Letters to the Editor - 14th March 2008

Mar 14 2008 Liverpool Daily Post

Not keen on taking an oath

I CANNOT believe Gordon Brown is serious in considering bringing in some form of oath to “Queen and country“ that schoolchildren may be asked to take in the future.

Whatever form such an oath would take would be guaranteed to upset large portions of the country.

The very words sound like an echo of the patriotic fervour of 1914, and we know what the consequences were for those high on that drug who rushed in their thousands to the nearest enlisting centre.

Our own Lord Goldsmith (a contemporary of mine at school) has described it to be an oath of “citizenship”. As a republican, I would welcome us all having the status of citizen of the UK, rather than the current situation whereby we are classed as “subjects” of the hereditary monarch. Not sure monarchists would be in favour and that’s the problem.

Those who are wary of extreme nationalism would be uneasy at an oath sworn to a flag, for example.

So far, I haven’t seen any reference to religion being part of the deal, but it is clear that atheists would not be happy if such a reference were included.

For my part, I’m not keen, but if an oath is born and lives, I just hope it restricts itself to putting no more onus on the oath-taker than a promise to be a decent human being and law-abiding citizen of the UK.

PR Jones, via email

Ticket to ride

SALLY DAVIDSON, from Birkenhead, wrote to you (Letters, March 11) about sometimes having to queue to buy a ticket at Birkenhead Park station.

We try very hard to make sure that nobody has to queue for more than five minutes at any of our stations during peak hours, and I am glad that Ms Davidson recognises that our staff are always courteous even when it’s very busy.

At our busiest stations, we have installed self-service ticket machines specifically to allow passengers to “by-pass” queues at the ticket window.

At some other stations, we may have a second ticket window equipped with a ticket issuing system and extra staff to help out during the busiest times.

At the moment, Birkenhead Park has neither but as the numbers of passengers across the Merseyrail network have increased substantially over the last few years, we try to respond to changing patterns whenever we are able to. And we will have another look at Birkenhead Park to make sure that passengers don’t miss the train they were aiming for although with eight trains per hour in each direction, the wait for the next train is never very long.

Finally, passengers can help us to reduce queuing times by buying their ticket for the next day’s journey into work on the way home the day before, or by renewing a weekly or monthly Railpass or TRIO ticket before the old one has expired.

So, if at all possible, don’t wait until the Monday morning or the first day of the new month to buy your ticket.

Rudi Boersma, Media and Corporate Affairs, Merseyrail

Care for the elderly

IT WAS with sheer disbelief that I read the council is proposing to close Leighton Dene care home and day centre.

My mother, Nora, was admitted to hospital after a fall. She is 80 years old, very deaf, and has vascular dementia.

My husband (who has epilepsy) and I had a dreadful shock when our son suffered a major stroke, aged 32.

He is married with a young son and when I rushed to the A & E unit I thought I was going to lose him that very night.

Then the hospital informed me my mother was being discharged! Who would look after her? I didn’t have a clue how I was going to manage, as I also work full-time.

Thank God the social worker said he could get mum into Leighton Dene for up to six weeks while he prepared a care package that would enable mum to return home safely.

During those six weeks, every time I visited mum she was always happy, well cared for, safe and secure.

Too many of these good care homes are closing. What can we do to stop this happening?

Our old people deserve the extra care they are getting. They have all worked and contributed their taxes and paid their rates. Some of them have defended our country and where would we be today without them?

Marie Lavery, L13

Greatest trick

I WAS interested to read in the Daily Post (March 10), Mike Storey’s comment that the Labour opposition were “using every trick in the book . . .” to attempt to gain control of the authority in May’s election.

This is a bit rich coming from the party that has pulled off the greatest trick of all over the last 10 years, that being the “all is well ” illusion.

In fact, all is so well that we are about to witness the closing of Leighton Dene care home to our vulnerable elderly: the closing of Fazakerley special needs project for local people with special education needs; the closing of specialist nurseries; the reduction of opening hours to our libraries; our swimming pools; our leisure and sports centres and the reduction in funding to our youth services.

So yes, Mike, every trick in the book has indeed been used, except they’ve been used by the Liberal Democrats in an effort to maintain this illusion. Unfortunately for you and your colleagues, like all illusions, sooner or later they fade away.

Cllr Richard McLinden, Warbreck Ward (Lab) councillor

Hard workers

IN RESPONSE to Michael Matthews’s letter in yesterday’s Daily Post (Immigration Folly) I’d like to point out one fly in the ointment with his suggestion that we should “start building a few more towns the size of Kirkby to accommodate the new arrivals”.

The basic problem with that is that we would need to encourage even more central Europeans to come to this country to build the new towns, as it appears that many of our own workers are too feckless to be worth employing.

On Tuesday, a TV programme about Peterborough showed an interviewer offering jobs at £7.50 an hour to local lads who claimed to be desperate to work.

As soon as they heard it was picking squash and, therefore, involved hard work, they said they would prefer to be on the dole.

They also moaned about immigrants taking their jobs – hardly surprising, really.

One employer said his immigrant workers were never late and hardly ever needed to be told what to do as, once they had finished one job, they found themselves more work to do.

If you want to stop immigration, follow the example of the immigrants and work hard for a living and then employers would be happy to take locals on and there would be no need for immigrant workers.

E Wilson, Crosby

Budget misery

WHAT a chicken Mr Darling has been. No attempt at taxing the utility or oil companies who have all made obscene and unjustifiable huge profits on the back of scare tactics.

He is taxing the working under classes again – beer and cigarettes at the very sharp end. To some, the pleasure of a beer and the odd cigarette is the only luxury that was affordable.

This is on the back of huge increases in mortgage interest thanks to scare tactics that came from the good old US of A – where some idiots lent too much money to the people who any sane person would know were obviously incapable of repaying.

The Labour Party are now so far removed from their roots they may as well join David Cameron in the Conservative lobby.

George Gibbons, Bootle

More job losses

IN TOTAL frustration I write to you, having just read the article regarding a further 800 job losses in Liverpool at the Royal Mail.

Back in 1997, when the Labour Party were elected to run the country, we all breathed a sigh of relief, at last we thought the bad old days of the past had gone.

How wrong we were, Liverpool has been treated badly by this Labour government.

Recently we have seen the announcements of job losses at Rolls -Royce, Remploy, Revenue & Customs and now Royal Mail (sorting office – Copperas Hill).

Add this to the job losses at the Post Offices, in the Fire Service and the refusal to fund our Capital of Culture, I wonder how anyone can perceive that Liverpool is better under Labour.

Jimmy Cook, Liverpool 14

High price to pay

I AM writing as I was delighted to hear that Elton John would be appearing at the Echo Arena later this year as I am a massive fan.

I was totally dismayed to learn that the tickets are priced £100 and £75.

I have a young daughter who wanted to come with me. How can the general public afford these prices? I know I certainly can’t afford £200 for two tickets.

Marian Murray, via email

Biggest pavement

JUST when I thought we had suffered all the misery there was to be had when it comes to The Strand, all in the name of road improvements which will apparently make life better in the future . . .

I noticed today that they appear to be building one of the biggest pavements I think I have ever seen, in the area opposite the One Park West development.

Can someone please explain to me exactly how this massive walkway will ease traffic congestion on this most crucial of thoroughfares?

J Kellogg, Mossley Hill

Narrower roads

CAN anyone tell me why, when there is more traffic on our roads than ever before, has the council decided to make Liverpool city centre narrower by making the pavements wider, or why they have reduced the lanes down from two to one in many areas?

Can anyone enlighten me, or is the person in charge playing a big April Fool’s joke on all us commuters?

AC, address supplied