SerpApi.Org
SIR – You report (July 22) that Andy Burnham has U-turned on plans to raise the tax-free personal allowance after being accused of announcing unfunded tax cuts. Meanwhile, welfare payments will continue to rise with inflation.
A consequence of this is that workers receiving cost-of-living pay rises find themselves paying tax on an ever greater proportion of their earnings, while those on benefits are protected. At the margin, work becomes less rewarding, while benefits become relatively more attractive.
Politicians frequently tell us that work should always pay. They have an odd way of demonstrating this principle
Paul Allen
Fleet, Hampshire
SIR – During his first days in office, Andy Burnham has talked a lot about the “cost-of-living crisis”, but he has had rather less to say on the “cost-of-not-working crisis”. He should be promoting the idea that there is dignity in work.
Britain’s benefits bill is unsustainable. The welfare state should be a trampoline: anyone who falls should be helped to bounce back. Currently, for too many, it’s a feather bed.
Kim Thonger
Collyweston, Northamptonshire
SIR – We all agree that there should be no unfunded tax cuts. However, unless we cut personal tax, we will be trapped in an everlasting doom loop.
Reducing waste and welfare is highly desirable, but will take time. We need a tax cut now, which could be funded by raising VAT, particularly on non-basic goods. It would allow people to keep a larger proportion of their salary, and encourage strivers to push for higher earnings to be able to afford these more expensive items.
Anthony Singlehurst
Richmond, Surrey
SIR – Why is part of the Government being moved to Manchester (report, July 22), when Birmingham is Britain’s second city?
Midlanders now have a very clear reason to support parties other than Labour, such as the Conservatives or Reform UK, which have shown that they value the region.
Rodney G James
Antwerp, Belgium
SIR – Andy Burnham’s plan to move his office to Manchester for one day each week is ominously similar to the EU government decamping to Strasbourg once a month to placate the French.
What a patronising waste of time and money.
Sir Michael Ferguson Davie Bt
Bath, Somerset
SIR – Did I miss it, or did our new Prime Minister break with tradition by failing to promise to roll up his sleeves?
Brian Reece
London EC4
Church priorities
SIR – I have been a member of the Church of England for nearly 60 years, and was appalled to read Professor R G Faulkner’s letter (July 22) about the recent General Synod meeting in York.
The debate concerning the Kairos II document, which deems Israel a “colonial, settler and exclusionary entity”, along with the pursuit of net zero and slavery reparations, are entirely at odds with what I believe the Church should stand for. As Professor Faulkner says, it should be more worried about declining attendance, the reduced state of clergy stipends and the poor condition of many buildings.
I can no longer support the Church financially when it is proposing to spend large sums on spurious projects.
Robin Self
Framlingham, Suffolk
SIR – Nigel Thomas (Letters, July 22) points out that Andy Burnham’s plan to abolish 5 per cent VAT on domestic electricity bills is only possible because of Brexit freedoms.
It was the same EU control of members’ VAT regimes that prevented Tony Blair’s government from zero-rating repairs to listed buildings. This led Gordon Brown, as Chancellor, to create the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme in 2001. For 25 years, it enabled listed churches to recover a sum equivalent to the VAT paid on eligible repairs. Regrettably, even though it would now be possible to zero-rate such repairs, the scheme has been replaced by the Places of Worship Renewal Fund, with all its bureaucracy. Perhaps Mr Burnham would reconsider.
David Lamming
Boxford, Suffolk
Better social care
SIR – The term “bed blocking” is indeed unacceptable, as Age UK says (report, July 22). If a patient is assessed as medically fit but has no suitable accommodation, surely a mid-care provider from the NHS is the answer – not the costly private services that mix the vulnerable elderly with mental health patients, which I experienced when I was nursing.
Mary Theresa Byrne
Kirkleatham, North Yorkshire
SIR – Surely the pressure on social care has less to do with an ageing population than with changes in society. When I was young, my mother’s mother lived with us, and my father’s mother lived with her daughter. Most of my friends had a grandparent living with them. I am not saying this was the best solution for either side, but I don’t remember there ever being a lack of care for the elderly.
Maggie Hughes
Gnosall, Staffordshire
Tougher than Ulysses
SIR – If David Miller (Letters, July 22) finds Ulysses hard going, he had best not attempt Finnegan’s Wake. I don’t think I properly understood two consecutive sentences.
