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

How many of us really wanted Reform?

The local elections once again showed how damaging and dysfunctional our voting system is.

Across the country, we’ve seen results which don’t reflect how people voted. For example, in the West of England, the mayor was elected despite three out of four voters rejecting them.

Despite repeated searches, using all of the phrases I could think of, I was unable to determine the percentage of us here in Kent who did not vote for Reform but I suspect it would be many more of us than did.

I have lived in Kent for all of my 72 years - and my vote has NEVER counted! That can't be right.

This is not a glitch in the system, it’s a feature.

Whether in local or in general elections, First Past the Post (FPTP) distorts public opinion and damages trust in politics. It forces us to choose between voting tactically and being ignored, and leads to millions of votes, particularly those cast for smaller parties, being wasted.

Time and again, it hands full control to parties supported by a minority of the electorate.

Last year, Labour won a landslide on just 34% of the vote. With more and more people abandoning the two biggest parties, the proportion of votes needed to win would be even smaller. This means in 2029 we could get a government that 70% of the public voted against.

I’m very concerned about the future of our democracy if we don’t improve how our elections work.

Denise Geeves

Council stuck in a time warp

Angela Rayner chose not to put poor old Kent County Council out of its misery by overhauling local government and devolving power downwards, but instead mumbled some mumbo jumbo about being technically difficult and too complicated a project.

So here we are stuck in a time warp between 1889 (KCC), 1974 (all the districts) and 1998 (Medway). I suppose we should be used to living in the past, as often we read how much better it was in the past from some letter writers.

Let's take potholes. KCC has outsourced the repair of roads to contractors and their main objective is to make a profit. You can pour as much money in and buy as much kit as you like but it won't solve the systemic failure of managing our roads with the leadership and flexibility it needs.

At the moment it is all about contracts and how they are fulfilled. Road maintenance needs to be brought in-house and to be actively managed with district engineers out on the road overseeing the work and prioritising repairs on an active basis. There is also a lack of accountability, as everyone hides under the cover of not enough funding, which is true but not the whole problem.

The public transport part of KCC is a disaster, with expensive, useless vanity projects and a deteriorating bus network, kept barely alive by shovelling money into the pockets of Arriva and Stagecoach. The outcome is electric bus services with no electric buses, a station in the middle of a field, unconnected with other modes of transport and a fatalistic, learned helplessness, from KCC, every time yet another bus service bites the dust.

The biggest black hole at KCC is, of course, social care. The long term solution is integration with the NHS and a fairer way to pay for one's care in later life, such as the Dilnot commission proposals.

You will notice I haven't mentioned immigrants, but that's because they aren't the cause of Broken Britain, or a failing KCC. We have done it all on our own. I would also want to point out that the NHS would collapse more than it has done already, without migrant labour.

Richard Styles

PM must listen after local election drubbing

For many, many years the Conservatives ignored the views of the majority of the public who wanted to see illegal immigration brought to a halt and the government to be more representative of their views and thoughts.

Now we have a Labour government which has also ignored our views and warnings and continued as if they know better. Well, they don't.

Fortunately, the only ones who talk our language are Nigel Farage and Reform, who swept the board at the local elections.

The Prime Minister had better listen after this drubbing. He and his MPs will be the ones looking for a new job unless they change.

The people of Britain have had enough.

Sid Anning

Labour failure is no surprise

How could anyone possibly have voted Labour in the local elections after the shambles of the government’s first months in office?

We’ve seen: Abject failure of the boast to “smash the gangs” who run the migrant boats; record numbers of small boat crossings; pensioners’ fuel payment scrapped; business stifled by rise in National Insurance contributions; a Labour MP jailed for punching a constituent to the ground; Miliband’s mad dash for net zero; Starmer’s freebie suits and Rachel Reeves’s freebie tickets.

No wonder there is a surge towards Reform.

Tim Ewbank

We don’t want you back, Harry

Having had his appeal for taxpayer funded protection while he and his family are in the UK, finally rejected, Harry is whining that Daddy still won’t speak to him.

He surely can’t be surprised, given the way in which after quitting ‘The Firm” he and Meghan took themselves off to California because they wanted to be free from media attention, and spent a year traducing the Royal Family and making the last couple of years of his grandmother’s life a misery.

Since setting up their faux court in Montecito, the Sussexes, far from avoiding publicity, have actively sought the media spotlight.

It will be a cold day in hell before the odious pair are forgiven for their treachery and welcomed back by the British people.

If Harry is serious about ‘mending fences’ with the family, a grovelling apology and a little humility might be a good start.

Bob Readman

We still pander to car owners

How can Messrs Hudson and Britnell believe that the climate is not changing, or that we have no responsibility for doing anything about it?

