THERE are many arguments being ranged for and against Ecotricity’s bid to purchase our Subscription Rooms in Stroud (SNJ letters, October 25).

It’s unfortunate when this debate lapses into the impugning of the characters involved – always a danger, alas, on troll-infested social media.

By playing the ‘personality game’, those who, as a matter of principle, are opposed to selling our prized community asset risk having our arguments written off as personalised attacks.

We mustn’t allow this happen.

The argument against our Sub Rooms being sold off to the highest bidder is straight-forward and overwhelming.

It’s terrifying how comprehensively free-market ideology has infected the modern psyche, even in Stroud!

The currently hobbled Tories are determined to finish off the job that Margaret Thatcher started, and to privatise everything.

The fate of our Sub Rooms is therefore a microcosm of this historic struggle to retain at least the semblance of a decent, community-valuing society.

The people of Stroud stand four-square against the ‘price of everything, value of nothing’ ideology – and this is why the Sub Rooms’ future is so crucial.

The current word-on-the-street is that a recommendation to sell to Ecotricity has already been decided upon, and if this is so, will the forthcoming so-called consultation will be an expensive charade, and nothing more than a PR exercise-in-disguise?

I fear that the views of the good people of Stroud may be about to be treated with contempt.

The very idea that Stroud’s unique community asset should be privatised, when perfectly viable, workable alternatives for keeping the Sub Rooms in the community are available, is little short of an outrage.

The people of Stroud don’t want ‘monopoly capitalism on a local scale’ colonising our great town, with the cold logic of market-relations dominating all parts of our lives – and we certainly won’t just sit by and let it happen.

So, please join the struggle to KEEP OUR SUBS as a community-controlled asset.

And look out for us - you’ll see us on a street near you, soon!

Dr Richard House

Stroud