'Farage - when you scratch below the surface, a different person appears' - Your Letters and an adorable picture from the archives of a baby elephant at West Midlands Safari Park from 2017

​Carol Owens clearly believes that Nigel Farage is the answer to all of our problems. He certainly knows how to cultivate the populist vote, but when you scratch below the surface, a different person appears.

He likes to portray himself as ordinary Joe Public when actually he is anything but. He owns five houses and his last entry into the House of Commons records shows that his yearly earnings were over half a million pounds from nine paid jobs.

His economic policies are bizarre. His proposed tax cuts will deprive the treasury of £80 billion annually to run the country; the savings needed to obtain that sort of shortfall can only come from drastic cuts to all of the public services, of privatising the NHS.

He claims he would save £40 billion by cancelling net zero when the experts say the saving would be £6 billion.

When the media get round to holding his feet to the fire, a different story will emerge.

Name and address supplied

Time to stand up for cash

I totally agree with a recent correspondent over online actions. I am sick to death of being refused buying or purchasing items because I’m not online! Car insurance, life insurance, clothes, now even car parks are online, or app? What's wrong with my cash? Discrimination is "rife" if you're not online, even banks make you wait/delay you because you are not online.

You go to a large store to buy, for example, shoes" off". We don't stock them here, but we can online! Even the new claims system on TV, like car finance - online only!

Our well established stores, shops, banks, are all closing due to the online sickening purge. It's time to fight back for our normal way of life, and stop our towns/cities becoming ghost towns.

D Griffiths, Midlands

Shame on the bin strikers

For the last six months bin workers have been striking in Birmingham - how can they manage to live on union pay for such a long time when they say they have no money, that's why they’re on strike? Shame on them. Also junior doctors, how can they afford to strike when they claim to be hard up? We in all jobs have to start on a lower wage and progress through the bands to higher wages. They should sign a prenuptial contract to work only in the UK for at least five years so the tax payer can get something back, not train here then go abroad.

Carol Prince, Craven Arms

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