Letters to the Editor - 12th March 2008

Mar 12 2008 Liverpool Daily Post

University concerns

I WAS most intrigued by your front page yesterday (“Students suffer graduate jobs shortage”). Finally, someone is facing up to one of the biggest concerns of parents today.

We have spent too many years now in this country trying to convince everyone that higher education for all is the ultimate goal, all the while making it more and more expensive for young people to go.

And in the end what is the point in having an overeducated elite when there are not enough jobs for them?

Yes, for some people university is the right way, but we have far too many young people going into higher education, doing Mickey Mouse degrees in interior design and make-up, landing themselves with crippling debts for the rest of their lives – and for what? So they can earn the same as someone who came straight out of school and followed an apprenticeship.

On the flip side, while we are overrun with academics who cannot find work to suit them, we are dreadfully short of skilled manual workers and are having to rely on immigrants to make up the numbers, immigrants who then send a large portion of their wages back to where they came from, rather than investing it in this country and helping our economy.

The truth is that it is about time that we stopped fooling ourselves in this country and faced up to the plain truth that not everyone should go to university.

Mark Featherstone-Witty is brave to speak out, as he has, in saying that many students would be better taking on Open University degrees and thereby sparing themselves the huge costs that now come along with a full- time university course.

If more academics had the courage to face this issue the way he is doing, then we might be able to save a lot of young people a lot of heartache and a lifetime of debt. Because, heavens above, we have enough of that in this country already.

G Moore, Warrington

Women’s march

YOUR claim that the International Women’s Day Reclaim the Night March, organised by city women, had not taken place for 30 years is untrue (Daily Post, March 7).

I was one of the organisers of the last Liverpool Reclaim the Night March in 1988.

Along with other women involved in that dynamic and powerful march, I was a member of the Women’s Discussion and Action Group and a counsellor with Liverpool Rape Crisis. We held a jumble sale to fund the march.

The Daily Post gave us enormous publicity and we also fly-posted all over Liverpool so everyone knew of our march.

We were very vocal with drums, whistles, banners and blazing torches.

Also songs such as The Women’s Army is Marching, We are Women and We Rule, and the Greenham Common songs such as “We are Common Greenham Women” and “You Can’t Kill the Spirit”. We were real political feminist activists.

We would certainly not have allowed men to be involved in International Women’s Day events.

Reclaim the Night marches are about women taking back control for ourselves – not about having men along to “support” us as this defeats the objective!

I am disappointed I missed last Saturday’s march. I hope it went well.

I ask the organisers to recognise that we, their sisters, campaigned tirelessly for women’s rights throughout the 1980s.

In fact, several Reclaim the Night marches took place during that decade. We say as we did then “Women unite! Reclaim the night!” – and the days, too.

Christina Young, an organiser of the 1988 Reclaim the Night March

Worth the wait

RECENTLY, I have seen a number of letters in the Daily Post from people complaining about the roadworks and the congestion on the Dock Road/The Strand.

What I think these people are failing to grasp is the sheer scale of change that is going on in this part of Liverpool right now.

Cast your mind back just a few years and try to remember what Liverpool was really like. Liverpool was a completely divided city centre.

At the beginning of the millennium, you had the shopping part of the city on Lord Street, Church Street, etc, then you had the great divide of the Dock Road and the poor Albert Dock was out on a limb on its own with Chavasse Park in between. People either visited the city centre or the Albert Dock, not both.

Now, with this huge develop- ment, we will have one enormous city centre, instead of broken-up bits, and more importantly it will be an attractive city centre which people from around the country will want to come and visit.

Surely that sort of opportunity is worth waiting in a bit of traffic for.

K Swithin, Aigburth

Lumps of metal

LOOKING around our city centre, I’ve arrived at the conclusion that we have become the European city of badly-designed public seating.

The new benches in Whitechapel, for example, look for all the world like a row of blacksmiths’ anvils, and are just about as comfortable to sit on.

The kids jumping their skate-boards off them have the right idea, because that’s all these lumps of metal are good for.

If we include the ugly butcher’s block and steel hoop benches in Williamson Square and the uninviting cube seats around the trees in Church Street, you will get the general picture.

Why can’t this council simply install benches that people want to sit on?

I wish Phil Redmond the best of luck with his Liverpool bench design contest.

If the average man or woman in the street can’t come up with something better than the “duff” seating now in place, then I’m a Dutchman.

JM, L25 (full name supplied)

Second kiosk

IN THE past few weeks, I have read letters in the Daily Post about the morning peak-hour queues into Birkenhead Park railway station stretching on to the pavement.

As everyone waiting in those queues knows, the problem could be solved by using the second ticket kiosk, instead of using one seller to cope on his or her own.

This is grossly unfair to the Merseyrail staff, who are always courteous, and the commuters, who often miss their trains.

The problem obviously lies with management.

What are mangers for? A bright five-year-old would know how to solve this problem.

Things seem to be OK when people are asking for routine journeys, such as a return to Liverpool, but, should their trips be more complicated, the delays begin.

However you look at it, opening the second kiosk is the answer. But can the manager see that?

Sally Davidson, Birkenhead

An amazing night

LAST week, I had the delight of going to a concert at the new Echo Arena, in Liverpool.

I was taking my young daughter and her schoolfriends to see Rihanna.

While the artist is not exactly my cup of tea, I just wanted to say what an amazing night we all had, and how impressed I was with the Arena, the staff and the amenities.

From the person who took my ticket on the door to the woman who rushed us to our seats when we got lost and almost missed the start of the support act, everyone was friendly and helpful.

The Arena is magnificent and the best bit of all was that we only had a 15-minute drive home, rather than the hour-long drag I used to have to face when returning from concerts at the MEN in Manchester.

J Owen, via email

Big names

I AM so glad Sir Elton John is coming to Liverpool. The new Arena has certainly proved to be a big draw for the star names, and hopefully more world-famous acts will be announced to follow Sir Elton’s lead.

I am particularly glad, as it means we don’t have to travel down the M62 to Manchester any more to see our favourite singers and bands in concert.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to get a ticket when they go on sale and will be singing along to Rocket Man.

SJ, Wavertree

Charge for bags

I HOPE the Chancellor Alistair Darling takes the opportunity in the Budget to do something about the scourge of plastic bags.

While shopping in the smaller supermarkets in the city, staff seem determined to hand out carrier bags, even though only one or two items may have been purchased.

I remember going shopping as a child with my mother when supermarkets used to charge for each bag.

Why did this stop?

Or what about the American method of brown paper bags? Surely this can be introduced here.

Forcing supermarkets and shops to charge for plastic bags will go some way to solving the problem.

A Williams, Crosby

Employment issue

SO, HOW can the fact that 200 foreign workers a week are coming into Merseyside be considered an advantage?

Don't we have a massive unemployment problem in the area? I thought, naively possibly, that the general public was against foreigners taking jobs that it could fill.

How many UK residents are unemployed in this area?

I suppose we have to accept the single market situation as it stands, but don't ask us to recognise it as an advantage to the area, give us credit for some savvy.

RD Patterson, via email

Sacred place

RE: THE letter of March 6, “Cemetery concern”. What about the irresponsible people who walk their dogs in Allerton cemetery letting them loose to foul loved ones graves?

Is nowhere sacred these days? There never seem to be any security people around when they are needed.

Margaret R Green, Knotty Ash