Letters to the Editor - 10th June 2008

Jun 10 2008 Liverpool Daily Post

Disappointed concert-goer

I RECENTLY attended my first Capital of Culture event, the McCartney Concert at Anfield but I have been left feeling very disappointed with the Liverpool 08 organisation.

They promised that the tickets would be delivered at least two weeks before the event, but mine did not arrive until three days before. Then I learned that people had paid £35 for Kop tickets while I had paid £85.

Once I arrived at Anfield on the Sunday there was a another surprise – I queued 15 minutes to get in, only to be told at the gate that I could not take my little backpack into the ground. This was the first I had heard of such a restriction. The ticket did say that food and drink was not allowed, but there was no mention of a ban on bags, not even on the Liverpool 08 website.

Why was this ban? And why were umbrellas being confiscated, too? After dumping my bag, I got inside and the gig was great. But I would like to know why the Kop toilets were in such a state. They would not flush and the basins had no water.

All in all, this made for a disappointing experience and I will not be attending any more 08 events.

R Dyke, Preston

Missing in action

MEN and women returning from active duty in Afghanistan are allowed to wear the general service medal given to them by the British Government. Since they are serving there as part of the Nato coalition forces, they are also given a Nato medal, but they are not allowed to wear this.

Is this a subtle way of drawing a veil over the fact that our European allies are conspicuous by their absence and lack of support for this war?

The current conflict is often likened to the Korean War, after which the service personnel were authorised to wear both the British and United Nations medals with which they were rewarded.

If the countries within Europe are not now prepared to support Nato, which has been in existence for many years, it seems unlikely that they will wish to become involved with any European army, when or if it is formed.

G Allt, East Sussex

Knife culture

WHILE I think that Kathryn Farnell (Letters, Daily Post, June 9) is exaggerating somewhat when she says that it seems that school age individuals “seem to murder someone else almost every day”, I do agree with her that Gordon Brown is right to say that the legislation regarding knives must be changed.

If you carry a knife, you are only doing so for one reason, and that is that you are prepared to use it, and a lot of people recently have used them to devastating consequences. No-one should be carrying knives of any sort in this country, and the only way to get that message home to people is to make the punishment for carrying a knife severe and to always apply it in every case.

Our society is in a mess, and it seems to be getting worse, and if we are to stand any hope of turning that around, then getting knives off the streets must be at the forefront of our approach.

M Lowe, via email

Carers’ Week

AS THIS is Carers Week (June 9 – 15), I would like to draw readers’ attention to the many services available at the Liverpool Carers’ Centre, managed by Local Solutions. Since the official opening of the Centre by Radio Merseyside’s Roger Phillips, the initiative has gone from strength to strength and now has a comprehensive timetable of events available to all carers including art and craft, stress awareness and Tai Chi classes.

Carers can experience health- related problems due to their caring responsibilities; it is therefore very appropriate that this year’s theme is “carers can’t afford to be ill” which will draw attention to the issues faced by the UK’s 6m carers.

One event I would like to highlight is being held at St. George’s Hall on June 12. This is a great opportunity for carers across the city to find out about the wide range of services and support available for them and the person they care for.

Stephen Hawkins, chief executive, Local Solutions

Clean up your act

ON SUNDAY, my wife and I decided to visit Liverpool to see HMS Ark Royal and explore the new shopping development. We were very impressed with the development and thought it, and the other construction projects, were magnificent.

However, a visit to one of the public toilets adjacent to the exit of the John Lewis car park was a very unpleasant experience. The cubicle was littered with empty wine bottles. On the walk to the new cruise ship berth, the litter bins were overflowing and surrounded by discarded items. This was at 10am so, presumably, this mess was the aftermath of the previous day. It was a shame to see that the efforts of so many people to improve the image of the city had been let down by the failure of the authorities to clean the area.

I would have expected the city to be cleaned up overnight in preparation for the next day. Unfortunately, images like this are the ones visitors remember longest.

G Stephenson, Warrington

Weak leadership

AFTER Conservative MP Derek Conway paid his son thousands of pounds of public money for "research", there are more scandals. It emerges that the leader of the Conservative MEPs, Giles Chichester, diverted more than £400,000 of expenses into a family firm of which he is a director, and Tory North-West MEP Den Dover paid his wife and daughter's company £758,000 in expenses. Now the Conservative Party chairman, Caroline Spelman, is being investigated over using Parliamentary expenses to pay her nanny.

All this occurs despite Tory leader David Cameron's clever PR and opportunistic policy flip-flops. For example, last year, he was in favour of increasing green taxes on gas guzzling vehicles, now he says he's against it. He's clearly cast out of the same mould as John Major, who led the party in the 1990s.

A personable man who is too weak to control the sleazy antics of his party.

Alex Black, Chester

Fans struggling

THE fact that Liverpool Football Club justify introducing another tier of priority ticketing in charging £29 for a fan card by promising “exclusive access to match tickets” shows just how out of touch the club is becoming.

When my Dad took me into the queues at the Anfield turnstiles in days gone by, there were fans from white-collar, blue-collar and no-collar backgrounds alongside us. LFC is all about inclusivity, not exclusivity, and the board would do well to remember that.

In these times of fast-rising living costs, the club should show some empathy with the fans that have scrimped and saved to follow them home and abroad for so many years, and not slap on another cost that squeezes ordinary fans even further.

Neil Dutton, Wirral

No local venues

IT'S a shame that Aigburth People’s Hall is closing down, especially in our year of Culture. The Friday “Jam Night” which was held there attracted musicians of all ages and abilities from across Merseyside who played to capacity audiences.

Very soon, there will be no venues left in the suburbs for entertainers to perform in, which is a sad reflection of the council's decision to close down well-used community centres. What next for the historic APH building? More empty “luxury” apartments? We should be nurturing tomorrow's talent, not restricting it.

John Harrison, Aigburth

Bus chaos

WHEN are Merseytravel going to do something about buses parked all over the city centre?

Each day, bus drivers head into the City Centre and drop off passengers in Queen Square. Drivers then have to find somewhere to park before com- mencing their next journey. This results in buses parked in streets all around, causing inconvenience to traffic and pedestrians. Many of these buses are left parked with their engines left running for up to 10 minutes at a time.

Millions of pounds have been spent on bus infrastructure across Merseyside, but the city centre is choked with buses that have nowhere to go!

Neil Furey, Skelmersdale

Lack of faith

I'M ALL for friendship rather than conflict between peoples ("Chief Rabbi's friendship message” Daily Post, June 6). Unfortunately, religious faith has a rather poor record in this regard.

Put simply, one does not need religious faith to be a good person. Indeed, I would argue that, if such belief did not exist, the world would be a more peaceful place.

And as for Sir Jonathan Sacks’s claim that: "Today's children are more religious than their parents", if that is right, how depressing.

Mind you, even if it is so (which I doubt), it is hardly a ringing endorsement for faith, given the low numbers of that generation of parents that believe.

PR Jones, Wirral

Out of touch

GORDONŠBROWN'S road tax hike on older cars, far from being the green tax it is meant to be, is just another stealthŠtax on hard-working families.

This comes at a time when the cost of living is Šspiralling out of control and many people are feeling the pinch. Tax on cars that are up to seven-years-old could see hikes of up to £245 a year.

Conservatives believe that green taxes should be offset by reductions in taxes on families. Once again, Gordon Brown has contrived to show how out of touch he is with the people of this country.

Neil Wilson, City of Liverpool Conservatives