LETTERS

Save our pensions!

THE takeover bid by Melrose of GKN gives MPs the opportunity I have been fighting for since 1993 — protection of pensions.

Arrogance and indifference by politicians has allowed companies to collapse while their pension fund is in deficit. Takeovers often mean pensions are cut, and those who saved for their retirement end up losing out.

A takeover should be blocked by the Government if employees’ pension rights will be affected.

I am not opposed to changes in pension arrangements, as long as they are fair. The reality is that few people are now in a gold-plated scheme linked to their final salary.

Such schemes ended in 1997 when Gordon Brown abolished the dividend tax credit, allowing the Labour government to go on a spending spree at pensioners’ expense.

In the future, I see employees no longer tied to a company pension scheme, at the mercy of employers, financial advisers and governments.

They will have a personal pension pot of their own, which will be taken with them when they change jobs.

Companies could then concentrate on running their business, as they will have no pension liabilities or management costs other than compulsory monthly contributions.

Today, you can lose a job and get a new one next week, next month or next year. However, a pension lost is lost for ever.

J. WIGNALL, Accrington, Lancs.

Brexit backsliding

WE WERE all impressed with Theresa May’s Mansion House speech (Letters)? I certainly wasn’t.

We should question the Prime Minister’s Brexit backsliding. She piled on more concessions and offered more cash on top of the £ 39 billion one- off bung already promised, along with contributions to the EU budget until 2064.

She also made new proposals for ccontinued membership of a list of EU agencies, together with eager offers to shovel money into them.

And she conceded ‘ reciprocal aaccess’ to our fishing waters for the other 27 EU countries when fourfifths of stocks are British.

Mrs May’s ‘ambition’ seems to be tto deny any side getting what they want in favour of a limp, middle-ofthe-road compromise.

M. BURGESS, Beckenham, Kent.

Generation game

PLEASE can we stop the battle of young versus old. We are told that the young have nothing and their lives are terrible because the old have h everything and are selfish.

Can we not just get on together, enjoy our lives as best we can and stop this blame game?

I am glad I was born after the war and enjoyed all our modern advantages and advances.

Every generation faces challenges and problems, but they are nothing compared with what many in other countries face. We in Britain have the winning w ticket in the lottery of life.

DENISE BRIEN, Brentwood, Essex. IN I WALES, children as young as seven are to be consulted on Brexit (Mail). Well, if the Remoaners get their wish for a second referendum, I would like only people born before 1950 to be allowed to vote.

How can you vote for change when you y have nothing to compare it with? My generation is the only one that has experienced life outside the EU.

In the Seventies, we voted to remain in a European Economic Community, not a body imposing ever more rules and regulations, and giving payouts demanded by our less well-off neighbours.

YVONNE WILL, Cuddington, Bucks.

Protect free speech

A LECTURER has been prevented from giving a talk on free speech at his own university (Mail).

When our pinnacles of education are party to stifling free speech, we decline into chaos and a free-for-all for the loudest voices to claim ascendency, voicing an ideology that would not normally be regarded.

It is time for free thinkers to get a grip and stop this in its tracks.

STEPHEN GERRARD, York.

Female chauvinists

DESPITE the wave of feminism taking over education — 80 per cent of teachers are female, just 12 pc of primary teachers are male and only 3 pc teaching at nursery level are men — it is still claimed that women face a ‘glass ceiling’ because ‘only’ 65 per cent of heads are women.

In the NHS, 77 pc of all employees and 46 pc of senior management are women. The majority of GPs and doctors in training are female. No less than 89 pc of nurses are female.

Isn’t there a clear case of gender discrimination against males or have we got so used to men keeping quiet on so- called equality issues that we are no longer considered in any debate?

Why is it considered unacceptable and evidence of discrimination when men are in the majority, but when the situation is reversed, no one dares talk about it?

Men have become the demonised sex. MPs should remember half of their constituents are male and, like some women, many of them got the vote for the first time in 1918 after having been conscripted to fight in World War I.

NEIL COX, Maidstone, Kent.

Let’s get fracking

NOW we know what the Russians are capable of. If we had our own supply of gas and oil, we should tell them to do the proverbial!

Never mind the ‘yuman rights’ of the NIMBYS objecting to fracking, the nation comes first.

A. B. MEDLEY, Wakefield, W. Yorks. FROM the day we became reliant on Russian gas, we made ourselves vulnerable. The time has come when we seriously regret it. Mrs S. M. WINSLADE-RAFTER,

Sheffield. HOLIDAYING in all-inclusive hotels in Turkey and Egypt, I’ve met many friendly and pleasant Russians.

They do, however, have one very annoying habit: they queue outside the restaurant before lunch and dinner, and when the doors open, they race to the cakes and fresh fruit platters and gather up as much as possible.

Is there a severe shortages of pudding in Moscow?

I suggest that if the present problems escalate, we should lobby the UN to place an embargo on apple crumble to bring the Russians to the bargaining table.

ALEXANDER SMITH, Northampton.

Doesn’t suit you, sir

WHY do so many men on TV dress so badly in open-necked, crumpled shirts? The tie manufacturers must be dismayed at this trend.

For all of my working life I was

associated with the menswear trade, and I look back to the time when companies such as Burton, John Collier, Hepworth’s and Jackson The Tailor catered for the nation to provide reasonably priced, made-to-measure suits.

I am sorry to say that too many men in the public eye today are sloppily dressed. ARNOLD MANN, London N20..

What’s bugging me

SO GUYS, at the end of the day, Quentin Letts has put some turmeric on the abuse that is so drastically affecting our language (Mail).

Though he hasn’t ticked all the boxes, he has literally put his finger on many annoying areas we can empathise with. Once we recognise the need to change early doors, things can only get better.

D. DUNCAN, Aberdeen. HERE’S another hated phrase to add to Quentin Letts’ list of language bugbears: ‘I’ll just grab a sandwich.’ I always eat mine! DAVE OVERTON, Willoughby, Lincs. WHY must the goals in a football match be a scoreline and not simply the score? And we no longer meet someone, but meet with them. R. HUDSMITH, Wells, Somerset.