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

Take this scooter menace seriously

I was interested to read Kent Police and Crime Commissioner Matthew Scott's comments prompted by the death of an e-scooter rider.

I fear what he would like to do and what he intends to do may be lightyears apart.

I travel around Kent and throughout south east England and see anything up to 190 e-scooters illegally being used on roads and pavements daily, so on his own admission of 190 seized in two years, the numbers do not stack up.

Everybody knows that a numerous list of Highway Code rules are being broken by these hooligans on wheels. Just to give you one example, I was confronted by a rider coming in the opposite direction in the middle of the road at speed, on his mobile phone and probably not uninsured. I stopped my car to avoid hitting him and to confront him, for which I got the standard verbal abuse.

How many more images are we going to see in this paper of people injured through no fault of their own before this is taken really seriously? Once again Matthew Scott, what are going to do about this problem?

Tony Wright

Education being used for propaganda

The vast majority of normal people depending on their race, gender, or sexual orientation, must be sick and tired of being called racist, sexist or homophobic, just because they may not subscribe to every jot and tittle of the various ideologies currently distorting our society.

The obvious culprits for all this nonsense are the virtue-signalling, self-hating metropolitan liberals, who dominate so much of the media and the establishment, determined to suppress any opinions other than their own by trying to demonise opponents. These people are doing immense damage to what was a free society.

However, there is another factor behind this distortion of the truth, one that has beavered away for 175 years, seeking to undermine our democratic ideals. I am not one who gives credence to conspiracy theories but this concerns what has been the most long-lasting conspiracy to have afflicted the world, and caused endless misery - Marxism.

The Nazis were a barbaric, nihilistic regime, which in just 12 years, caused immense human suffering, yet Marxism is a slow-motion copy of the former. In the time since the Communist Manifesto was published in 1848 Marxist regimes have been responsible for millions of deaths, and have oppressed nations around the globe, but have managed to convince the naive and gullible that their intentions were egalitarian. They claim to represent the economically oppressed, but in reality have made the latter’s lives worse, as those who dominate these parties are seeking power for themselves.

In order to achieve power Marxists seek to bring down democratic societies and they are behind most of the disruption we have seen. Karl Marx himself recognised how the ideal had been corrupted, and proclaimed towards the end of his life: “I am not a Marxist”.

Their ‘long march through the institutions’ is bearing fruit as our education system becomes more a propaganda machine, than a means of teaching youngsters. They are the real enemy we should be fighting if we are to preserve our nation.

Colin Bullen

Aim of protests is misunderstood

Michael Smith listed all the various uses for oil and branded the Just Stop Oil protesters as hypocrites. He is labouring under the misapprehension that they want to eliminate all oil.

They don’t, what they want is the cessation of new oil drilling and production. There are at least 100 years and more of oil still in the ground to fully satisfy the world’s needs. What should happen is the elimination of certain countries having a monopoly of Earth’s resources to build enormous private wealth for a tiny minority, which concurrently causes wars, economic uncertainty and much human misery and in the meantime significantly increase research and manufacture of the equivalent necessary byproducts of oil from renewable sources.

Eventually the release of carbon in the form of oil and coal, sequestered millions of years ago underground, into the atmosphere could be virtually eliminated. Surely it can’t be a bad objective.

Simon Smith

Home or away for the summer holidays?

It’s here at last, holiday time starts with schoolchildren running out of school into the future of six weeks or more of fun and freedom.

The parents will start to tear hair out wondering what to do with bored children. Many attractions are a bit pricey for whole families to pay, and with the extra cost of food and energy, it’s not cheap to stay even at home.

I know what we can do, we can go away on holiday and to heck with the cost. Enjoy it now and pay back over the next year.

Let’s look at the options. We could load up the car and take off to the west country. After fighting our way around the M25 we get onto the A303 and join a queue behind convoys of cars towing caravans and campervans crawling along at 15 miles an hour and when you stop at a roadside restaurant it will be an hour’s wait for a table.

What about taking the car to France? Well yes, we could do that. But do you want to sit in your car for hours waiting for the French border force to check your documents and anyway your passport has expired because you didn't apply for a new one in plenty of time because the passport offices are on strike.

What about taking a train to Wales or Scotland, if you can afford the rip-off train fare and you can bet that the train drivers will be on strike on the very day you want to travel?

What about taking a plane to the sunshine in the Med? That's OK if you want to be roasted like a Christmas turkey in 40c temperatures. But if you make it to the airport, you will find that the El Cheapo airline has cancelled your flight, or the baggage handlers or the pilots have gone on strike.

