Letters to the Editor - October 17th

Oct 17 2007 Liverpool Daily Post

Parents should set food rules

WHEN I was a child, my mother had a very sensible attitude towards food.

Myself, my brother and sister all ate breakfast before school in the morning.

When we were at school we took packed lunches, which each day featured two sandwiches on brown bread or wholemeal barmcakes, one packet of crisps, a juice and one chocolate biscuit.

We all ate everything we were given and would not expect more. The biscuit and crisps were our treats for the day. In the evening, we would all eat a meal cooked from scratch by my mother (although not always together – my father usually came home too late to dine with us) before taking part in some sort of physical activity be it dancing, gymnastics, swimming or martial arts. Like most children, we loved taking part in these, and my sister even took up dancing as a career.

Although on certain occasions we would be allowed sweets or perhaps chocolates (like Christmas, Easter and birthdays) there was always the rule of only one treat a day and we wouldn’t dream of going out and buying more with our pocket money.

We are now all in our 20s and not one of us is overweight or has any issues with food.

We were all taught to treat food as fuel for our bodies and nothing more – we would eat what we needed for the activities we would undertake and continue to work to that formula.

This sort of conditioning is what is needed in young people today if we are to stem the growing problem of obesity, not fancy schemes and indulgences, bigger canteens and longer dinner hours at schools.

It is the responsibility of parents to set out the rules regarding food not politicians.

J Wallace, Winstanley

Support the South

TODAY is Global White Band Day when the TUC and its unions are calling on working people across the UK to urge their local MPs and politicians across Europe to “listen to the South”.

The global South, where most of the world's poor and developing countries are to be found, needs the help of our politicians if they are to ever have the chance of decent lives free from poverty, disease and exploitation.

Campaigners behind Global White Band Day believe that everyone in the world should be able to have a decent, exploitation-free job, and access to the public services that we all take for granted, such as clean water, schools and medical care.

There are also concerns that international attempts to lessen the impact of climate change will have a damaging impact on the economies of developing countries, and an international system of trade justice, that stops the poorest farmers of the world being ripped off by the multinationals, is still a long way off.

Our politicians are also being urged to cancel all the debt owed by the countries of the global South, and for them to receive more and better aid. For more information on Global White Band Day visit www.tuc.org.uk

Alan Manning, North West Regional Secretary, TUC

It’s grim up north

SO, LIVERPOOL is the worst city in England for binge drinking (Daily Post front page, October 16).

Great, there’s another fantastic title we can lay claim to, along with our soaring heart attack rates, teenage pregnancy statistics and chances of dying from lung cancer.

And what is this I note in my newspaper a day earlier?

Ah yes, Knowsley is apparently one of the worst places in the UK to live, according to some TV programme.

Talk about it’s grim up north. It certainly is if you have the misfortune to live within Merseyside’s boundaries. People talk about the north/south divide, well there is no denying that there is one, if these statistics are anything to go by.

It is nice to see that we have come so far since the dark days of the cotton mills when an exhausting and dangerous day’s work could only be shaken off by a stiff drink.

Except we haven’t moved on at all, have we? And, until people stop seeing alcohol as the cure for all stresses, we won’t.

Unfortunately that, I think, is about as likely as Victoria Beckham wearing the same dress twice.

L Kilshaw, Walton

Police on the street

I WAS very interested to read about the experiences of the former bobby Jim Finn (Daily Post, Tuesday, October 16) who has written a book about his time with the Merseyside police.

If there was a single social change which has stopped this country being a nice place to live in, it would be the disappearance of the bobby on the beat, though a few seem to be returning now.

It is hard to imagine that, less than a generation ago, this was a largely law-abiding country. Murders and beatings were so rare then that they were headline news in the national papers, let along the regional press.

The Government and police chiefs have said that it was necessary to replace the foot patrols with car patrols because the villains were getting more mobile.

That might be true. But why not have both?

The appearance of policemen on the street is reassuring for elderly people and others. The other thing, of course, is to get the police men and women away from all that unnecessary paperwork.

Jim Finn was right in everything he said.

Mrs Elsie Armitage, Walton

2008 funding

CLLR PAUL BRANT castigates the council’s Lib-Dem administration for allegedly failing to provide sufficient funding for 2008.

His criticism might have had some credibility if the council’s Labour group had bothered to propose an alternative budget and financial strategy in any of the last five years.

The fact is that the council originally agreed to provide about 55% of the funding needed; we are actually providing over 60%.

The fact is that our oh-so-generous Government takes about £3bn in various taxes out of Liverpool annually and returns less than half that sum in various funding streams.

The fact is that, if Labour had been in control – as Cllr Anderson admitted in the Daily Post earlier this year – they would have raised council tax by the maximum permissible amount each year. It appears that Labour on the council are desperate for Capital of Culture to be seen as a failure, and people should ask themselves why that is.

I am confident 2008 will be a success, not least because I believe the people of Liverpool will make sure it is.

Cllr Paul Clein, executive member for Children’s Services, Liverpool City Council

Museum displays

IN RESPONSE to the decision to return Aboriginal remains to Australia by Liverpool Museum after a request by their Government (Daily Post, October 16), where do we draw the line?

The New Zealand Government now says it wants their remains back, after 50-odd years of being kept in Liverpool.

The museum says that none of the remains have been on display here, but may have possible value for future scientific research in Australia. How much weight will the prominence or lack of prominence of such items in our collections carry against the modern backlash over British imperialism?

How long will it be before the pride of Liverpool Museum, its Egyptian mummy collection, is dispatched back to Africa?

Stan Fleming, Broadgreen

Fair weather fans

WITH just days to go before the Rugby World Cup final, the usual stuff is being spouted about how we should get behind our boys. It is a shame we don’t get behind our boys the rest of the time when things are not so rosy.

I have been a rugby fan for many years and this sort of fair weather fandom (largely perpetrated by the media) is just embarrassing and hollow.

Win or lose, those of us who have been with the team through thick and thin are sensible enough to know the oval-shaped ball will never replace the round one in the nation’s affections.

L Mayer, Waterloo

God’s existence

WHAT a wonderful observation that was from Ron Formby’s father, written about by David Charters in his column on Tuesday: “There are no atheists in a foxhole.”

That really is such a powerful answer to people, who deny the existence of God, like that biologist Stephen Dawkins.

Everyone calls on God in times of trouble, and most people have had some comfort from their prayers.

But that quotation says it all.

B McNeill, Birkenhead

Awake and alert

I HAVE been a GP in Liverpool for 30 years.

For the first 15 years, I did “on call” overnight. This included a whole weekend on call, finishing with a full day's work on the Monday, usually having been up the night before.

I was completely exhausted much of the time.

The current system ensures that, if a person phones up out of hours, they are connected to a trained doctor or nurse who is fully awake and alert.

We valued continuity of care at the time (and still do) but in retrospect I know there was a price to pay and that was probably patient care.

Dr Katy Gardner, L8

Youth triumphs

SO, YOUTH triumphs over experience once again. I am referring to the “resignation” of Sir Menzies Campbell. Although how much it can be called a resignation when everyone is muttering behind your back that you are not the right man for the job, is debatable.

All the world cares about these days is youthfulness, be it in showbusiness or politics, and I fear we are a poorer place for it.

H Samson, Aughton