Can't they remember that when we were young, children rushed out at the first flurry of snow to toboggan down hillsides, build snowmen and throw snowballs?

How many children born in southern England in the last 20 years have experienced these simple pleasures? Don't these gentlemen watch TV in horror, at burning forests, floods and melting icebergs?

Unlike Mr Hudson, I think car owners are pampered with cheap petrol and no restrictions on pollution. I agree, though, that voters will not vote for anything else.

The answer is to remove climate matters from national governments and enshrine them in international agreements.

The EU should include climate in the projected EU/UK reset. Starmer is desperate to sign up to anything.

What a golden opportunity for the climate, for which future generations will thank us.

Rosemary Sealey

Stop name-calling and take action

It was a pleasure to read Dr Hayden McDonald's lucid contribution to the discussion around climate change (letters last week), a discussion which is often mired in misinformation and vitriol.

Instead of calling each other names, it is time to take serious action to lower our emissions and to increase mitigation, both of which could boost our manufacturing base and the availability of steady jobs.

Unless countries take responsibility and lead the way, the young people of today and those about to be born will inherit a planet, our only home, that will be irrevocably damaged, polluted, overheated, stripped of biodiversity and beset by new contagions.

This is not fear-mongering but a genuine possibility based on years of data collected around the world.

Patience Vince

Don’t sacrifice our environment to developers

Regarding solar energy infrastructure and housing expansion plans, I share the concerns of many, especially those relating to:

The lack of local data or measurable evidence supporting council climate emergency declarations; the approval of developments without a transparent breakdown of local housing need, spending or planning viability.; the contradiction of promoting solar farms while endorsing solar radiation reduction policies which aim to reduce the amount of sunlight those solar panels and our crops would receive; the absence of public consultation in climate-related decisions that adversely impact our land, environment, health and food security.

As a voter, I am concerned that these policies are being advanced without democratic mandate or local consent and are often based on ideology rather than evidence.

The recent confirmation of government investment in sun radiation reduction projects, reported to exceed £50 million, demands immediate public scrutiny and environmental assessment. These political climate changing interventions - whether through pumping sulphur dioxide, aluminium, or calcium carbonate into the sky - have documented environmental risks, including disruption of precipitation patterns and knock-on effects; soil degradation and pH alteration; wildlife disorientation and pollinator collapse and potential long-term harm to human respiratory health.

The people of the United Kingdom have a right to clean air, a natural climate and honest governance. Artificially changing the climate violates all three.

It is our duty to protect our skies, our land and our legacy before they are permanently altered without our consent for the financial benefit of the companies, stakeholders and politicians involved.

Sylvia Laidlow-Petersen, The Heritage Party

Unchecked building has terrible consequences

Too many habitats have been destroyed with too many species displaced or critically endangered when housing is built without proper respect for nature and the environment.

When the Prime Minister belittles the importance of protecting nature in favour of rampant, unchecked building of housing estates that place a huge burden on already overstretched infrastructure, the consequences are terrible for humans, animals, insects and the environment.

Nadia Davies

Green spaces play a vital role

The destruction of flower meadows and wildlife reserves is going to affect the men, women and children who suffer from depression and find visiting these reserves has a beneficial effect on their well-being.

Roland Wells-Colyer

Doomed by our reliance on technology

Although the debacle concerning energy supplies in Spain and Portugal may not have been the direct result of their net zero policies there can be no doubt that the immense problems in restoring the power were due to the lack of the effective means of backing it up, something which fossil fuel generation is capable of doing.

In the UK the problems of Marks & Spencer, and now that of the Co-operative Group, show just how vulnerable the digital infrastructure is to action by malign players, whether domestic or foreign. In addition we continue to see addiction to mobile phones grow exponentially, while so many, often the most vulnerable, are being defrauded by scammers.

It seems that the Luddites were right, only 250 years too soon. It is becoming obvious that increasing reliance on technology means that humanity has a tiger by the tail and cannot let go, yet it is taking us to perdition.

The current difficulties will seem like nothing when we have placed our future under the control of intelligent computers, with agendas best described as enigmatic, which will have no interest in the welfare of mankind.

To continue on our present course means that evolution from organic to inorganic domination may be inevitable. To turn back before it is too late now might be the only way of saving human civilisation, but we know that we will not do it.

Colin Bullen

What have we learned from war?

I've heard on many occasions from veterans of World War Two, condemning the futility of conflict.

These people were called upon to engage in armed combat from a young age only to experience first hand, the horrors of seeing their comrades die in the heat of battle.

But the tragedy of war continues despite the inherent cost of lives lost and the despairing calls for peace.

Mankind hasn't learnt any lessons from the past. How many conflicts have erupted since the end of the Second World War?

M. Smith