Plane speaking
I was interested to read Carla Denyer outline her big issue for 2025 as the climate. Bristol Airport’s big plan for 2025 appears to be expansion and lengthening of the runway(s) to accommodate more frequent flights and larger aircraft. This plan comes despite objections from many local residents and local councils concerning the levels of pollution and constant noise from often non-stop daily flights which can only become much worse.
I think the reaction from the Green councillors and the Green Party in Bristol to this proposed expansion has been disappointing so far, and I believe that if they are serious about the climate for 2025 they must show leadership and put up a strong opposition to this plan.
K Ward, North Somerset
Rach of sunshine
There is a young person called Rachel who sells Big Issue outside my supermarket. She is unfailingly cheerful whether it is fine and sunny or snowing and raining, and even in our recent big storm she was there. It struck me that many of the shoppers who pass her by are fearful, worried, or seem weighed down by responsibilities but Rachel smiles through it all. So can we?
Joyce Richardson
Charitable thoughts
There are so many great charities doing so much good work across our country, and I wouldn’t in any way want to denigrate all they do. But charities, broadly speaking, have one of two purposes: tackling the causes of problems; or working to mop up the consequences. Often, mopping them up just enough for the unfair systems that cause them to continue unchecked. Christmas dinners for homeless people, presents for the children of food bank users, food banks themselves. In a just and ordered world, such extensive and growing needs would not occur.
As Lord Bird said, walking out of the select committee on poverty, we don’t need to just address the dire consequences of poverty, we need to turn off the tap on poverty itself. And I do wonder if all our great volunteers, all the lovely people who contribute extra food or presents or cash, go home afterwards and think, well, I’ve done my bit for this week. And indeed they/we have. But perhaps charity is our modern-day opiate of the people? That our involvement keeps us all a little too sedated – or exhausted – to rise up and say, these things shouldn’t have to exist.
We demand that benefits should pay enough for people to buy their own Christmas presents and dinners for their children. That parts of vast shooting estates and golf clubs might be used for housing instead. That the rich should pay their fair share, not just from earned income but from their inherited ownership of huge amounts of land and capital.
Let’s not be lulled into thinking that because we’ve done our own little bit to make a few people happier, we’ve done enough, or done it right.
Sylvia Rose
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