Are local elections full of 'meaningless promises of every party'? Readers discuss these and other topics in today's letters.
Voter apathy in local elections
Eliza Thornton from London expresses frustration: 'The local elections are being held today and the meaningless promises of every party are bland to the point where I wonder if it really matters who I vote for – or even whether I should bother at all.' She checked 14 candidates in her ward on whocanivotefor.co.uk, but only six had photos and four had personal statements. 'For all I know these might not be real people but just AI-generated names. No wonder voters are apathetic. Look what we are asked to choose from. It’s an insult to the electorate.'
Trump's time nearly up?
Roger from Wolverhampton comments on President Trump's joke about staying in office for 'eight or nine years': 'He’ll be lucky to be in office for another eight or nine months.' Helen Shaw from Liverpool draws parallels between Trump and cryptocurrencies: 'They’re both impossible to understand, terrible for the environment, hyped up by the rich and powerful and cause ordinary people to lose a lot of money. Neither of them are useful in any way, neither can be trusted in any way and neither have a single underlying value of any kind.'
King Charles praised for US speech
Bob Readman from Sevenoaks writes: 'I was vehemently opposed to King Charles and the Queen making a state visit to the USA at this time, fearing that the 47th president might end up embarrassing or taking the King to task over what he sees as betrayals by the UK and our allies. I could not have been more wrong, as the King – without mentioning Trump by name – made amazing speeches in which he took the president to task and held him and his regime up to ridicule. It was the most classic example of leaving an idiot with egg all over his face that I have ever witnessed.'
Steven from London adds: 'Having watched the King’s speech to the US Congress, I was struck by the fact Charles was able to unite both sides of the political aisle on most issues. Trump, on the other hand, has only succeeded in building a proverbial, impenetrable wall down the middle of Congress – keeping the two parties irreconcilably split. Sadly, it will be the US taxpayers who will ultimately bear the cost, as democracy grinds to a halt.'
Petrol pricing fiasco
Dave from Wirral questions: 'All drivers are concerned about the increases in diesel and petrol prices caused by the Iran war. Priced in pence per litre, how is it possible for it to be priced at XXX.9p? The decimal penny doesn’t exist – it’s an illegal currency amount. You wouldn’t expect to buy a loaf for 75.5p from a supermarket. So how is it that petrol stations and supermarkets are able to use this pricing? You can’t buy one litre at the pumps.'
Concerns over digital money
Louis Shawcross from Co Down warns: 'With physical, legal money in circulation, it’s very difficult to remotely control what someone buys. However, when all money is exclusively digital it will be relatively easy to control remotely what everyone buys – because all money will effectively be linked to digital accounts and transaction systems that can be monitored, or regulated. Once we lose physical money it will be a gargantuan effort to get it back and we’ll be, literally, for the rest of history, dependent on this external force to manage this digital system – they will be determining our choices, defining what we can buy, where we can buy, in what quantities, how much time we have before the money we’ve earned expires… and whether we can buy at all.'
