Our readers from across the county give their weekly take on the biggest issues impacting Kent and beyond.

Some letters refer to past correspondence, which can be found by clicking here. Join the debate by emailing letters@thekmgroup.co.uk

Let’s have no-children days in pubs

Chris Britcher’s recent article on children in pubs was interesting.

I think real choice is the answer. Too many parents do not discipline their offspring and make the lives of others difficult.

I prefer meals out without being surrounded by children.

Having said that, many families go out to eat as a modern trend.

So let’s have family days and no-children days to give people a real choice.

I do not like loud music in pubs and shops, so let’s have quiet days without piped music.

I have even heard loud music in bookshops when browsing! Madness!

Give people choice for family or non-family days like quiet days.

I think peace and quiet days would prove popular!

Graham Wanstall

Just look at the climate facts

Bob Britnell’s letter (Time to Scrap the Green Agenda) offers a superficially pragmatic rejection of climate mitigation policies in favour of adaptation.

But what it really does is recycle a series of well-worn right-wing talking points that distort scientific reality, evade responsibility, and substitute political grievance for evidence-based debate.

His framing of the climate crisis as something one can simply choose not to believe in can only be achieved by misrepresenting the scientific consensus by implying climate change is merely natural variation.

The world’s leading scientists, through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), have clearly stated human activity, especially burning fossil fuels, is the primary driver of current global warming.

Ignoring this fact is not scepticism; it is misinformation.

He then creates a false dichotomy between adaptation and mitigation, as though preparing for floods can somehow replace the need to reduce emissions.

In truth, both are essential. Focusing on adaptation alone is like mopping up water from a burst pipe while refusing to turn off the tap.

The argument that the UK’s emissions are too small to matter is equally flawed.

Climate change is a global problem requiring collective action.

The UK, historically one of the world’s top emitters, has both a moral duty and a strategic interest in leading, not lagging, on this issue.

Britnell also invokes Ed Miliband as a symbol of everything wrong with environmental policy, a classic ad hominem move that replaces substance with political theatre.

Such attacks are a hallmark of the broader right-wing rhetoric around the so-called “green agenda”, a term increasingly used to frame climate action as some elite conspiracy against ordinary people.

The right's descent into the circus of conspiracy theory brings sharply into focus the utter shallowness of their ideology.

This framing is not just dishonest, it’s dangerous.

It turns a vital set of policies aimed at protecting health, livelihoods, and national security into a scapegoat in the culture wars.

It undermines trust in institutions, blocks meaningful solutions, and leaves us vulnerable to the very disasters it claims to pragmatically address.

The green agenda isn’t the threat. The real threat is a politics that treats reality as optional.

Dr Hayden McDonald

Time to ditch green policies

The Supreme Court has ruled against the absurd claims of the trans lobby concerning biological sex, in a victory for reality and common sense.

Now we must apply the same tests to the damaging actions of those campaigning for net zero, before the economy, and indeed our continued existence as a sovereign state, are further undermined by Ed Milliband, and his acolytes.

In order to reduce the already small total of emissions by the UK, the cost of energy in this country is now so out of line with our competitors that out manufacturers are being forced out of business.

If this is allowed to continue we shall soon be totally reliant on importing the most basic of goods, particularly the products of heavy industry which will be required if we are once again forced to go to war, something which seems more likely everyday.

Quite apart from this immense danger, the ordinary people are being obliged to pay more and more for their energy, while Milliband is said to be contemplating discriminating against residents in the south, by enforcing regional charges, weighted against the latter.

All this to satisfy the demands of an increasingly deranged environmental lobby.

If the Prime Minister wishes to regain lost political ground, he should reshuffle this fanatical minister to a post where he can do no damage, while changing the policy of the government to give priority to maximising our energy production from traditional sources, and actively support the regeneration of our industrial base.

Colin Bullen

Promotion has to be meritorious

Once upon a time employers looked for three things in a prospective employee: qualifications, experience and character (though not necessarily in that order).

Nowadays they’ve added three more: equality, diversity and inclusivity (EDI).

But instead of selecting the best person for the job, HR professionals appear more interested in appointing individuals from ‘underrepresented’ groups.

This is blatant social(ist) engineering.

One wonders what George Orwell would have made of such doublespeak.

EDI is a euphemism for promoting minority groups at the expense of everyone else, and Trump is right to ditch and we should follow suit.

The slogan is an absurd oxymoron that means the opposite of what it says - like 'war is peace' or 'hate is love'.

Besides such favouritism is bound to generate ill will in the workplace.

Should anyone doubt or dispute this, they should ask themselves: who loses out most from EDI?

One might argue some minority groups are ‘overrepresented’ in various areas, such as sport, medicine and the media.

But I don’t hear calls for more a more balanced representation in these fields - assuming anyone should have the temerity even to raise the subject.