Michael Oak
Stirling
Pointed postcards
SIR – I once received a postcard (Letters, July 22) of planet Earth. The message? “Wish you were here.”
Graham Sharpe
Wellington, New Zealand
SIR – The charismatic wine merchant Bill Baker sent a postcard to his secretary when he and I were at Averys of Bristol in the 1970s. It read: “Dear Penny, So glad you’re not here, Bill.”
Robin Lane
Devizes, Wiltshire
Failed by Royal Mail
SIR – Two months ago, my urgent medication was delivered to the wrong address. My disabled husband had to go and knock on doors, eventually finding it in a neighbour’s hallway.
A month later, we waited in for a telephone appointment with the hospital. When no call came, we phoned, and were told that a cancellation letter had been sent (Letters, July 22). That same day, we received it – a month late.
On June 30, we found an envelope sticking out of our letterbox. It had been typed on February 19. Luckily, the letter had also been emailed to our GP, so my husband’s treatment was not delayed by months.
We recently received a penalty charge notice for driving in a bus lane. This arrived within the 28-day payment period, so we could pay before it doubled – but if it hadn’t, would the council have accepted our excuse?
We wrote to our MP, who contacted Royal Mail, which blamed delays on staff sickness and “resourcing challenges”. How can it charge so much for postage when the service it provides is so poor?
Andrea Swindells
Kendal, Cumbria
Meeting ‘King Kev’
SIR – I met Kevin Keegan (Obituaries, July 21) when he was manager of Newcastle United. I took a group of schoolboys to watch his team train.
After the session, “King Kev” got his players to stay behind, sign autographs and have photographs taken. He spoke to the boys about the importance of dreaming big and working hard, and encouraged them to support local teams, not just the big names.
He was truly impressive.
Dennis Dickinson
Dunbar, East Lothian
Shared digs
SIR – In 1946, 90 per cent of places at Christ’s College, Cambridge, were reserved for returning ex-Servicemen (“Why I won’t be repaying my student loan”, Comment, July 22).
The college had converted its single rooms to doubles. There were nine entrants from school, and eight were paired off, becoming lifelong friends. I was the odd one, and was assigned to share with an existing occupant. Not surprisingly, he wasn’t keen on this, and we never really got on. Perhaps the experience made six months as an Army conscript less of a shock.
Dr Ewan Page
Bath, Somerset
How to ease overgrazing on Dartmoor
SIR – Sense has prevailed for the Dartmoor ponies, with Natural England treating them as an endangered species rather than lumping them in with sheep and cattle (report, July 16).
Overgrazing in certain areas would be eased if space was freed up by tackling the bracken that covers vast swathes of Dartmoor, which I observed last week during a tour of the area.
Martin Coakley
Liphook, Hampshire
SIR – It is good news that the Dartmoor ponies won’t be at risk of culling, but it remains the case that many farmers will be required to significantly reduce their stock grazing on the moor.
Let us hope that the “pony supplement”, an undisclosed sum that will be introduced into farming schemes, will cover the value of the livestock that they may have get rid of.
Linda Davis
Honiton, Devon
Learning on the job to drink tea from a saucer
SIR – After I turned 15 in 1962, I went to the local Woolworths in Windsor to apply for a Saturday job.
In the little canteen, I was amazed to find everyone drinking tea from saucers (Letters, July 22). When I told my mother what I had seen, she said that the women must all have been very “common” – her worst epithet.
I got the job, and a week later was doing the same, as I found out that a 10-minute break necessitated using my saucer to cool the tea, as everyone else did.
I didn’t tell my mother.
Penny Wright
Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex
SIR – Among our crockery we have a teacup that sits in a saucer specifically designed for tea-drinking. It’s almost like a small soup bowl.
My wife uses them for her early morning tea every day, but sadly insists on drinking from the cup rather than the saucer.
Terry Gorman
Weaverham, Cheshire
SIR – I recall my grandmother, who emigrated from Russia to Britain in 1906, talking about her grandfather, who drank tea from a saucer with a lump of sugar between his teeth.
She remembered that his red whiskers floated on the tea.
Sue Lawson
Loxhill, Surrey
SIR – I spent many happy years in Kenya, where people who didn’t speak English still knew the phrase “anytime is tea time”. The loose tea was boiled together with fresh full-cream milk and plenty of sugar – almost as refreshing as chai masala.
John Creagh
Pangbourne, Berkshire
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