Gazette letters: 277 bus route, Extinction Rebellion, Women’s Party and pedestrian sense

Contributor Peter Bridges from Essex Road came up with a brilliant solution to this crisis and a solution that I and the campaign could support.

Rerouting either the 38 or the 56 through Highbury Corner and then down Upper Street is the obvious solution. It would cost no more money and would solve the problem of getting commuters and school children from Dalston to Highbury Corner!

So why hasn’t TfL come up with this?

The challenge now is to our elected representatives. Here is a solution so stop listening to Transport for London’s (TfL) excuses and half truths and demand that this solution is implemented for the sake of your constituents!

Over the holiday weekend BBC news reported on Extinction Rebellion’s (XR) West End blockades, moorland wildfires in Yorkshire, and the hottest Easter on record without appearing to recognise any possible link between the three – which is exactly the sort of reason the XR blockaders felt the need for their action, writes Andrew Myer, Islington Green Party.

As they said themselves, they were reluctant to disrupt people going about their daily business but have tipped over, beyond frustration, because the UK and its government simply aren’t listening and are failing to recognise that Climate Change is an emergency; that it is affecting us already – fires, floods, rising temperatures, etc. This will get worse in future; we only have a few short years to prevent worldwide disaster.

The remarkable Swedish teenager, Greta Thunberg, who kicked off the school strike movement last year, put it very succinctly, for her own and future generations: if your house is on fire, you wouldn’t just sit around discussing insurance or renovation. At the same time, veteran broadcaster and national treasure, David Attenborough’s programme Climate Change: The Facts stressed that without dramatic action over the next decade “we could face irreversible damage to the natural world and the collapse of our societies”.

Several councils have now declared a climate emergency, as has London Mayor Sadiq Khan, in response to a motion tabled by Islington’s Green councillor Caroline Russell, who is an Assembly Member too. More locally, Cllr Claudia Webbe said, on our town hall steps in February, that a climate emergency motion would be brought to Islington Council in June to recognise this officially – which the Green Party welcomes wholeheartedly.

Climate Change is an emergency. Our house is on fire. We need action not just words – for all our generations!

We look forward to seeing both the mayor’s and Islington council’s action plan.

It’s hypocritical of the Women’s Party to include Equality in their name, writes Róisín Ní orráin, Islington, full address supplied.

Are any of their candidates for the London Assembly elections in 2020 of Irish descent or have the largest ethnic minority community in Britain again been sidelined?

Their co-founder, Sandi Toksvig, did not appear object to the inclusion of anti-Irish racist Jeremy Clarkson on BBC TV’s QI last year.

As the programme’s chair, she could have refused to appear with Clarkson as he had recently racially abused, physically attacked and hospitalised Irishman Oisin Tymon. She had a chance to stand up to racism and a chance to stand up for the equality of Irish staff within the BBC.

By inviting Clarkson back, the BBC made it clear that Irish staff are of no value and do not deserve respect or protection.

This party was founded in 2015 but it appears that to the Women’s Equality Party, all women are equal but some are more equal than others.

May I urge those who, like me, haven’t been out of the house much to exercise extreme caution if you do go out, writes Jan Simmons, Islington, full address supplied.

You may have lost your “road sense”.

I was feeling better after being almost housebound for years. All I wanted to do was walk down to the shops on Holloway Roads so I went out earlyish Saturday morning.

The first thing I did wrong was failing to wait for a queue of traffic to get out of the way of an ambulance further up the road, sirens blasting.

I just pressed the pedestrian crossing button and hesitatingly crossed, holding everyone up. “Tut, tut, tut,” said the bus driver in front of me. Quite right too!

My next error was near disaster for myself. I looked the wrong way crossing Holloway Road and nearly got knocked down.

I’d like to make amends, I hope the ambulance crew got where they were going in time.

I hope the drivers I put out will forgive me.

I will be more careful in future. For now, my profound apologies, shame on me.