If you want to have credibility you need consistency first. Words should mean what they say. EDI does not.

John Helm

Starmer should follow Trump

I normally agree with pretty much everything regular writer Michael Smith contributes to the letters pages.

But in saying Donald Trump should not have been given an invitation for another state visit, I think he has misled himself to the wrong conclusion.

He says a recent survey showed only three in 10 Britons believe there is a ‘special relationship’ between the UK and the US and that might well be true.

But to then claim this indicates Trump is unpopular ‘amongst a large swathe of the British public’, is not supported by that survey, because Donald Trump is not the ‘special relationship’.

I believe his apparent dislike of President Trump has misled him to conflate the two and thus reach a flawed conclusion.

Trump has his faults; not least he is a narcissist with an ego the size of a small country, and allowing himself to be played by Putin is a serious error of judgment.

But there is no doubt he has put what he believes to be in the best interests of his country at the heart of his policies.

If only our Prime Minister had shown any interest in doing the same, we would not have poverty rising at an alarming rate, an economy in danger of tanking, and instead of the empty rhetoric gimmick of ‘smashing the gangs’, serious appropriate measures would already have been implemented to stop the seemingly inexorable flow of illegal immigration.

C Aichgy

How on earth did he get elected?

No one could read Trump’s interview with TIME magazine and fail to come to the conclusion the President of the richest and most powerful nation on earth is an extremely dangerous, deranged lunatic.

It’s not just what he says but HOW he says it - the man is incapable of putting together an intelligible sentence.

The American people have to ask themselves how on earth they allowed such a person a second term in the White House.

How do we know when Trump is lying? He opens his mouth.

World leaders, including our own Keir Starmer, who think they can have a rational dialogue with Trump, are as deluded as he is.

It was the German pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (executed by the Nazis in 1944), who said stupid people are far more dangerous than those who are evil.

This is because you cannot have a dialogue with them.

So on that basis, Trump is a greater danger to the world order than Putin, Kim Jong Un or any other of the world’s tyrants.

Bob Readman

Putin’s land grab is over minerals

Who does that comparative ‘young man’ JD Vance think he is by saying the Ukrainians must give up a fifth of their country and Crimea?

He said if Zelensky doesn’t support the US peace initiative, the Ukrainians will lose the whole of their country.

What a damn cheek - who the hell does Vance think he is?

Appeasing the aggressor, in this case Russia, will do nothing but encourage Putin to do another land grab.

This is not a peace initiative but daylight robbery.

It was a different kettle of fish when Russia decided to put missiles on Cuba aimed at the US in 1962.

The Americans then ordered the Soviets under no uncertain terms to get out of Cuba, but when it’s someone else’s territory that’s a different matter.

The Ukrainian war is not so much a land grab but has more to do with the metals under the soil.

Tens of thousands of good young men and women have gone to the ‘meat grinder’ simply because of money and assets.

If the US withdraw military and financial support for Ukraine, then it’s Europe’s duty to stand by its ally or face the consequences.

Sid Anning

How inflation is costing us dear

Inflation is just another tax but a particularly pernicious one and a massive earner for the government.

Anyone receiving an increase in their salary or pension will find the percentage increase in their total tax liability will exceed the percentage increase in their income.

Most, sometimes all, of the interest paid on bank deposits, is simply compensation for the loss of buying power of the deposit due to inflation.

Only when the interest rate exceeds the rate of inflation will there be a real return.

However, since all of the so-called interest is taxable, the depositor is being taxed more on inflation than on real interest.

Similarly with capital gains tax. Most of the so-called capital gains on an assets held over a long term results from the devaluation of the currency through inflation.

There may be no real capital gain after adjustment for inflation yet there will still be a capital gains tax liability. Consequently, capital gains tax is more of a tax on inflation than a tax on real gains.

Because of inflation, government revenues have soared to record levels at a time when the government has downloaded many responsibilities to lower levels of government and to businesses.

The costs of its failure to address illegal immigration are borne by county councils while social tariffs for energy, water and broadband are financed by other customers of those utilities.

The government benefits too much to be serious about controlling inflation so, despite optimistic forecasts, we are unlikely to see inflation fall very much from its current levels.

Derek Wisdom

Technology enslaves us all

With reference to cashless bus fares. Outrageous. Yet another attempt to eradicate cash in our society.

Another example of technology enslaving us to its usage.

Yes, use the tech to serve us, but when it becomes the only way we can live our lives that is enslavement.

There are more and more cashless-only businesses and cash-only establishments are surely fighting to save themselves from bankruptcy.

They have to buy the equipment to enable cashless payments and I don’t see the tech companies handing out any free tech, do you?

Michael Bacon

Think carefully when choosing land for development

Developers, please think about our wildlife before building, we need to protect it and not destroy areas of natural beauty.

When developing, land should be chosen very carefully and local people need to have their say.

Elizabeth Miller