Tag: tony delahoy

Letters: An old soldier remembers The People’s Day

Dear Editor

8th May 1945

After nearly six years of war (3rd September 1939 to 8th May 1945) the people of the UK were able in their millions to celebrate peace. They danced in the streets day and night, organised street parties for all children, rustling up food from their restricted rations to give them a good feed.

What a fantastic spirit there was, not only of relief from war but of great hopes for the future. May 8th 1945, we said, would never be forgotten.

In recent years, 2017 and 2018 and before, I listened hopefully to all the television channels to hear a mention of VE Day 8th May 1945 … but there was not one word; it had been completely ignored.

It cannot be that all television stations and newspapers suffered complete memory loss together. It can only be the result of a deliberate decision to ignore or suppress any reference to May 8th 1945. Shame on them!

8th May 1945 was The People’s Day: this may be the reason.

A. Delahoy

Silverknowes Gardens

Letters: All in this together? Don’t believe the lies!

Dear Editor

The misplaced faith expressed by the people of the UK in 2010, believing the financial disaster caused by the banking industry would be dealt with by the Conservatives and their Liberal allies in a fair way, saying that “we are all in this together.”

In a typically British way, the government was given a chance to ‘do the right thing’ but we know, to our cost, they didn’t. Instead, they embarked on a systematic policy of wage-cutting and drastic cuts in both local and national public services for eight years – and they have said cuts will continue for many years to come.

People have learned a hard lesson in thinking that Conservatives will be fair and treat all people equally. They have failed on all counts: they are not competent, they are not fair and, above all, they seem not to care.

Their main political purpose is to maintain the system of ownership and control by the rich, for the rich.

A. Delahoy

Silverknowes Gardens

Letters: Ask the right questions

Dear Editor

The 52% who in 2016 voted to leave the European Union expressed various reasons for doing so. In the main there was widespreda concern about how the country was being run: frozen wages, rising prices and drastic cuts in both local and national public services – and there seemed to be no end in sight to this policy. It was indeed a deliberate policy, aimed in turn at different sections of the population, a ‘divide and rule’ tactic to exercise control.

Massive confusion was created in the UK and those in power seem to talk about anything but the real problems, such as who own major industries – and are they operated to benefit all, or just shareholders and investors?

Major industries such as electricity, gas, water supply and sewerage, public passenger transport; all these are life essential services for all people – and because they are they should be publicly owned.

These are the questions that should be put to the people, and only the Labour Party is doing that. It is not right that these industries should be privately owned and controlled to make millions in profit for the few.

A. Delahoy,

Silverknowes Gardens

 

Letters: Don’t be taken in by Tory tactics

Dear Editor

The Tories never stop using the tactic of divide and rule and they are pulling out all the stops to divide the Labour Party and the party from the people to convince voters that only the Tories are electable. They are assisted in this campaign by the majority of the media on which we rely for information.

When the banking industry caused the world financial disaster in 2008 many drastic measures were taken, and, to get the nation’s acceptance, the slogan “we are all in this together” was launched to convince everyone to accept the debt as theirs – and to date we are still paying it.

The divide and rule tactic was and is used against those they call skivers and scroungers, those not in work claiming benefits. This has been followed by compelling people who are disabled to be assesses – by a private company – on their fitness to work, avoiding any medical assessment being made.

Next in line are those on housing benefit, who are at the mercy of rent rises by landlords or who are deemed to have a spare room and face eviction.

These tactics did convince some people – but fortunately not the majority.

The Tories then changed tactics again, blaming other countries and other people for all our troubles and they embarked on a campaign to convince people that everything would be fine if we left the European Union. The Tories were successful in that it has absolutely divided the nation.

The Tories have now returned to their other campaign of further dividing people by stepping up the attack on the Labour Party – and Jeremy Corbyn in particular.

The Tory Party cannot solve problems, as the last eight years have shown, because they themselves are part of the system that governs our lives in the interests of the few.

A. Delahoy

Silverknowes Gardens

 

Letters: Essential services for the many, not the few

Dear Editor

In the medical field funding for research is being directed into preventing disease and ill health. It must seem to most people an obvious and sensible thing to do and will benefit everyone in many different ways.

In the economic field, research and study have been made by many, particularly into the capitalist system under which we all live today.

Capitalism as a system has been greatly aided by new technology developed over two hundred years, enabling almost complete control over the workforce by  a few people. This control is needed to maintain the sytem.

Many improvements to people’s lives have been won through struggles by the workforce but the capitalist system is incapable of working in a progressive, continuous way. It creates slumps, mini booms and further slumps: each slump gets more severe, sometimes leading to terrible wars between countries.

