LETTER OF THE WEEK: Elected representatives are letting everyone down

Mr Hollobone in his Union Jack jacket, mentioned by Mr Islip in his letter.

Last week the East Midlands UKIP MEP Jonathan Bullock wrote to this paper supporting the re-introduction of the crown symbol on pint glasses.

Both these people share strong right-wing political views, a great enthusiasm for Brexit, and on this evidence, a total lack of concern for the real problems facing us all.

Problems with the NHS have been headline news for months.

Nationally, the performance of hospitals across the UK has slumped with targets for cancer, A&E and planned operations now being missed en masse, BBC research shows.

Locally, this paper reported that almost 2,000 patients had to wait longer than the four-hour target time for treatment in A&E at Kettering General Hospital in December.

On another issue, the National Audit Office criticised the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) introduced by Conservatives in the 1990s.

Contracts awarded under this misguided dogma will cost the taxpayer £200bn (The Independent, January 18, 2018).

The financial burden will fall on our children as it stretches into the 2040s.

This sum is hugely greater than the alleged, and highly-debatable, savings from Brexit.

On the economy, Conservative chancellors are responsible for the worst recovery in 300 years of recorded history (The Independent) .

Mr Hollobone’s 2017 general election leaflet showed him wearing a Union Jack coat in seven of the eight pictures of himself; presumably he thinks himself to be a patriot.

But a real patriot would think severe NHS problems, the huge waste of government money on PFI and the worst economic recovery in history were of first importance.

Certainly far more important than a lottery to fund a new yacht for one of the world’s richest women.

Mr Bullock’s letter says that reintroducing the crown emblem on pint glasses would symbolise a return to British values. We can all agree that one very important British value is justice before the law.

But falling forensic science standards are making miscarriages of justice inevitable (The Guardian, January 19, 2018).

Much criminal forensic work is now outsourced to unaccredited laboratories. This is another Conservative money-saving wheeze, like PFI, that is at variance with true British values.

It has nothing to do with our membership of the EU. But then UKIP MEP Mr Bullock would rather write to the papers about crown symbols on pint glasses than about serious failures of British justice.

So, overall, how do our two local political representatives respond to the very serious problems facing the UK?

They respond with clownish Union Jack coats, sham patriotism and beer-glass buffoonery.

They seek publicity for their pet projects, irrelevant to the real needs of ordinary people. But they ignore the many very serious problems facing the UK. They show utter contempt for the people they represent.

John Islip

Kettering