Remembering the fallen

Nov 11 2008 Liverpool Daily Post

WHEN I watched the coverage of Remembrance Day on the news this weekend I could not help but think how differently this day is now viewed compared with how it was just a few years ago.

In the late 90s Remembrance Day to anyone under the age of 35, would have meant very little, shamefully I know it did to me.

It was something which mattered to grey old men who had fought in the First and Second World Wars. It had little resonance with young people. It just would not have occurred to most teenagers and twentysomethings to buy a poppy. That was just something that your grandparents cared about.

In the minds of most young people wars were something that happened many, many years ago.

Now sadly with the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, that attitude has changed dramatically. Everywhere I have gone over this past week, I have seen people of all ages wearing their poppies with pride and just a tinge of sadness

Because these days war is a very real thing to us.

Last Tuesday as the Western world looked to a new dawn with the election of the 44th US President, Rifleman Yubraj Rai was killed in a Taliban ambush becoming the 228th British Army soldier to die since the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts began.

It was another son, brother, cousin lost and another gravestone to be carved.

Yesterday there were record crowds lining the streets of Liverpool paying their respects to the fallen whether they died 90 years ago or nine days ago. I joined them even though I have not lost anyone in battle. Because I know that whether we agree with these conflicts or not, all of those men died fighting for our country and they deserve our respect and remembrance now and forever.

Ms T Moore, Aintree

Over-hyped change

RE: “WILL new President change US policy on savagery in DR Congo?” (Daily Post, November 5). Matt Johnson look away now.

Bush’s perceived failure made Obama’s electoral success possible. Yet the “change” between President 43 and soon-to-be President 44 is over-hyped. This will be no truer than in the realm of foreign policy. Here, at least, it is another C word that will be the mantra of his presidency: continuity.

That does not rule out changes on climate change and enemy detention though. But the belief that America, and indeed the wider world, will undergo a conversion from a unilateralist hell to a multilateral heaven is fanciful. Given that the chronic inability of the UN will continue; serious threats will remain potent; and – dare I say it – the war on terror will not go unwaged.

Al Qa’eda will continue regardless of US change. Terrorists will not lay down their weapons when Obama takes up residence in the capital and Bush in Crawford. Unfortunately, the alternative to continuity is not change, but yet another C word: calamity.

Lee P Ruddin, Moreton

Immigration curbs

I THINK J M Berry's approval of Frank Field's plan to reduce immigration may require some qualification. (Daily Post, Letters, November 6).

I don’t know where Frank gets his figure of 70m from; as the letter writer says, the optimum population for the UK may be closer to 30m, but in any case Frank’s proposal is likely to be futile, serving only to persuade some of us that he has a grip.

To begin with, Frank’s proposal to curb immigration applies only to nationals from outside the EU. People will continue to enter the UK from the EU, in still greater numbers if Turkey joins the EU.

Secondly, Frank seems to have missed the point that immigrants living here already have over the last few years pushed the birth rate above the replacement rate so that even if immigration were stopped altogether the UK population will continue to increase.

It takes little imagination to see where that will lead.

J M Berry points to the need for certain poor countries to control their population increases. He might also ask Frank how he proposes to control the UK increase. Will families be limited to two children? Is he hoping for some catastrophe to occur? What can his solution be?

J F Lambert, Mossley Hill

Good old Auntie

I COMPLETELY disagree with your correspondent with regards the BBC licence fee (Daily Post, Letters, November 7), as they are the only service providing programmes these days.

I have cable television and find that most of the channels are repeating every type of BBC programme available including comedy shows and drama ie Silent Witness, Waking the Dead etc.

I wish I had a pound for every repeat of Only Fools and Horses and Fawlty Towers. Also I for one do not enjoy commercials every five minutes for such long periods of time that they make you forget which programme is being watched.

The BBC is still the finest in the world on TV and radio for news, sport, drama-historical or otherwise, and maybe there is a better way of financing it but for pity’s sake let us not lose it.

Jim Cairns, Woolton

Pay proposals

LAST week, all three political parties in Wirral gave their backing to the National Minimum Wage, 10 years after it was introduced.

Sadly, it seems that the Government has gone “wobbly” on what was a key pledge in the 1997 Labour manifesto.

Last week, the Government blocked attempts to make restaurants pay waiters the full minimum wage before tips, and stop including tips when calculating their salaries.

The £4bn of tips left by customers in UK bars, restaurants, hotels and hairdressers each year provide a vital boost to the salaries of some of our lowest-paid workers.

But some employers, including large restaurant chains, are using tips to top-up pay and boost their own profits, rather than passing them on to the staff they were intended for.

A Conservative amendment to the Employment Bill in Parliament last Tuesday would have closed the loophole which currently lets employers count service charges towards salaries.

Leah Fraser, prospective Conservative MP for Wallasey

A British hero

I CANNOT believe some of the vitriol which has been heaped upon Lewis Hamilton by some in the last few days.

The chap had scarcely left the race track in Brazil before people were attacking him for little other reason than the fact that he has chosen not to live in this country.

Whether Lewis genuinely left the UK to escape the press as he says, or did it so that he can keep a few more of his millions in his own pocket is nobody’s business but his own.

It does not make him any less a British champ for doing it.

Would you say the Rolling Stones are not a British band because they spend most of their time out of the country? Would you say that Anthony Hopkins is not a British actor because he lives in the States? Would you say that David Beckham is not a British sporting hero because he now lives in LA?

No you would not. So why is it any different for Lewis?

J Kelshaw, Warrington

Drastic measure

I READ with interest your brief article on a study by British Gas Help The Aged Partnership which found that £4.5m of our elderly plan to live in one room this year to keep warm.

This drastic measure suggests to me two things.

Firstly the fuel companies need to act more responsibly and less greedily when it comes to selling fuel. If the petrol companies can pass reduced oil prices onto customers, so should they.

Secondly the winter fuel payment paid to pensioners, all UK pensioners regardless of income, should now be means tested.

Many people I know boast of spending theirs on holidays, boats, TVs, all kinds of things, when it should be given to those who really need it.

Janet Bradley, via email

No connection

I WOULD like to make it clear that the Phil Griffiths (me), who has been campaigning for many years for the return of the Sailors Home Gates, is not the Philip Griffiths, of UKIP, who has also had letters published in this paper.

I have no connections with UKIP, nor any sympathies with their manifesto pledges, however, I did enjoy Kilroy Silk’s talk show many years ago.

Phil (“Give us our Gates back”) Griffiths, Wirral

Award winners

WELL it has been quite a week for what is left of the Beatles.

Sir Paul McCartney was at home in Liverpool on Thursday accepting his ultimate legend award from the people at MTV and then at the weekend Ringo was in Monaco accepting a Diamond Award at the World Music Awards on behalf of the band for their having sold more than 100m albums.

Funny how it was not the other way around isn’t it?

W Mann, Wavertree