Detailed studies of capitalism show it is confrontational with the workforce to extract the maximum profit from it’s work. This profit is in the form of goods made to be sold, but if the buying ability of the workforce here and abroad are restricted a slump will occur with all the poverty and hardships that follow.

So what is it possible to do?

To start, the major industries essential for everyone’s survival: the energy utilities and bus, rail and tram passenger transport should be taken into public ownership: this would ensure the whole population benefits, not the few.

These actions are political and need laws passed to proceed – only the Labour Party have said they will do it.

But first every Labour candidate for election must make building maximum unity on these issues a priority, and, when elected, act in the declared interests of their constituents by supporting the required legislation.

It can be done; changes can be made to benefit everyone.

A. Delahoy

Silverknowes Gardens

Letters: The people can bring about change for good

Dear Editor

Over and over again we are told of the rich getting richer, with fantastic salaries and pay-offs and vast profit making cope with rising prices while the rest of us try to cope with rising prices, particularly of food, with wages held below inflation, it is getting more and more difficult just to ‘manage’. Continue reading Letters: The people can bring about change for good

Happy birthday, Tony!

A very happy birthday to Tony Delahoy, who celebrates his 95th birthday today. 

Normandy veteran Tony, who received France’s top honour, l’ Ordre National de la Légion d’honneur, in 2015, has kept the NEN supplied with a regular stream of letters for as long as I can remember.

Londoner Tony’s passion for social justice burns as brightly as it ever has and there’s no sign of the Delahoy inkwell drying up just yet, as the following letters show. Keep up the good fight, Tony!

Dear Editor

There are many people who have the skills and ability in finding solutions to problems that can and do occur everywhere: e.g. fire fighting, repairing and reconnecting electricity transmission cables, telephone cable maintenance, water supply pumping stations, sewerage and sanitation contro. The list of skills needed is indeed a very long one; these skills being supplied by ordinary working people, men and women, on a daily basis.

The whole working population also supply the knowledge and labour to produce what is needed for us to live or to exchange with goods produced by working people of other countries.

But there are times when this ability to pursue a stable life is halted by financial and individual investors deciding to close down industries that they consider not making enough profit, regardless of the devastating effect of unemployment. The knock-on effect of not having a wage can only lead to cutbacks in other industries as sales decline.

It cannot be right that such power over peoples’ lives should be in the control of investors who, in effect, are just gamblers.

Tony Delahoy

Dear Editor

Wool and Eyes

Today, the ‘in-word’ is productivity. It is said that if the volume of everything produced could be increased it would solve all our problems. But this raises the question: for whom?

Owners of industries would not doubt expect their employees to work harder or faster, with our without new technology, for the same wages. This raises the question: who would be able to buy all this extra productivity, bearing in mind that employers in other countries are doing the same thing?

So just to say that more productivity is the answer to our problems is misleading to say the least. Unless those who make the things have the ability to buy them, industries will start to decline, leading once again to an economic slump that will affect the whole population.

If this is the only plan – mainly for the benefit of the already very rich owners – then it is time this sytem of capitalism gave way … as did slavery, serfdom and feudalism throughout the long history of peoples’ struggle.

Tony Delahoy

 

Letter: Cuts, cuts, cuts

Dear Editor

The continuing cuts in public services of all kinds are taking a dreadful toll on communities throughout the UK, undoing decades of struggle to put them in place.

The continuing fall in the value of wages, particularly now given higher prices every week, should convince the majority of the working population that private ownership of major industries are incapable of any other action.

There have been slumps in varying degrees of severity, the cost of which are passed on to the population: there can be no justification for such callousness in the pursuit of profit-making by privileged financial investors.

All of this show the urgent need for public ownership of at least the essential services: energy distribution, passenger transports of bus, rail and tram, water supply and sewerage – all of these industries should be working for the benefit of all, not a few investors.

We have to move on from the failed system of private ownership; there is no logical reason or sense in not doing so.

Tony Delahoy

Sillverknowes Gardens

Letters: Tears

Dear Editor

My tears are for all children, women and man who are suffering extreme poverty and starvation

My tears are for all animals, birds and wildlife

My tears are because of all the cruelty and the destruction of trees and natural habitat

But my tears are not tears of despair, they are tears of knowing how different things could be.

We have allowed a relatively few powerful financial organisations to control and exploit – with unbelievable callousness – people, animals and the natural environment for their private profit: these same people having created the biggest financial mess ever seen worldwide and are now passing it on to everyone.

This ‘system’ must be changed. Wealth created by the work of people must be used for the benefits of all people: we would then be able to deal with all these terrible problems.

A.Delahoy

Silverknowes Gardens