We don’t deserve to lose our home to pay for social care | Letters

When we bought our first home in the 1960s, it was not to amass a fortune but simply to provide a secure home for our children and to be able to live rent- and mortgage-free in our retirement.

Yes, we were fortunate to buy at a time when homes were more affordable, but we lived without a lot of luxuries. Our first home did not have central heating, double-glazing, a kitchen with integral appliances or carpets. We couldn’t afford holidays abroad and only bought secondhand cars. Many people were less fortunate than us, but local authority housing was provided for them and they were given the opportunity to purchase those homes in the 1980s.

I feel fortunate, but not guilty, to be now living a comfortable retirement. My husband has a pension that enables us to have some of the things we were unable to enjoy when we were raising our family.

I don’t feel responsible for the current financial situation. We don’t own a second home. We don’t snaffle up “affordable” housing to rent out, thus depriving young couples the chance to buy their first homes. I agree that the triple lock pension is unaffordable, that many of us can manage without the winter fuel allowance and that too many of the cutbacks made by the government over the past seven years have fallen unfairly on younger people.

It is the proposed plan to use the home we have worked so hard for to pay for our care in our old age that I find deeply upsetting. I don’t consider us to be wealthy and my husband still contributes to society in the form of income tax on his teacher’s pension. I always thought that if we had achieved one thing in our lives, it would be that when we died our children and grandchildren would at least have a property to sell that might provide them with some security as they approach old age.

I quite agree that insurance towards care in old age is a good plan for future generations, but it is too late for us.
BM Bridle
Seaford
East Sussex

Voting when times are tough

Robert Ford (Poll analysis, News) was astute in pointing out the return, or at least the partial return, of two-party politics in this general election campaign. Various factors have combined to a partial return, and Ford is right to identify nationalism as being a powerful tool for the Tories.

Theresa May’s seemingly superior leadership qualities to those of Jeremy Corbyn have helped, although the U-turn on the care package cannot have helped the Tory leader before the terrorist atrocity in Manchester on Monday diverted attention. What Ford did not mention was that when economic times are tough, as they are now, the minor parties do not get so many seats and there is less tactical voting.

When the economy was tough in 1992, the Liberal Democrats got 20 seats on 17.8% of the vote, before getting 46 seats in 1997 (on just 16.8%) when the economy had recovered. Additionally, millions of voters realise that it is futile to support a minor party with the first-past-the-post system.

David Rimmer
Hertford Heath
Hertfordshire

Manchester must unite us

Following last week’s appalling tragedy in Manchester, we know now there is a new threat – the re-emergence of sophisticated terrorism based on worldwide networks of jihadis organised across countries and continents, many of them young men with considerable knowledge of the digital world. Manchester’s carnage was not a unique occurrence. We have already seen acts of terrorism on the streets of Paris and reactions to terrorism are becoming global too. Manchester shared its suffering with Paris and Sweden stood in silent mourning with them both.

The whole of Europe faces similar challenges and is learning how to bring communities together in mutual response. The prime minister has already called for much greater oversight of harmful internet material, but the response must also be based upon the sharing of intelligence and of data about potential suspects, going beyond national borders. It also depends upon trust in one’s friends and allies.

Brexit is a wholly inappropriate abdication from the need to defend together liberal democracy on our continent. A divided Europe will destroy itself. Brexit could lead to our leaving the Schengen security system, which is an essential protection for us and other EU members against technically advanced acts of terrorism. So in trade, in defence, in shared intelligence and security for our citizens, we must work together. In other words, we must build a new partnership of democracy and peace with our European friends and neighbours that will overcome the hostilities and hatred that threaten both us and our children.

Shirley Williams
Bishop’s Stortford
Hertfordshire

Principles worth the price

The quotation from Paul Polman, the head of Unilever, should have been emblazoned across the front page: “To buy a company by overleveraging it, and having the taxpayer pay for it in deductions on income tax, doesn’t strike me as in the best interest of a country” (“I could push up Unilever shares by cutting costs. But that’s not our way”, Business).

This single sentence does more to unlock the folly of the political economy of the United Kingdom than 10,000 articles.
Ivor Morgan
Cardiff