We’re outta here

What stood out about the 11 examples of people who have left the city for the country (“Goodbye to all that”, June 17) was that none of them had any practical skills to offer in their new area. Obviously, they need the province more than the province needs them. I hope this is not the general trend.

Fifty years ago, I was talking to a very old man and his words came back to me as I read. He told me, “There were more actors, journalists, accountants and lawyers working the wheelbarrow and shovel on the Rimutaka Hill road in the tough times than there were fitters, carpenters, plumbers and electricians.”

The trick for the provinces to learn is to attract more useful people away from Auckland to help the whole country boom.

Reg Fowles (Waikanae)

Aucklanders, you are welcome here, but when you have settled in, please remember to slow down, say “gidday” and stop to smell the roses. You see, we may be vibrant, but we are still basically provincial and proud of it. And we’d like it to continue that way.

Garry Whincop (Napier)

Avoid Auckland’s gridlock: move to Warkworth and join the Hill St mayhem.

Max Jackson (Omaha) TOXIC TORIES

Jane Clifton follows in the footsteps of the toxic Tory British press in describing Jeremy Corbyn as a despised no-hoper ( Politics, June 17). Despised? I would have thought such a label was more deserved by the Conservatives and Blairites who have created the most unequal and divisive society of haves and have-nots that Britain has seen for years.

The welfare system is crashing and the rich elite grow richer. Austerity bites and it bites hardest those who can least afford it.

I don’t know what Corbyn is like on a personal level and nor do I know whether he can deliver on the policies he espouses. I am certain there will be many powerful people hoping he cannot. However, he seems to genuinely want to improve the lot of the young, the poor and the disadvantaged. I would have thought heroic was a better description – even if he fails.

Ann Sarll (Takaka, Golden Bay)

The political change observed overseas is a lesson to be learnt here. Maybe under-forties anxious about their prospects are swinging away from personality politics and back to closer examination of policies.

Perhaps they consider having to starve in attics or bludge off parents in order to gain qualifications and then still have little hope of home ownership is a thing of the past. It could be, too, that the cherry-picking of some of the best of New Zealand by wealthy foreigners rankles with them. Or possibly they are just fed up with the profligacy of materialism coming at the expense of quality of life. If New Zealanders really want change in September, however, the message “your vote is crucial” will need hammering home.

Juliet Leigh (Pt Chevalier, Auckland) HELPING CIGGY SELLERS

The tobacco industry needs to butt in to help stub out robberies of cigarette vendors ( Editorial, June 17). It should fund and install tamper-proof dispensing machines in shops.

Matched by the Government’s $1.8 million fund to subsidise security upgrades for at-risk shops, such action would be timely and welcome.

Chris Horne (Northland, Wellington)

I am puzzled that a government seeking a smoke-free New Zealand by 2025 should

now be stumping up $1.8 million to help retailers who continue to sell tobacco products. Surely, providing that amount (and more) to assist stores to give up selling tobacco products would be a wiser measure.

Bernard Redshaw (Nelson) MENTION THE UNMENTIONABLE

I read with interest the article on Raj Bhala and the teaching of sharia law at the University of Kansas (“The words of the Prophet”, June 17). People are encouraged not to debate or question religion and to remain tolerant of all beliefs and values. But there is a problem when religious teachings impinge on human rights.

Islam purports to be a religion of peace, but the numbers of Muslims and non-Muslims being killed globally in the name of this faith force any rational thinker to question this description.

Under sharia law, theft would be punishable by amputation of a hand; criticising the Koran or Muhammad would be punishable by death. If a Muslim abandons Islam, the punishment is also death. Any homosexual in a Muslimmajority country only needs to look at the public caning in Indonesia to see how this is viewed under sharia law.

These examples don’t even consider the role of women under Islam, which is one of subordination and servitude.

We live in an age where all matters of foreign policy and religion should be open to critical debate, and any faith that restricts or punishes this clearly does not align with the principles of a fair, just and peaceful global society.

Ray Calver (Grey Lynn, Auckland)

If Allah wrote the Koran’s laws and God was the author of the Bible’s teachings, would either of them recognise their words now since generations of men have reinterpreted them

to suit their own purposes and manipulated them to promote their own power?

There have been many different interpretations of the laws; they still differ widely and probably always will. So where is the truth?

Allah would probably cringe at the massacre of women and children

perpetrated in his name and God would have been aghast at the use of his name to justify the burning at the stake of people disputing the teachings of the church.

Why can’t people ignore the bigots and just be kind to each other – or is that risibly naive?

Anne Martin (Helensville) SKIFFLE PIFFLE

Graham Reid was right to challenge the assertion in

Billy Bragg’s book that the late 1950s were “the dead ground of British pop culture” (“Washboard memories”, June 17). The complete reverse was true: for the first time in history, the nation was alive to the sound of young people’s music.

Skiffle was a part of that and anyone could play. I was a member of a group in my 22-man RAF hut. We even composed our own song, Billet Orderly Blues.

Bragg’s “dead ground” occurred during 1961 and 1962 after many pioneer rock’n’rollers on both sides of the Atlantic had died, been called up for military service returned to their musical roots or simply faded away.

Pop music became so becalmed during this period that three top British disc jockeys, Alan Freeman, Keith Fordyce and Pete Murray, reportedly considered quitting.

Fortunately, the Beatles emerged the following year to treat British music to a long, magical and re-energising mystery tour.

Gavin Riley (Havelock North) NUTS AND BOLTS

A message to my fellow older males: yes, you can wait until you have obvious symptoms of prostate cancer before going to the doctor (“Man with a plan”, June 10). But that is like delaying until your house is burning down before seeking insurance.

Hugh Isdale, (Somerfield, Christchurch)

I have bought and read Phil Gifford’s Looking After Your Nuts & Bolts and was mightily impressed by it.

I only wish the information in it had been available 60 years ago when it would have been really useful.

Jerome O’Malley (Blenheim) GO GEERING

As a sometime Presbyterian minister, I have followed

Sir Lloyd Geering’s writings (“The God confusion”, May 20) with a mixture of deep interest, respect and indeed empathy.

I heard Geering personally share his faith journey at Knox Church in Christchurch some years ago, and realised how closely his own experience – of connecting with Christianity and the Church, only to feel, over time, a growing sense of disconnection with the latter – mirrored my own.