Deafening silence

Just when you thought that the Tories could not sink any lower, they manage to slither under a snake’s belly, with their Rwanda asylum plan!

The Archbishop of Canterbury hits the nail on the head (no pun intended) when he told the congregation at Canterbury Cathedral on Easter Sunday that “subcontracting out our responsibilities goes against Christian values”.

He added “as a policy it privileges the rich and the strong”.

However, Priti Patel, our Home Secretary, appears to be very supportive of the plan. This is despite the fact that, in the 1960s, her parents, then living in Uganda, emigrated to the UK, even though Rwanda was so much closer - one can only wonder why!

What say you, Swindon MPs, Messrs Buckland and Tomlinson? I hear only deafening silence, yet again.....!

Steve Cowdry.

Saddleback Road

Shaw

Squeaky bum time

It is astonishing in modern day Britain that illegal asylum seekers are being put up in hotel holiday resorts where holiday makers were told at the weekend, no room at the Inn.

While food banks expand and pensioners and young families decide between warm or wilt .Food or famine.

Why are we not sending most of these mainly young men back to France? Why the recent on the hoof government action to send them thousands of miles away. At taxpayers expense. Namely you and I.

Answers from the two Swindon MPs on these pages would be appreciated .But I would not bet an old farthing on that one.

However as I am not a gambling man, I would advise those who are. To bet on the largest loss of Tory councillors in British political history on the 5th of May in the local elections .

Regarding the next general election.The words of Sir Alex Ferguson the retired manager of Manchester United whom I watched as a Rangers player, my team, before I left Glasgow to move to Swindon. Squeaky bum time for our Right Honourable members for my adopted town of fifty one years, Swindon.

Which is dear to my heart as it is so many people who came here from all over our island and beyond, of all colours and creeds.

Bill Williams

Merlin Way

Covingham

Stand up for what is right

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s condemnation of Priti Patel’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda could not be plainer.

He said in his Easter Sermon: “And this season is also why there are such serious ethical questions about sending asylum seekers overseas. The details are for politics and politicians. The principle must stand the judgement of God and it cannot. It cannot carry the weight of resurrection justice, of life conquering death. It cannot carry the weight of the resurrection that was first to the least valued, for it privileges the rich and strong. And it cannot carry the weight of our national responsibility as a country formed by Christian values, because sub-contracting out our responsibilities, even to a country that seeks to do well like Rwanda, is the opposite of the nature of God who himself took responsibility for our failures.”

Israel has already tried this ruse and it failed, how could anyone with a scintilla of humanity consider this to be a good idea? The fact that it has come from a Home Secretary of this country, a country that often holds itself to be a beacon for civil liberty, is deeply shameful, not only for her office, but the Prime Minister and Government that thinks that this could be a plan that could ever work.

I could go on at length but instead I will quote another Cleric, Dr Andrew Sangster, Priest Vicar of Norwich Cathedral who said of this decision “I find it hard to believe that a British Government would even consider a policy of ‘Processing Refugees’ by sending them to Rwanda. The word ‘processing’ was used by the Nazis when referring to the ‘Jewish Problem’ and by Stalin when referring to dissidents. Dr Sangster went on to say: “I hope that it will be opposed by Parliament, by the Churches and by public protest”.

I hope Wiltshire’s Conservative MPs will have the decency to stand up and also condemn, but somehow, I doubt they will.

Dr Brian Mathew

Wiltshire Councillor

Lib Dem Parliamentary Spokesperson for North Wiltshire

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