Letters to the Socialist


Tory Lady’s advice bureau

Last year, former Tory whip Lady Rawlings made the press by advising people on low budgets to use electric blankets and hot water bottles to keep warm instead of heating their whole house. Her ladyship lives in a 38-acre, 13-bedroom, 15-bathroom stately home.

Now Lady Rawlings is offering her advice for anyone trying to run a stately pile and entertain 200 guests when finances are slightly tight. She told Tatler magazine that people should not serve guests plated food, let them serve themselves, or risk the lobster going uneaten into the waste bin.

She tells us all not to waste money on marquees for summer parties but to buy 200 Panama hats. If it rains stay inside. If it’s hot and sunny give them a Panama. Other snippets of advice include planting a small orchard.

In the midst of poverty, low pay and desperate housing conditions, Lady Bountiful’s advice to the lower upper classes was laughable. If we were in Lady Rawlings’ advice-giving business we’d say take over underused stately homes to start solving the housing shortage!

Keith Whitehead

Newark’s NHS candidate ignored by media

Ignored by the media in the blanket coverage of UKIP in the Newark by-election was the good vote received by one independent candidate. Paul Baggaley received 1,891 votes (4.9%), came fourth beating the Green and Lib Dem candidates and would have saved his deposit with an extra 60 votes.

Paul Baggaley is secretary of the Save Newark Hospital Campaign that has fought for five years against the downgrading of the A&E department and transfer of some services to Mansfield, 18 miles away. As a well-known Save Newark Hospital campaigner he was elected onto Newark town council.

Spending just £2,500 on the election, he was massively out-financed by the main parties. He was not invited onto the platforms of election hustings. Nevertheless, his vote showed the potential for a party opposing all cuts, defending a publicly owned and democratically run NHS, if it also had the backing and resources of trade unions.

Jon Dale