not so 'Honourable Members' have inflicted on this country.

It takes their standing with Joe Public to an even lower level. Parliament remains that great sink of iniquity.

To paraphrase JRR Tolkien, what is the House of Commons but a sty where pigs roll about in their own dirt?

John Helm

Clear up the mess you made

Labour and the Tories both left a financial mess when they left office but we have to pay for it.

It beggars belief. We have had years of austerity, now there is more.

In no other job could you make a hash of everything, walk away and apply for the same job again. The people who made the mess should clear it up.

Do they represent or care about us? No, they do not.

Caren Jennings

Reform will gain more disillusioned voters

Many traditional Labour voters who lent their vote to the Tories in 2019, to get Brexit done, switched back to Labour in 2024.

This was not because they particularly wanted to but because they saw it at the time as the only certain way to get rid of the Conservative government that had so seriously let them down.

Now they see this mean-spirited Labour government paying lip service to them, seemingly far more intent on pandering to the views of various focus groups.

One only has to hear the vitriol coming from its leadership towards anyone who doesn’t agree with its so-called ‘progressive’ agenda.

I have no doubt that many are already regretting their decision and will not be voting Labour or Conservative next time. Next time a substantial number of them are going to vote for Reform.

In the last election, in 98 seats, Reform came second and in 89 of those Reform came second to Labour. That was achieved by Reform from virtually a standing start, without any significant campaigning strategy in place.

That will certainly not be the case next time, so I contend that even if some Tory voters decide not to switch to Reform, numerous former traditional Labour voters will, because they have lost trust in both the major parties who have taken their votes, then betrayed them.

Consequently, I believe that will result in thousands of votes being cast for Reform councillors in the local elections next year and many more Reform MPs after the next general election, whenever it is called.

C. Aichgy

Attacks on the elderly are class war

Although it pales into insignificance in the face of the cancellation of the winter fuel allowance, my wife and I have encountered a further example of a disregard for older people, this time in relation to education.

Having paid for, and attended, an Italian language course at the adult education centre last year, we enrolled and paid for the next stage for the forthcoming year.

However the outgoing Conservative government had cancelled the age-related discount previously given, thus increasing the cost. Despite paying the new charges, inevitably we were then informed that the course would be cancelled due to lack of attendees, no doubt because bureaucratic policy guided by tick boxes insisted.

Politicians frequently talk about the importance of education, and indeed of the poor knowledge of modern languages among the population, yet we have been deprived of the opportunity to enhance our understanding of Italian.

It is also important that people of our age continue to use their mental faculties, and do so, not in isolation, but in a social environment, something which politicians also claim is important to them. I have no doubt that no one will take the blame for this cavalier disregard of the wishes of those seeking to better their education, but it is merely one example of the hypocrisy of the political class.

It is noticeable that the latter attempts to deflect blame by promoting the idea that older people are in some way culpable of exploiting the younger generation, risible when one considers that many of us were born into rationing, had a week at the British seaside as our annual holiday and started work on as little as five pounds a week.

In reality this is not an intergenerational conflict but yet another example of the perennial class war.

The comfortable middle class cares little for the working class, as the former continues to virtue signal and spend taxpayers’ money on those who have no claim on this country, unlike the old, who built it.

Colin Bullen

Welcome action to cut crime

If anyone could light up a Labour conference it would have to be our fantastic Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper.

At last we have a Home Secretary ready to bring about the change our country so desperately needs. All we had from the Tories for 14 years was talk, dog-whistling and pandering to the political right.

So I fully welcome the newly proposed respect orders set to be rolled out in 2025 to keep anti-social louts off our streets.

I also welcome the enabling of police to seize and destroy dangerous off-road bikes more quickly, replacing the need for warning after warning under the current failing system.

And I welcome Labour's manifesto pledge to introduce 13,000 additional police and PCSOs with guaranteed local patrols, and a taskforce to tackle robberies carried out with knives.

The Tories were all talk, Labour is all action.

