MY grandad fought on the Somme in 1916 at the age of 15. In 1919, he and his “hero” mates came back to squalor in Scottish slums and unemployment, no land fit for UK heroes.

In 1944 my dad started flying in bombing raids over Germany. When he was demobbed he came back to a UK where decent housing was available, there was a welfare safety net, a National Health Service and nationalised utilities to ensure fair prices.

In 1982, I came home from the Falklands conflict to find the Tories flogging off the utilities and services that taxpayer money had created and ships from under the sailors’ feet.

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My experience was the same as my grandfather’s, a government which was happy we did our bit, now here’s a P45 and disappear because that’s all the thanks you’re getting.

Since then, in England, great chunks of the NHS have been sold off, across the UK affordable council homes have been flogged off in fact anything that was not bolted down has now been flogged off by the Tories at the UK taxpayers expense.

So, dear braying “we won World War Two” Tories and Unionists, why do we now have the lowest state pension in Europe with a buying power of 40% of the UK state pension in 1948?

I mean, after all, we won the war, didn’t we?

Peter Thomson
Kirkcudbright

DEAR Kevin McKenna,

In Wednesday’s column you ask why women seem to be targets in culture of faux outrage. Good question.

I wonder, however, why you thought it relevant to refer to “big Andy” as a f**?

Why use a derogatory term for female genitalia at all?

Progress in the 21st century would be being able to “trade gentle insults” without insulting 51% of the population.

Karen M
Cupar