Letters to the editor: MPs should know hardship

Parliament buildings. Photo / File

Like John Williams (Letters, February 25) I also noticed the tiny reference regarding the overqualified MPs tucked away on a back page of the Times.

Williams is so right - there is certainly some wisdom missing that is only achieved by real life experience.

My mind was cast back to the Mickey Savage Labour government, 1935-1949, whose leadership steered our little country taking us out of a worldwide depression and the poverty of those times and on through World War II, the greatest war ever fought on our planet.

All this and not an academic among its ministers.

Like most ministers in that government, my great Uncle, Frank Langstone, had very little education and learned his wisdom at the school of hard knocks.

And that is why that government was so successful, because its ministers had had their hands dirty with some real hard yakka, known hardship and an empty belly.

Gwyneth Jones
Greerton

Empty shelves

I have just completed my monthly shop at the supermarket, and I was amazed how empty the shelves are in Tauranga supermarkets.

We used to manufacture so much of our food here whether in cans, frozen, packets, etc, now all made overseas - hence the shortage.

I also noted Easter eggs are in short supply due to no major chocolate manufacturer here.

Wendy Galloway
Ōmokoroa

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