Our readers from across the county give their weekly take on the biggest issues impacting Kent and beyond.

Some letters refer to past correspondence which can be found by clicking here. Join the debate by emailing letters@thekmgroup.co.uk

Farce of closing schools as term starts

It would be nice if just for a short period we could get muddle through without government policies coming crashing down around our ears.

After the resounding failures around 'Stop the Boats' and haranguing the police over failing to arrest the anti-social and shoplifters, you might have thought the government would lick its wounds and rig for silent running, but no!

The Department for Education panics parents and teachers by announcing that some schools are in danger of structural failure but we don't know which ones or how many are involved. Turns out that this problem has been flagged up for decades, but only now at the beginning of the school year has it become a critical issue. The farcical bungling behind this is like watching the Keystone Cops running out of the house that RAAC built.

Meanwhile, our own comedy of errors, KCC, has managed to spend £90,000 on a pointless lawsuit in the High Court, in order to stop a humanist from being on a board to advise on religious studies at school! What's more, the judge gave them a well-deserved rap over the knuckles for acting in a discriminatory manner.

I would like to remind everyone that this is the same council that is trying to shut children's centres, close household waste sites and which complains piteously about its financial situation.

Finally, my pet subject, bus services. Sadiq Khan the Mayor of London is getting grief from the V8 owners of Bromley and Hillingdon over ULEZ. KCC is acting with its usual magnanimity, and is refusing to allow signs that warn where the new ULEZ area is near Kent, no doubt hoping that lots of motorists will be caught unawares. If in doubt go to the website to check to see if your car is compliant. Most are, and all new ones whether petrol, diesel, or electric, certainly will be.

ULEZ will fade away once all vehicles are compliant, not so the Dart charge but no one seems to worry about that tax on the motorist. Let's hope the bridge is not made of RAAC.

I noticed that someone was complaining that bus services are not getting enough support, which while true, is not quite correct. Bus companies do receive the bus operators’ support grant or BSOG, and they receive a subsidy for us OAP concession ticket holders. The government handed a load of cash to KCC to pay for its Bus Service Improvement Plan, not once but twice. The government has also funded the two Fast Track bus projects in Kent.

So why are bus services so dire in Kent? Ask KCC. Perhaps if they were not so busy discriminating against Humanists we might get potholes filled and bus services to run.

Richard Styles

Day of reckoning over policy

Like the problems of unaffordable housing and runaway inflation, the RAAC aerated concrete crisis has its roots in the more than ten years of Quantitative Easing (QE). At the same time as the government was cutting budgets to save money on building maintenance and replacement, it was spending billions of pounds on QE with the questionable goals of depressing already low interest rates and boosting low inflation.

Even with hindsight, no one will admit that Quantitative Easing was a mistake and that a day of reckoning would be inevitable. That day appears to have arrived.

Derek Wisdom

NHS managers have a difficult job

Colin Bullen makes some interesting points and one or two valid ones, however, he is somewhat simplistic in his criticism of NHS managers.

The greater part of his argument is that much NHS management is unnecessary and that over the past decade the number of NHS managers including HR has increased at a rate disproportionate to need. Currently there are around 35,500 managers employed in the NHS. About a third of those are in a dual role, ie: doctors or nurses with a frontline position and a management role while the rest are dedicated managers.

In an organisation of 1.26 million employees that amounts to less than three per cent of the workforce. By comparison managers make up 9.5 per cent of the UK workforce.

The NHS in England is a £180 billion-a-year-plus business. It sees over one million patients every 36 hours, spending nearly £3.5 billion a week. Aside from the banks, the only companies with a larger turnover in the FTSE 100 are the two global oil giants Shell and BP. If anything, I suggest that the NHS, particularly given the complexity of health care, is under rather than over-managed.

