Letter to the i: Sovereign Wealth Fund Letter

With Theresa May dolling out money to the DUP and Corbyn dolling out money to pretty much everyone it looks like a "money tree" is much in demand.  The closest this country can get to having one is to form a Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF).  SWF's are private investment portfolios run by governments that invest their proceeds into long term public spending commitments.  Countries as diverse as Qatar, Canada and Norway have SWF's.  Norway invests it's oil money into it's own SWF, so there is a possibility that we could invest shale gas money into our own.

Regards

Zachary Barker

Letter to the i: Politics Letter

With regards to JS Chance's letter concerning Jeremy Corbyn being invited to Glastonbury, for the most part I share their concerns.  While I do not think it is right that a "single political ideology" was represented at the festival, I do support efforts to bring political discussion to the mainstream.  I feel my countrymen have a way of talking about politics like it is something to be embarrassed about.  On the contrary it is something to be embraced and explored.  However I fear that the hysterical hero worship around Corbyn is giving too much credence to personalities and vague principles.  What we really need to be passionate about discussing is policy ideas, an area in which fresh thinking is desperately needed.

Regards

Zachary Barker

Letter to the I: Prince Harry Letter

Let us be frank about why Prince Harry suddenly feels like sharing his feelings across the media.  The public story is that the Prince wants to relate with his subjects through a common thing we call experience, the grief following the death of a loved one.  The motive behind it though is truly Machiavellian.   The motive is to keep the monarchy relevant at all costs, including turning the tragic death of his mother into grief pornography for the institution to exploit.  This shows the ultimate baseness of an institution that has to resort to such tactics in order to stay relevant in our lives.  It isn't, so the sooner we have a British Republic the better.

Regards

Zachary Barker

Letter to the I: EU Letter

Nick Gent's letter gave too much credit to Jeremy Corbyn for apparently standing in the way of Brexit.  Far from standing in the way of Brexit, Corbyn shamelessly opened the door to it by voting through Article 50 without amendments. 

     I would also take issue with the assumption that Brexit would automatically make us better off.  What interest does the EU have in giving a country that is leaving the organisation a better deal than for those staying?

Regards

Zachary Barker

Queen's Speech Letter

With regards to John Seabrook's letter I am not sure whether he was being sarcastic in congratulating the Queen on what she wore for the State Opening or not.  But the disturbing subtext behind this frankly giant waste of time is that our Head of State does not provide us with genuine leadership.   Her not being elected means she cannot say anything meaningful or controversial like a strong leader should be able to do during testing times.  Considering our Head of State is not only a lie, it also unhelpfully makes us feel as though our politics is something we should be embarrassed  about.  We like our Head of State instead should be taking responsibility for the state of our politics.

Regards

Zachary Barker

Letter to the I: Royalty at Grenfell

With regards to Ann Craig's letter she was right to draw a critical comparison between Theresa May's sense of empathy and the Queen's.  The inconvenient truth is that the Queen needs the oxygen of publicity caused by such tragic events as the Grenfell Tower fire more than May does, since the survival of her archaic institution depends on it.  Considering that the Royal Family did not offer shelter to the public during the Blitz I doubt they will offer shelter to the survivors of this tragedy.  It is time we rejected an institution that displays fake compassion and robs us of our credibility and common sense.  It is time for a British Republic.

Regards

Zachary Barker

Letter to the I: Class Letter

I am of the opinion that recently the raising of the issue of class is all too often done to score cheap political points.  Recently David Lammy MP alluded in a TV interview to "middle class viewers" not understanding issues around the recent fire at Grenfell Tower.  In fact class lines are blurred thanks to both the working and middle classes experiencing similar challenges in our stagnating economy, such as stagnating wages and spiralling living costs.  I myself hail from the middle class and yet I have experienced the indignity of having to move out of a poorly maintained rental accommodation for health issues directly exacerbated by my living environment.  Citing class is only productive if it promotes empowerment in place of divisiveness.

Regards

Zachary Barker  

Letter to the I: Afghanistan Letter

British public reactions to ongoing bad news from Afghanistan is setting an all too familiar pattern.  The overwhelming consensus is that we should never have gone to there in the first place and that all NATO forces should leave.  It has to be remembered that the Taliban far from being an entirely indigenous force in Afghanistan is a proxy of the Pakistani intelligence services, who have their own agenda.  The elected government of Afghanistan wish for NATO forces to remain and help preserve their important advances in democracy and women's rights.  The Stop the War Coalition  and it's supporters would be incredibly callous and cowardly to allow these advances to collapse to suit their warped consciences.

Regards

Zac Barker

Letter to the I: Brexit Negotiations Letter

Regarding John Salter's letter about the pre-EU referendum negotiations, the case he presents is very one sided.  Mr Salter presumes wrongly that the failure to reform the EU is the fault of Brussels alone.  We had many years to seek out allies within the organisation who had a common interest in reform.  Instead of bothering to create a compelling blueprint of reform or build a solid group of allies to support it, the UK Government stood on the sidelines and complained.  The same thing is happening again.  We are failing to present a positive case for UK relations with the EU post-Brexit.

Regards

Zac Barker

Letter to the I: Matters of conscience

I disagree with Geoff Chapman's letter on positions of conscience.  I do not think it is people's conscience that makes them want to roll back successes in LGBT and women's rights.  Instead such people feel a need to judge and interfere in lifestyles that either they don't like or simply don't understand.  These attitudes are ironically also held by those who say they want the government out of people's way but would still invite the same government into people's bedrooms.  Being liberal is one thing, but people who knowingly make the lives of others harder need to be held to account.  I for one accuse them of callous ignorance.

Regards

Zac Barker

Letter to the I: Theresa May Human Rights Letter

Theresa May displayed spectacular hypocrisy when she slammed Corbyn for retreating on foreign policy in the face of terrorism when she wants to do the same to our domestic policy, in the field of Human Rights.  Benjamin Franklin rightly said "Those who give up liberty for security deserve neither and will lose both".  May has started a race to the bottom in repressive legislation which has been ably joined by UKIP who, since losing Douglas Carswell, are on the way to becoming the 21st century's National Front.  Instead of lecturing May should listen to the security services who clearly say they need more resources, not more powers.

Regards

Zachary Barker

Letter to the I: Military Letter

I profoundly disagree with David Ridley's letter.  Although it is of course very important that our security services have the resources to protect us from terrorists, it should not be at the expense our ability to stand up to nation-states.  To this end we still need to invest in our Trident nuclear weapons to avoid nuclear blackmail from adversarial nation-states.  In a wider sense it is also important for us to maintain an expeditionary military capacity in the event that we need to military intervene abroad.  We may need to do this in order to come to the aid of NATO allies or fulfill our obligations to the Genocide Convention or the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine.

Regards

Zachary Barker