Letters to the Editor - October 09th

Oct 9 2007 Liverpool Daily Post

Everything is instant appeal

WELL, we can all heave a sigh of relief that the party conference season is over for another year.

The commentators have made out that Gordon Brown’s decision not to hold a snap election was based on the fact that David Cameron’s speech was well-received and apparently helped cut the Labour lead in the opinions polls.

Well, the Conservatives’ policy of raising the threshold of inheritance tax might have helped their cause a bit.

But the overall impression from the three conferences was that the main parties no longer attract people of any real substance, which could be very serious for the future.

The reason he didn’t call a general election is almost certainly because Brown realised that most people aren’t sufficiently interested and would look upon it as a nuisance.

The fact that we have a strong economy, based now almost entirely on service industries rather than manufacture, cannot forever hide the mess we’re heading for.

What most of us wants is the return of the old, decent Britain, which has perhaps been idealised, but really did exist, in which children behaved themselves and people were proud of their homes and their education and the country’s traditions.

Everything is now spin and instant appeal. And what’s the point of that tree logo the Conservatives use? It looks as though it was drawn by an unsupervised three-year-old of modest talent.

R Cummings, Ellesmere Port

Time will tell

THEY do say a week is a long time in politics, and has that ever been truer than it is right now?

One minute the political commentators were writing off the Conservatives, and now Gordon Brown appears to be running scared following David Cameron’s conference triumph.

Gordon may think that, in postponing a general election, he has given himself time to prove himself to the British public – but he should be careful. If David Cameron could turn public opinion so firmly his way in just a week, imagine what damage he could do to the Labour party given a year or so.

K Watts, Warrington

Respect Week

ALL this week, Wirral’s Anti-Social Behaviour Team, led by Caroline Laing, has been running Wirral’s first Respect Week.

The week kicked off with a launch at Birkenhead Park, which included the launch of Wirral’s very own Respect Bus. It was followed on Wednesday with the launch of the Family Intervention Project (FIP), which will be run in collaboration with National Children’s Homes. On other days, the team were out and about in the borough with the Respect bus, running clean-up operations and talking to the people about problems with anti-social behaviour

The week culminated in a conference on Friday aimed at tackling anti-social behaviour and promoting RESPECT to make things better in Wirral.

It has been a pleasure to attend all these events and talk to many people, residents’ groups, police and all the agencies that work together, to make Wirral a safer place to live and work.

I would like to put on record my thanks to Caroline and her team who have made, and who continue to make, a difference to so many people’s lives through their proactive and reactive work. I urge anyone who suffers from instances of anti-social behaviour to contact the team on 606 2020.

Chris Blakeley, Conservative councillor for Moreton West and Saughall Massie

Care needed

I READ your article in Saturday’s Daily Post about the care workers dispute with Liverpool City Council in amazement.

It is self-evident that, if the terms on offer are not attractive enough, few will choose to volunteer.

What shocks and amazes me is that Liverpool City Council is even contemplating the redundancies in the first place.

I speak from first hand experience because my father, aged 84 and recovering from a stroke, is still waiting for Liverpool City Council to put in place a care package for him.

The reason for the delay, we are told, is that there are not enough care workers. Yet this same council is planning to make care workers redundant. Can someone from the council group explain the logic of their policy?

It is certainly lost on a frail and vulnerable pensioner having to stay in hospital until the council deign to provide the care so desperately needed.

Mike Robinson, L11

Strand madness

HOW can they possibly dig up The Strand for another 17 months? Haven’t they just spent about four decades digging it up already? It feels like it, anyway.

It’s a joke. A complete joke.

Is this latest debacle some kind of mad plan to get more people to use the ferry? Or to walk or maybe to pogostick to work?

Frankly, it would be far quicker to wriggle on your stomach along The Strand than to drive along it at the moment, and that’s before this 17-month-long period of roadworks begins.

Aside from the inconvenience, how much is this constant digging, filling in and digging again costing the taxpayer?

There are many good reasons for living and working in Liverpool, but at this rate the reasons for not will outstrip them.

Mr Verseau, L15

Park and ride

LARRY NEILD’S column (Monday, October 8) “Not on the buses”, made for rather depressing reading. Yet I fear, once again, Larry has hit the nail on the head when it comes to predicting Liverpool’s future.

While we are all getting excited about the new developments, I expect few people have actually considered the numbers needed to make them work and, as he says, if Liverpool is not moving now, one can only imagine the traffic horrors we can look forward to when all those hordes of shoppers arrive.

Certainly the bus companies must do more, but it is not just them. Surely the time has now come for Liverpool to adopt a park and ride scheme? This would answer so many of our problems and would be relatively simple to put in place.

N Simpson, Hunts Cross

Heartbreak

MY HEART absolutely goes out to Alison Thorpe, the mother who has made the heartbreaking decision to have her severely disabled daughter undergo a hysterectomy to make her life more bearable.

Everyone is now putting their opinion forward on this, and saying that what she is doing is unfair on her daughter or against her human rights. It is all well and good these people having their say, but they don’t live with the girl day-in day-out, and they will not be there to see her suffering.

I am sure Mrs Thorpe has wrestled with this decision for a long time, but she really does have her daughter’s best interests at heart and should be given all the support she needs.

G Swift, Allerton

Mail strike

THE postmen are on strike again, and who can blame them, the way the Royal Mail is treating them – but what else can the Royal Mail do?

EU Directive 97/67/EC prevents our elected government from giving them any more support and there is nothing that three of our mainstream parties (Labour, Conservative and Liberal/Democrat) are prepared to do to help. They want to stay in the EU and simply say “Yes” to their EU masters.

The UK Independence Party is the only mainstream party that stands up to the EU, and it is the only party prepared to do anything to help the postmen and post offices.

Henry Crocker, UK Independence Party, Wirral branch

No experts

BEFORE the Rugby World Cup started, the general opinion of “experts” in the media was that the European countries were just there to make up the numbers.

England was not given a ghost of a chance.

Now we find that England, the World Cup holders, are to play France, the host nation, in one of the semi-finals.

Scotland also put up a plucky performance in their quarter-final defeat against Argentina.

Is this another example of the experts not knowing what they are talking about?

T Molyneux, Aigburth

Jamie’s mission

MAY I just say how impressed I am with Liverpool’s Jamie Carragher for his decision to try and do something about childhood obesity through his restaurant venture.

Instead of just wanting to make more money, it seems he really has a mission in mind in opening his Cafe Sport, and that should be commended. As we all know, youngsters look up to footballers more than any other public figures.

This project has the potential to do a lot of good. But then I don’t think many people will be surprised to see Jamie doing something so worthy, as he seems to regularly turn out to lend his support to important causes. If only all footballers were so community-minded, maybe the beautiful game wouldn’t suffer from such a poor image.

L Wilson, Tuebrook

City shame

JUST when you thought it was safe to go back on the water, we are told that the much celebrated landing stage is not actually any good and has had to go back for repairs. Seriously, you could not make this stuff up.

What is wrong with this city? Why can we never get anything right? This must be one of the most shameful moments yet in Liverpool’s regeneration.

I can only imagine what those people who travelled in on the QE2 a couple of weeks ago must be thinking.

G Howarth, Wavertree