One of the worrying things about our government is its lack of vision. It doesn’t take three issues in particular nearly seriously enough. It is to be hoped opposition parties show ways to deal with these issues to generate some hope for the future before the current drain of young talent from this country turns into a flood.
1 More and more young people in professions such as medicine are considering leaving this country. Who can blame them? Paying off student loans, with unrealistic government pay and with unaffordable housing and ever increasing pressures at work, why stay if you are undervalued? Billions wasted on the ineffective NHS Test and Trace and other ventures, but no money for junior doctors or nurses. No vision for the future from a completely out-of-touch government.
2 It is far too easy for some wealthy individuals, families, estates and firms to hide their wealth in tax havens and to obtain tax breaks via clever accountants while the rest of the population get squeezed. No vision for the future from a completely out-of-touch government.
3 Most importantly, many environmental issues are a national disgrace. Rivers and beaches polluted by lightly regulated privatised water companies and shambolic, unreliable privatised rail “services”. The lack of reliable, fast, easily accessible electrical charging points means millions will be forced to drive around in polluting vehicles for decades to come unless some real urgency is shown by a complacent government. No realistic vision from a completely out-of-touch government, but is that really surprising with recent governments dominated by ex-Oxford University, public school types who are debate trained but with virtually no experience of how most UK citizens live? Nowhere else in developed Europe currently has a governing elite raised largely in isolation from everyone else.
Tony Rowe, Sudbury, Suffolk
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