Have a nice summer and try not to pull your hair out. Stay home and watch blanket sport on TV if you can take it.

Bob Kidd

Rise of artificial lawns a worrying trend

Amongst my pet hates are artificial lawns, which doubtless appeal to some people since they save on the costs of maintaining a grass lawn.

In addition, artificial lawns have a life expectancy of 15 to 25 years.

Some manufacturers use recycled materials such as old tyres and plastic bottles but it is not biodegradable and at the end of its life will end up in landfill.

Artificial lawns also have a detrimental effect on the food chain since they discourage bugs and insects and birds from a source of nourishment.

It restricts access to the soil beneath for burrowing insects and to the ground above for soil dwellers such as worms.

Furthermore, the lawns get hot in direct sunlight and are not suitable for children or pets to play in. Fake grass can get hotter than bitumen and concrete.

They also cause flooding as they absorb less than 50% of the rain that falls on them.

The increase in the popularity of artificial lawns is a worrying trend that will have an adverse effect on the fine balance between man and nature.

Michael Smith

Time to dispose of these barbecues

Parts of Kent now have a hosepipe ban. Last month was the hottest recorded June since 1940. Surely it is time to ban the sale of single-use barbecues.

Disposable barbecues pose an immediate and serious fire hazard in our tinder-dry countryside. These barbecues are always damaging to the environment: the charcoal comes from unsustainable sources; the plastic and metal they contain cannot be recycled; they release clouds of unhealthy pollutants and contribute additional CO2 emissions to the atmosphere.

Responsible retailers should withdraw disposable barbecues from sale and help to reduce the risk of wildfires this summer.

Min Stacpoole

Johnson report a travesty of justice

In response to my letter, K. A. Chapman has completely ignored the facts to suit his narrative, because he is ill-disposed towards Boris Johnson.

The Privileges Committee’s only remit was to gather evidence to establish if Mr Johnson had deliberately lied to the Commons, not as he asserts to reach conclusions regarding his conduct as Prime Minister.

That he got fined for attending a party (and may have been present at others but took no action) is not evidence that he deliberately lied to the House of Commons and should never have been presented as such. What would have been the point of deliberately lying about matters that were already in the public domain? He apologised, which was the only thing he could do.

Despite the paucity of evidence against him, the committee recommended that he should be suspended for 90 days. That was done so that when it was approved by the House of Commons, it would trigger a by-election in his constituency.

Now we have the irony. Against the tide of anti-Tory sentiment which appears to be sweeping the country, the new Conservative candidate retained Mr Johnson’s former seat and Mr Johnson, far from ‘skulking’ somewhere as previously written, he and his wife have welcomed a new baby and he is enjoying a lifestyle he was unable to do while he was Prime Minister.

So, on every level the decision of the biased Privileges Committee and the ‘massive’ majority that was achieved in the Commons, because the great majority of Conservative MPs abstained, manifestly failed to achieve its objective and quite rightly so, because the whole exercise was a travesty of justice.

C. Aighgy

EU collapse would cause chaos

Stephen Bennett appears to blame the EU for many of Britain’s ills and considers individual European countries would be better off out of the EU even though none of these seem to have an inclination to quit.

Also if this were to happen, it would be disastrous for any Brits planning to drive on the continent as the post-Brexit queues at Dover are bad enough and the prospect of going through border controls at every European country encountered does not bear thinking about.

Bill Ridley

Ignorant views on Europe

Clearly Stephen Bennett has not travelled to the EU or Eastern Europe, judging by his rather ignorant remarks about them.

EU countries such as Germany and Italy are sovereign nations with a government, parliament and federal government. They have their own languages, culture, cuisine including regional diversities. They do, however, co-operate at international level in institutions such as NATO and issues such as climate change.

As to his comments about living with the USSR/communism, no one born for example after 1989 would have any experience of life under communism. Eastern Europeans have greatly benefited from EU money, particularly with regard to motorway construction and railway improvements.

Finally, given the Ukraine war, try telling an Estonian they were better off under communism!

Steve Tasker

Brexit bonus for soap dodgers

After searching tirelessly these past seven years for a Brexit benefit, I am pleased to announce I have found one. Here in the UK we can and do wash less - including, I assume, those working in the food and hospitality sectors.

The reported reduction in soap sales of 48% in the first six months of 2023 (bubble bath down 35% too) shows we have shaken off the shackles imposed by those pesky bureaucrats in Brussels and their washing-time directive. Surely, this win should be loudly celebrated, allowing for the caveat that you are not in too large an indoor crowd.

Robert Boston