Geoffrey Brooking

BBC sanctimony hides rotten core

The BBC’s insistence that newsreaders, reporters and journalists use weasel words when referring to terrorist organisations such as Hezbollah is born of the same craven lack of backbone displayed by the corporation’s top executives in refusing to take action against Jimmy Savile and Huw Edwards.

The BBC is the supreme example of a whited sepulchre - an outward appearance of righteousness hiding a rotten interior.

It is nothing less than a national disgrace that the BBC, once the finest and most trustworthy source of news and information in the world, has been allowed by successive administrations to become the spineless, sanctimonious institution that it is today.

Bob Readman

Smokers an easier target than drivers

The government are keen to impose a ban on smoking in pub beer gardens, outdoor restaurants and outside sports stadiums and hospitals.

This will no doubt be another nail in the coffin of pubs which are already closing at the alarming rate of two a day in England and Wales.

Smokers denied a refuge for their habit will most likely confine themselves to pursue their unhealthy indulgence on their doorstep or in their own gardens.

It wouldn't be impossible to imagine that the state’s interference in smokers’ choice of lifestyle will not stop there. How long would it be before smoking in the street becomes illegal?

If the government are so fixated on the effect smokers have on polluting the air we breathe, then why aren't motor vehicles banned from roads since they are a greater threat to people’s health and to the environment through the discharge of toxic fumes?

Of course, targeting smokers is an easier option.

Michael Smith

Smaller cars give us more road space

Every day the news contains yet more articles about congestion, car accidents and conflict on our highways.

If we reduced the size of our cars back to what they were in 1970, we would save 25% in road space, without even reducing the number of car journeys. But we won't, because we love our SUVs, don't we?

One bus can replace 70 car journeys. I find it difficult to understand why anyone would prefer to sit in a traffic jam and pay £3.70 per hour to park, rather than have plenty of parking, a short bus ride, and be able to stay all day if necessary.

The war against the motorist is not with councils, it is within motoring itself, when it refuses to pick up on the signals it has been given and persists in making things worse by buying ever larger, heavier vehicles on the spurious hope of greater safety.

It has been the same with bus services generally. Until the introduction of the £2 flat fare and funding to boost service provision, bus services in most areas were in sharp decline.

Now the future seems more promising, but stop-go policies, whether by councils or government, will harm that future.

Small agile EV buses providing frequent services, rather than lumbering diesel double-deckers, might be a better solution. It is a matter of leadership and enlightened forward planning, and not always doing the same thing over and over again.

Richard Styles

We can only be so generous

Joy Stephens poses the question, why are people risking their lives to get here? Which is a fair enough question on the face of it.

She states it’s because the UK is safe, has an independent justice system, a working democracy and a population that shows someone in trouble kindness. Nothing wrong with that.

But France, Italy, Greece and Spain all offer those things, so why didn’t the immigrants stop in these countries rather than risk their and their families’ lives in a rubber boat, which, quite frankly has nothing to do with the above sentiments.

These are mainly economic migrants, hence they bypass many other countries to get to us.

But Joy, just how many people would satisfy your generosity, and where do we draw the line? We simply cannot be the Red Cross of the world.

Sid Anning

Facts always need a context

I agree that facts are needed to form opinions (in answer to Bob Britnell’s letter) but facts without understanding become just dogma.

There is a far better way of enabling children to understand all the relationship between numbers than forcing them to chant words without helping them to understand the meaning behind the words.

It is rote learning of facts, whether it be of times tables or events in history or any other subject, that I object to. All facts have to be placed within a context.

We all have our own particular approach to the actions and events which affect our lives. What we have to be able to do is to see these things within a wider perspective.

My aim and purpose is always to consider basic principles and upon those to develop a philosophy of life which will lead to ‘the greatest happiness of all people’.

That society does not exist. The wars and rumours of war throughout the world, the threat of nuclear annihilation and the likelihood of climate disaster, are clear indications of that fact.

Ralph A. Tebbutt