Here are the letters from the Tuesday, November 14 edition of the Lynn News…
Guildhall find has put town on the map
With St George’s Guildhall and the discovery of the original floorboards that Shakespeare trod once again being featured on national TV (The One Show, November 7), I wanted to say how fantastic it has been to get Lynn and the theatre in front of the whole country and in front of international audiences.
It’s not easy to get positive national and international coverage and it shows just how significant this discovery is.
I am grateful to everyone who has been involved over many years, including LARCH, The Shakespeare Guildhall Trust, and various cultural and heritage groups.
Everyone’s efforts have helped to get us to this point. All that work helped us to secure the Town Deal Funding which, in turn, paid for the archaeological work that revealed this discovery, without which we would not have received this worldwide exposure.
We are committed to working with our partners, stakeholders, and the public to capitalise on this discovery, and the attention it has received, to help secure the necessary funding for the Guildhall’s future.
Over the coming months we will be sharing revised designs for the refurbishment work at The Guildhall, as well as sharing any plans we have developed for securing the additional funding needed for the project.
The St George’s Guildhall is one of our finest heritage buildings, one we want to protect and preserve while ensuring that it is available for people now and in the future to use, enjoy and cherish. A true jewel in Lynn’s crown.
Cllr Simon Ring
Cabinet member for Tourism, Events and Marketing at West Norfolk Council
How very sad if too few are concerned
Our present world is full of threat. Much is generated by a handful of men, utterly self-important and with immense power.
The conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza bring great damage and death.
The organisation Stop the War is long established, entirely peaceful and with no bias as to race, religion or nationality.
It has three times (mentioned in Lynn News) announced discussions at respectable venues in Lynn. Each has been cancelled. How sad if too few are concerned enough to attend and think how such danger might be reduced.
Edwin Salter
Lynn
So, where should our waste go?
At the obvious risk of sounding like the proverbial cracked record can I (yet again) ask Cllr Alex Kemp and all the other anti-incinerator campaigners what they suggest we do with all the unrecyclable waste that she, and I and everyone else generates every single day if we don’t burn it in a controlled environment.
We’re all happy to see the bin men cart it away and presumably kid ourselves that it disappears like Aladdin’s Genie. Well, let me tell you it doesn’t… we either bury it to rot in the earth or we burn it… there are no other options.
If we don’t want one on our doorstep perhaps the objectors might care to nominate someone else’s doorstep to build it on?
Maybe Dereham or Holt? It’s a huge conundrum but while we’re creating tens thousands of tonnes of waste every month I’m pretty sure Ms Kemp can see that we should take responsibility for our waste rather than keep hoping someone else will shoulder the burden.
Where precisely should our waste go Alex? You tell me.
Steve Mackinder
Denver
In defence of MP Liz Truss
In Friday’s Lynn News Steve Mackinder reminded readers of the bee in his bonnet which he has about Liz Truss, MP.
It was more of a lateral obsession than an analysis looking at the overall picture.
To insinuate that the Rt Hon Lady was pre-obsessed about the time consumption of striving to become PM is misrepresentation. Let’s look at some of her portfolios which would not procure any constituency the space of a Parliamentary backbencher.
Ms Truss had some time-consuming portfolios in Government, especially the Cabinet. There were offices held such as Secretary of State for International Trading and Foreign Secretary which necessitated long periods out of the country as well as SW Norfolk. Detailed attention was given to the Northern Ireland Protocol in the aftermath of Brexit as well as the UK’s response to the invasion of Ukraine. You obviously haven’t taken this into account Steve, somebody has to do these jobs.
A member living in a constituency doesn’t necessarily guarantee demographic, cultural and structural expertise in its entirety.
There are other ways of gaining knowledge in the world of modern communications and Elizabeth sorted out a constituency matter for me by email to my satisfaction. For the record, I was a Member of the London Borough of Ealing between 1978 and 1982, living locally, and at the end of my term I was still learning.
Many MPs have multiple homes, including London, an essential prerequisite for working in the House of Commons, and in far flung constituencies such as the Scottish Islands and Northern Ireland.
Steve you will never beat the system no matter how much you would like to. Politics is bigger than all politicians, as Liz Truss found out with her quick departure from Downing Street.
David Fleming
Downham
Conflict shows Tories and Labour are so very similar
There are certain military and political situations which occur in the world today like what’s happening in Israel and Gaza which can serve as a true barometer of the state of the mainstream UK parties by how they respond to such conflicts.
While it’s only to be expected the Tory Government back Israel and don’t support a ceasefire; Labour under Starmer’s right wing leadership; having got rid or expelled many active socialist party members anyway; to take the same position and with only a year before the next UK election underlines not only the UK official opposition’s weakness on this situation in Gaza but on virtually every other UK domestic political and economic policy.
A far more genuine Labour position should be to contextualise the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7 in Israel.
Labour should also emphasise from a wider political perspective that attacking the policies of the Israeli government is not anti-semitic. It’s political anti-Zionism which many Jewish people adhere to outside and inside Israel.
As an analogy many Conservative politicians belong to the Church of England, but someone attacking their failed Conservative policies and military policies home and abroad doesn’t make them ‘antiChurch of England’.
Moreover a true Labour opposition should emphasise how history has allowed this divisive situation in Israel and Palestine to continue and how it all originates back to 1948 and well before, which the USA and the West has conveniently ignored because it suits western imperialist interests.
If there was any global conflicting political situation today which could not better identify how indistinguishable Labour are from the Tories today, then this is it.
Unfortunately Labour won’t do either because it’s just as much a conservative right wing imperialist party as the Tories.
Although being 20-odd points ahead in the opinion polls, if Labour under Starmer’s leadership is elected to power solely because of the failure of the Tory government it will clearly be equally as capitulating to Tory ideals which of course will inevitably play into right wing Tory hands.
Nick Vinehill
Snettisham
