Letters to the Editor - 11th February 2008

Feb 11 2008 Liverpool Daily Post

Wrong track for rail service

THANKS to Bart Schmeink, MD of Merseyrail, for his response (printed in Thursday’s Post) to my letter about the persistently late and cancelled peak-time trains on the Liverpool-Chester line.

I’ve been trying to commute to work in Chester from Liverpool for the best part of four years now, and at last I know where I’ve been going wrong – I’ve been travelling in the wrong direction!

Seriously, though, I’m impressed Mr Schmeink is using Merseyrail himself.

In all the time I’ve been commuting, though, I have never witnessed the National Passenger Survey being undertaken.

Mr Schmeink reports that 87% of Merseyrail’s passengers rate the service as “satisfied or good” but I seriously doubt that 87% of peak-time passengers do.

At least Mr Schmeink is honest enough to admit that the Merseyrail Liverpool-Chester service “is a route where [Merseyrail] know [they] should be doing better”.

He asks that he and I compare notes about the service so here are my recent ones – got back from a holiday on Jan 26, have commuted to Chester seven times since, and the peak-time train I was going for was cancelled three out of the seven times, so my stat is “seriously annoyed and late for work 42.8% of the time”.

Fortunately, I am often able to get a lift back to Liverpool – the cancelled trains going home push my annoyance off the scale and cannot be described in a family paper.

My next challenge to Mr Schmeink is to publish (in the Post preferably) the stats about peak-time travel on the Liverpool-Chester service – just to confirm what we already know; and give those customer ratings by peak-time travellers.

I’d also be interested to know how Merseyrail are “actively seeking ways” of improving the service and, more importantly, when it’s going to be delivered.

T Sutton, via email

Tailoring our laws

I AM of no religious persuasion whatsoever – I think the official term is agnostic – but I really take issue with the comments last week from the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The suggestion that we should in any way be tailoring the laws of this country to be different for people from different religions is absolutely ludicrous.

The law of the land must be the law of the land whether you are Christian, Hindu, Muslim or Jedi, white, black, brown, pink or purple.

I just cannot see how we could possibly operate where what is illegal for one man is not illegal for the next.

I expect that the Archbishop was not suggesting we go this far, and was really asking for more tolerance of other religions, and the issue has been hyped up somewhat by people with their own agenda, but can you imagine us expecting the same sort of approach in countries which are much less tolerant than the UK? It just would never happen. You only have to think back a couple of months to the case of school-teacher Gillian Gibbons and what happened over the apparently innocuous naming of a teddy bear, to know that.

K Oliver, Warrington

Legal system

I EXPECT few if any of your readers of whatever race or religious persuasion will not be concerned about the debate ignited by Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who now argues that this country should consider adopting Sharia Law alongside our own legal system which has, despite its imperfections, met the challenge of time, served these islands for more than 500 years, and has been exported to all corners of the Earth as a template for justice and fair play.

While there has been almost unanimous criticism of this controversial proposal, we must not lose sight of the equally controversial comments of another Church of England cleric, the Bishop of Rochester, who has drawn attention to the disturbing existence of growing “no-go areas” for non-Muslims.

Dr Williams would do well to reconsider his proposal in terms of the conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, which suggests that ghetto communities facilitate the adoption of plurality in legal systems.

David Kirwan, councillor, Metropolitan Borough of Wirral

Out of touch

I AM disappointed by the conduct of the Anglican bishops of late.

They seem out of touch with the people and the Bible. No Bishop should be “rethinking” homosexual relationships when the Bible is clear.

Bishops should be upholding Biblical authority, not undermining it.

And then we had the Archbishop of Canterbury making more naive statements and not giving us the strong leadership and defence of the faith that we need.

Bishops should stop trying to be politically correct and get back in touch with the Bible.

If this nonsense continues, many of us will leave for other churches.

Sharon Roberts, L3

Culture stars

IT IS a sorry state of affairs when the council looking after the Capital of Culture receives fewer stars for culture than other local authorities in the region.

Two stars simply isn’t enough when so much money and effort has been put into the planning of this year.

If the Audit Commission was based in Newcastle, I would have dismissed this as a touch of the old sour grapes but, as it is not, this is a terrible situation for Liverpool City Council to be in.

Even Warrington, which has no culture to speak of, received more stars for culture than Liverpool.

Cllr Joe Anderson was right to say that this puts Liverpool in the relegation zone, but the sad truth is that there is nowhere for them to be relegated to.

There will be no rushing in of a hot-shot council leader or chief executive from a local authority abroad. You can’t ask various councillors or civil servants to sit this one out on the subs bench.

Mr Jamieson, West Derby

Battered banners

THE Capital of Culture banners all across the city are a great idea in theory, but they don’t appear to have been very well done.

You can hardly read what it says on them and I don’t think it is immediately obvious to people passing them, what they are for.

Worse still, with the recent bad weather, a lot of them are starting to look really battered and tired.

L Maloney, Aigburth

Kick out racism

AFTER reading the recent debate around racism and Everton FC, I have to write and voice my opinion. Liverpool as a city is sadly still very racist.

While growing up in the Childwall area in the 70s, it was common place to use vulgar language towards black, Asian and any minority groups.

After moving away from Liverpool in the 80s and coming back in the 90s I thought that the racism was on the decrease.

Unfortunately, I was wrong, and it seems the problem is getting worse and it has nothing to do with what team you support.

It’s quite fashionable to insult Eastern Europeans. It’s time people realised this is a problem everywhere. Well done to Everton and all clubs who stand up against racism.

Andy, Liverpool (full name supplied)

Solo shoppers

WE CAN’T stop progress and so on but forcing customers into using technology that slows up shopping and is awkward to use does not seem very forward thinking to me.

I refer to Tesco and its new fondness for coercing customers to use its scanning system that does not require a check-out assistant.

I was at the store in Formby one evening and, despite a plethora of staff milling about, they seemed hell-bent on customers using this self-service method despite their obvious dismay.

The problem is that it takes twice as long, because you must first scan – and spend long minutes fumbling through all choices of vegetable or pastry – then pay for, then pack your goods.

In these times of heightened awareness of various sensitivities, is this not discrimination against the solo shopper?

Frank Miller, Aughton

Tainted by the few

I READ about Ringo Starr’s comment about not missing Liverpool and can't help agreeing with him. While I personally love the place where I was born, I would never return.

We left Liverpool 8 in the 50s first to Huyton, then Kirkby, and spent several happy years in North Wales before emigrating to Canada in 1980. Since then, we have never looked back and have a lifestyle we could only dream of “back home”.

Sadly, the city's image has been desecrated by the mindless morons who have turned parts of Liverpool into war zones with their vicious violence.

The murders of Jamie Bulger and little Rhys Jones have only served to highlight why people who have left would never return.

There is no argument that the vast majority of Scousers are the salt of the earth but, as usual, the actions of the few taint the decency of the many.

Name and address supplied

Enormous talent

I AM fed up of hearing how Amy Winehouse is being so brave and battling her demons in rehab.

What demons? Here we have a young girl with an enormous talent, heaps of opportunities, lots of money and, most importantly, a family who love her dearly and still she almost threw it all away by turning to drugs. Can we all please remember the “demons” were of her own making?

A Jones, Warrington

Dangerous activities

REG COX’S letter on Wednesday about how he used to play with mercury as a youngster really made me laugh.

It is funny when you see all the health and safety hype about the tiniest things these days, then think back to the much more dangerous things we used to get up to as youngsters 40 or 50 years ago.

When I was a young man, teenagers were going off to fight in world wars; these days, children aren’t allowed to move.

F George, Wavertree