Once we could rely on prompt ambulances, short NHS queues, accessible GPs, nurses and teachers that felt at least adequately valued for their invaluable work, a properly funded Probation Service that didn’t allow murderers to roam our streets, rivers and beaches that were fit to swim in, a train service that functioned, free access for ourselves and our pets to Europe, an adequately resourced military, Civil Servants that were promoted rather than sacked for exposing corruption, confidence that literally billions of pounds of Public Money wasn’t being siphoned off to personal friends and Party donors, and a Cabinet that didn’t largely consist of charlatans, bullies and get-rich-quick merchants. Even our current Prime Minister robs us of the truth by denying that the NHS is in crisis at a time when the Royal College of Emergency Medicine calculate that 500 people are dying each week due to ‘extreme service delays.’

As an English tutor for over a decade in Stroud College, I thought it wise to explore my dictionary for a possible explanation as to why we’re in such a mess - to discover that the word 'Tory' has Irish Gaelic origins and means a robber or a thief! No wonder things are so bad. For 13 years the Tories have been living up to their name.

And what do they plan to steal next? In an insane act of Woke vandalism - simply because of their origin rather than their merits or demerits - Tories now plan to make a bonfire of all EU rules that safeguard standards in everything from deadly pesticides to motor vehicles and even children’s toys.

Siobhan Baillie, you really must vote against this absurdity! Demonstrate that you stand with your constituents and against those who would so arrogantly and carelessly rob the British public of thousands of safeguards voted into Law by your predecessors.

Anthony Hentschel

Nailsworth