From my experience as an NHS manager of 36 years, this government and others make impossible demands on NHS senior managers who in turn make impossible demands on those below them, to find savings and to force the system to deliver more with less. A demoralised workforce, a crumbling estate, in the shadow of political promises that cannot be delivered, with parts of the workforce intent on industrial disruption that only the Department of Health can resolve is the arena within which the average NHS manager has to operate. This in no way condones what happened in the Lucy Letby case at the Countess of Chester Hospital.

Tim Waite

Public sector staff should return to offices

The government claims that it is attempting to put an end to the situation where a large number of its employees are insisting on working from home, a matter which has resulted in the level of service being provided to the public being severely adversely affected.

That this should present a problem is yet another illustration of the weakness of the current administration, as the answer is obvious, and lies completely within its power to solve.

All those on the government payroll should be instructed to return to work within a week, or be dismissed, unless they have a genuine health reason for not being able to do so. I know that this would have been my fate, had I arrogantly refused to attend the office during my over 42 years of employment.

Those who claim that the absence of large numbers of workers is not undermining the organisations involved are talking rubbish, as anyone who attempts to obtain assistance from major government departments can attest. Even if one succeeds in contacting a real human being it is frequently the case that they cannot deal with the matter, as they do not have access to the necessary documents, etc.

The same sanction is available to other public sector employers such as local authorities, while, although private companies are not controlled by the state, it is obvious that much stricter measures could be used by the government to ensure that companies with customer service departments which fail to meet reasonable levels of effectiveness would be subject to sanctions.

That there should be any difficulty in resolving this matter merely proves the uselessness of the current political elite.

Colin Bullen

Only socialism can give us all freedom

I now understand why you print letters from Colin Bullen. It is a means of prompting (forcing?) people like me to reply to the distorted conclusions he draws from history.

Had I been alive at the time of either the Enlightenment or of the Puritans, I would not have been in a position to express my views. The class to which I belong would have had no rights.

It is only because my class, at one time peasants, now the working class, has fought against the oppression imposed upon us by the ruling class that we are now able to challenge the ruling ideas within society.

Colin stresses the value of reason, logic, criticism and freedom. The groups he so strongly condemns, and those that support them, are only seeking the same freedoms, that others enjoy, for themselves.

The fundamental issue that we face is over the meaning of freedom. The question is “Freedom for whom?

The truth is that no one is actually free unless everyone is free.

A simple example. Recently I went to a local railway station to buy a train ticket to enable me to visit my home town in the Midlands. The office was closed (fortunately it later opened and I received excellent service). Without that ticket office, I would have been unable to travel.

There are many other instances where decisions, taken by those who have power, wealth and money, limit the freedom of those who lack those means.

Reason tells me that our present society is badly organised. Logic tells me that there is a better way to run society.

The way to universal freedom is through a socialist society.

Ralph A Tebbutt

ULEZ policy is just about money

The ULEZ scheme will do virtually nothing about air pollution, it is all about the money that will be raked in by targeting the most vulnerable, who can do little about it.

Yet again a so-called Labour administration policy targets the very people who it claims to help, just like in the former USSR.

The people, it is claimed, are happy but actually very poor as the elites rake in the wealth which is meant to be for all.

Stephen Bennett

No respite from travel problems

The strike by rail workers continues apace with little sign that the dispute will reach a resolution any time soon.

The National Union of Maritime Transport Workers (RMT) are demanding an increase in wages and are opposed to planned changes in working practices - involving the removal of guards and in the number of ticket offices facing closure.

Shoppers have been kept from city and town centres which has had a detrimental effect on small retail businesses.

Already the cost to the economy is £5bn and according to a survey conducted by Simply Business, more than one in 10 small businesses have been affected by the rail strikes.

The disruption caused by the strikes has impacted on major events such as the Notting Hill Carnival and the Reading and Leeds Festival.

And it has prevented staff in the hospitality and retail industry from getting to work which piles on more misery for those dependent on them to run their businesses.

For the weary traveller, there is no respite, as the RMT have announced plans to strike in December and January.

Michael Smith