In the Council Elections on May 3, Swindon residents will have a big decision to make about who they want to run their local Council.

The Conservatives, led by Councillor Bluh, have said that if they retain control of the council they will provide the same approach to running the council as they have done over the last nine years. They will continue to spend your council taxes on what they want it to be spent on, rather than what you want it spent on, like the failed wi-fi project which cost £400,000.

They will continue failing to consult you on major decisions facing your community before they’re decided, as they did with Croft, Tadpole Farm and Pickards Field.

And they will continue to make promise after promise on town centre regeneration, while still delivering no significant improvements.

Labour, under my leadership, are offering you an opportunity to have real change. If Labour take administration of the council our approach will be based on four priorities.

  • Delivering value for money for Swindon’s council taxpayers: This means taking tough decisions to address the council’s £100m+ debt, keeping council taxes as low as possible and improving council services, in the face of inevitable budget cuts;
  • Protecting the vulnerable and supporting our young people: This means ensuring there are good local schools available for local people and ensuring that the care the council provides to its elderly and disabled people isn’t reduced due to budget cuts;
  • Retaining and attracting jobs: This means prioritising local council jobs rather than expensive consultants and working with Swindon’s major employers to attract their suppliers to Swindon, and;
  • Restoring trust in the community: This means ensuring the council is open and accountable for all it does and fully consulting residents before decisions that affect them are taken, not after.

If you elect Labour as the majority party on the council, my pledge to you will be that all our policies will be based on these priorities, starting from day one.

Coun Jim Grant Swindon Labour Group Leader

Consult this

Coun Perkins boasts that the council uses consultants for a variety of tasks, including that of developing the ‘Stronger Together’ organisation.

The councillor considers consultants to be experts in their field of activity and justifies their use on that basis. I wonder if he thinks that Rikki Hunt, the mastermind of the wi-fi fiasco, and his one time colleague on the board of Digital City, is such an expert. Doubtless this explains why Mr Hunt was a council nominated director of Swindon Commercial Services and the predecessor to Forward Swindon.

I am sure that can be the only explanation for the council paying Mr Hunt consultancy fees of over £74,000 in the time when wi-fi was being discussed and immediately prior to the demise of the wi-fi project.

Des Morgan Caraway Drive Swindon

Jobcentre shame

You published a letter from me a while ago about the local Jobcentre Plus office in Spring Gardens House making people queue outside for payments or travel warrants.

In spite of my letter, at about 3.30om on March 19 I noticed the demeaning practice was still in place. Uniformed guards call people in from the cold one by one when it is their turn.

It seems to me that the local ‘management’ of Jobcentre Plus is uncaring and callous to allow people to be treated in this shameful way. If it were going on outside a supermarket or a National Health Service hospital there would rightly be public outcry. And no doubt action to improve matters.

Our public services should simply not be allowed to treat people in this way. Despite the Adver piece, nobody seems to have taken action to get this nasty practice stopped.

Geraint Day Southampton Street Swindon

Young our hope

I support the drive for apprenticeships. I have one proviso, they MUST be structured, with defined and achievable goals; the reason – in the past we have seen unscrupulous employers take the money and use trainees as cheap labour.

Through structured apprenticeships, Britain can re-establish its manufacturing base. We must make it our objective to add value to what we produce and not, as we have done for 50 years, hike up the price to what the market will bear, often on imported goods.

I served an apprenticeship building ship’s engines, then various manufacturing paths, including microelectronics.

During my time I have seen our shipbuilding needs go to Japan, India and now South Korea, our trains built in Germany, our aeroplanes shared across Europe, our electronics made in China. And now the French Government will run our nuclear power.

Many young people don’t realise that people of these tiny British Isles invented about half of the everyday goods they use today; so how are we importing copies of our ideas from abroad? The answer – money. The City could make more money abroad from our ideas. That era has passed. To rebuild our future on new technology we must invest in young people and manufacturing.

Quality apprenticeships are a good start. I know British engineers can win, given the investment. There is the stumbling block – investment bankers hold the money!

However, we do all own a Bank – RBS! Let us hope the City can see the error of its past ways and invest in the UK.

Mike Spry Mayfield Close Swindon

Touchy subject

Charles Linford (Adver, March 20) writes: “Clearly, however, its subtlety (ie the Duke of Edinburgh’s) is lost on Mr Adams”. Clearly, Mr Linford mistakes gaffes for subtlety!

Surely when a member of the royal family hops abroad where a dictator rules, then they must approve of him? Certain members of the royals used to visit Hitler frequently; some in Nazi uniform apparently.

Here, courtesy of the Adver, are just a a few of the Duke's many ‘subtleties’: In France, he infuriated British housewives by saying “British housewives cannot cook”; in Peru, he was presented with a history of the town of Lima, which he flung at his aide, saying, “Here, take this. I’ll never read it”; in China, he warned British students, “if you stay here long enough you’ll get slitty eyes.”

More seriously, however, are his infamous remarks during the last period of mass unemployment (and which I suggest equally apply now) where he mocked the unemployed. He jeered: “Everyone was saying we must have more leisure. Now they are complaining they are unemployed.”

Personally, I’d call these not gaffes but downright rudeness and arrogance. Sadly, Charles Linford and his ilk suffer from that almost incurable English disease, deference.

If we are supposedly citizens of Europe, when are we to become citizens of our own country and no longer subjects?

J Adams Bloomsbury Swindon

Recipe for Hell

Masterchef judges, John Torode and Gregg Wallace, are hopeless cases (Masterchef Final, March 15).

They will probably never learn that gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins. But these professional gluttons are not alone. Restaurant critics fall into exactly the same trap.

A Reeve Okus Road Swindon