OnTheWight always welcomes a Letter to the Editor to share with our readers – unsurprisingly they don’t always reflect the views of this publication. If you have something you’d like to share, get in touch and of course, your considered comments are welcome below.
Vix Lowthion, Chair of the Isle of Wight Green Party shares this email she sent to Isle of Wight Conservative MP, Bob Seely. Ed
Dear Mr Seely,
Many of your constituents may have missed your appearance on BBC2 Newsnight last night (catch up 10mins in) – where you sat smugly in front of your roaring fire whilst discussing the energy crisis situation facing families and businesses as we head into the cold, dark days of winter – so I thought it was worth writing to you to seek clarification on some of the points you made.
Yet again you used your television appearance to refer to “collateral damage in a geopolitical power ploy by the Kremlin” and that this is a “significant interconnected form of Hybrid War”. Have you any idea how this comes across to the 11,822 Islanders who are claiming Universal Credit and can barely afford the bus to Ryde, never mind a flight to Moscow?
When the presenter, Katie Razzall, directly asked you “aren’t things going to get a lot worse for people this winter?” you responded thus (in bold):
“I don’t agree with Marcus Rashford:
1. We have one of the most generous support packages for Covid in the world”
I’ve searched around, and I can find little evidence to back up your claim. In fact, the UK barely comes seventh in the G20 league table of GDP percentage spending on Covid fiscal stimulus– and poorer countries will have had to spend even more.
“2. Universal Credit uplift [£20 a week] was temporary and designed to get over Covid”
We haven’t got over Covid. I have to hand it to the UK government – we are ‘world beating’ when it comes to letting the virus rip through the country with few mitigations and have the fourth highest total number of Covid cases on the planet.
Our schools are seeing cases rising, and our local businesses are having to close temporarily due to covid.
It is not over.
“3. The way we fight poverty is by getting people into jobs – by hand ups not hand outs…”
43 per cent of Islanders who are on Universal Credit are in work. They have jobs. What they need is a decent living wage for those jobs, employment protections, job security and a work-life balance to protect the health of themselves and their loved ones.
Please, stop referring to Universal Credit as a ‘hand out’. Many Islanders who receive it have no option but to claim, in order to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. Losing £20 a week for you may be a bottle of red wine, but for the rest of us it determines whether we can put the heating on, or not.
“I am hoping that one of the beneficial side effects of Brexit means that we need to invest more in our own people … we have Isle of Wight employers who are desperate for new staff and getting them into jobs”
Your government have been free to invest in the British people for over a decade! Our membership of the European Union did not stop the government from investing in schools, hospitals, energy infrastructure or green jobs. But leaving the EU certainly has led to the shortage of workers in the haulage industry, hospitality and farming – and we are only beginning to see the crisis situation brought about by the Brexit that you voted for and fully support.
It is always enlightening to see your views expressed on the BBC.
Best regards, Vix Lowthion
