Ban needed on all animals in circuses
I’m sure most of your readers remember Anne the elephant from earlier this year. Anne was an elderly, arthritic elephant travelling with Bobby Roberts Circus. She became an overnight celebrity when footage was released showing Anne being beaten by her groom.
The public were outraged and took to the streets calling for Anne to be retired from her life in the circus.
Public outrage meant that Anne was soon rehomed to live out her days away from the constant transportation and temporary housing of circus life.
It was announced this week that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) will be prosecuting circus owners, Bobby and Moira Roberts, with causing unnecessary suffering to this animal and failing to meet her needs.
CPS have taken on this case because of the high level of public concern for Anne, so thank you to everyone who made their voice heard on this issue. This just goes to show how important people power is!
Anne was one of the lucky ones; she is now out of the circus, but unfortunately there are still around 39 wild animals languishing in UK circuses.
These animals include tigers, lions, snakes, zebras and camels.
These majestic creatures are currently heading back to their winter quarters where they will spend the next few months before heading out on the road again early next year.
Despite public and political support for a ban on the use of wild animals in circuses, the Government have decided not to protect these animals by introducing a ban.
Please write to your MP and urge them to introduce a ban, because a ban is the only way to truly protect these animals.
Fiona Peacock,
Campaigns Officer, Captive Animals’ Protection Society.
Who is going to help elderly?
I WOULD like to ask MPs Michael Ellis and Brian Binley and the Conservative Party what are they going to do to help the old age pensioners over their winter payments?
With food and energy prices rising it will be impossible for pensioners to pay their way.
It is said 3,000 pensioners will die this winter. They have to decide whether to eat or heat. Unlike our MPs they haven’t got an expense account to claim for food.
Is the Government really going to sit back and let 3,000 old people die?
The way we treat our pensioners is completely immoral. The Government say there is nothing they can do.
The only way to reduce our energy prices is competition. Our supermarkets are always in competition to give the customers choice. The same goes for our TV and electrical stores. They allow you to shop around and get yourself a bargain.
You can’t do that with energy companies. The six main companies are running a cartel which eliminates competition.
Jump in Mr Cameron and show some leadership. You have found money to support the Euro and overseas aid, so why can’t you find money to save 3,000 pensioners’ lives?
As for leadership, Mr Cameron wants to learn from Germany’s Angela Merkel. She knows true leadership.
He has done more U-turns than any Prime Minister in my lifetime. I think he is the worst leader this country has ever seen.
The Labour Party are no better under Ed Milliband. Can you see him as a Prime Minister? Get rid of him and get in David Milliband, then watch the people turn back to Labour.
Michael Gadsden,
Hastings Road, Northampton.
Warning signs were ignored
BECAUSE governments, past and present, have failed to have a sensible immigration policy, we now have a situation where it will need drastic measures from MPs, devoid of party restrictions, to halt our overcrowded island reaching a population of 70 million by 2027, and seeing all our pastured green land being turned into housing estates.
For too long governments have ignored warning signs. Bungling officials have lost track on asylum seekers and migrants.
Thousands have been allowed to enter the country illegally. Foreign criminals using Britain as a safe haven know we have a soft justice system. Softer still, prisons, and we can’t deport them.
Worse still thousands of migrants abuse our generous benefit sysytem witn no intention of enhancing our country with their skills.
Petition after petition has called on government to act, but instead, the three main parties use it as a political football.
When a respected pressure group, Migration Watch, reveals we will need to build 200 houses every day for over 20 years just to house immigrants, governments have to listen.
Although while Mr Cameron is Prime Minister, I don’t think that will happen unless, that is, Nick Clegg gives him the go-ahead.
Some MPs are now calling for an online petition to obtain the necessary numbers to force the government to hold a vote.
I’m sure there are lots of people like myself who are not online but would like to add their names to the petition.
If that should happen I hope MPs will vote sensibly and not what their party leaders tell them to.
If this country doesn’t have a control on immigration that suits this country, instead of what suits Europe, I can see our playing fields, national parks, beauty spots and woodlands being engulfed by the urban sprawl of developers, just to keep up with the housing demand that uncontrolled immigration is creating.
John Pendleton,
Lower Thrift Street, Northampton.
Getting out of financial mire
It seems almost unfair to criticise Councillor Nazim Choudhary for the content of his letter of November 9, as most of it appears to have been copied straight out of a Labour Party press release.
However, the bold pronouncement that “cuts result in less growth” conveniently forgets to mention why cuts have become so necessary. The abject failure of the last Labour Government to control public spending has led to excessive levels of state borrowing, on a par with the now bankrupt Greece.
It is interesting to observe that none of the measures proposed in his letter actually address this central issue: The public sector is too large to be supported from tax revenues alone, requiring the Government to borrow money to fill the gap.
Only by re-balancing the economy, so that it is not permanently dependent on ever increasing amounts of borrowed money, is it possible to deliver real, sustainable growth in the longer term.
The process of adjustment is difficult, sometimes painful, and something that a Labour Government, in the pockets of the unions, and dependent on public sector workers’ votes for election, could never deliver.
So once again, history repeats itself, and it falls to a Conservative Government to take the difficult decisions needed to get this country out of the financial mire caused by excessive borrowing.
Tim Armit,
Weedon Road, Northampton.
On This Day made me smile
I HAVE just been reading in ‘On This Day’ section (November 8), that a student wrote that John Milton, the blind poet, wrote Paradise Lost when he married his wife, and when she died he wrote Paradise Regained. It made me smile.
I do enjoy the On This Day section and learn a lot from it.
Margaret Rouse,
Exeter Street, Northampton.
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