LETTERS
Who owns the streets?
The plan for the funeral procession of burglar henry vincent to pass the home of the osborn-Brookses is a bid by the travelling community to show just who owns the streets. And it’s not the police.
As a former police officer, I apologise to the people who live on that road.
Working in Brixton in 1981 as a police sergeant after the riots, I made a point of walking along railton road, known as the front line, to show to those who thought the police could be intimidated that they were wrong. old Bill owned the streets.
Today, no doubt police bosses would accuse me of being provocative, but I maintained there was nowhere the police couldn’t go.
PETER G. Davis, Paphos, Cyrpus.
Fleeced by the council
Council taxpayers are not getting value for money (Letters). Those who manage services have lost sight of the fact they are public servants.
The salaries they pay themselves have led them to believe they are up there with the CEOS of private firms, who are generating millions of pounds for shareholders. In fact, all they do is spend the hard- earned money of residents.
They are meant to deal with waste disposal, maintain the roads and organise care services, but fail to deliver. Instead, they introduce more ways to fleece residents.
It doesn’t matter which party is in control, it seems to be the same inefficient people in charge.
EILEEN PRIESTLEY, Lytham St Annes, Lancs.
Sick of waiting
LAST week, my wife tried to arrange an appointment with our GP, only to be told the first available date is May 10. During the winter Nhs crisis, I was told that they weren’t making any appointments.
recently, on holiday in Tenerife, I had a suspected chest infection and went to see a doctor. After ten minutes of admin, I was given a thorough examination by a doctor and nurse — at no charge. how have we got it so wrong?
ALAN JARRETT, Rochester, Kent.
The people voted
HERE we go again. The People’s vote campaign group hopes to stop our exit from the Eu. They say the people should decide whether we like the Brexit deal between Britain and the Eu, but how would we decide? What would be the question in a second referendum ?
The deal will be a lengthy, detailed document of hundreds of pages. Will we all get a copy to peruse and vote on? Presumably most of us would need the political elite to explain the intricacies. We all know how that would go.
The doom-mongering remoaners would grab the opportunity to poohpooh the deal and do all they can to convince us to vote against it.
They already arrogantly think we are too ignorant to make the correct decision, otherwise we wouldn’t have voted to leave in the first place.
We had a vote and the remain side lost, so let’s get out of the failing attempt at a European superstate and make this country great again.
MICHAEL CARLTON, Sheffield.
Va-va-vroom!
Why is buying a sports car seen as a sign of having a mid-life crisis (Mail)? I bought my first at 21 and have owned a string of sports cars.
I now drive a Mercedes-Benz 5.5l convertible that makes me happy in a miserable world.
DEBRA DORRER, Sevenoaks, Kent. I WAs surprised at the ageist headline: Isn’t 73 a bit old to be pranging a Porsche? My partner, who is 74, is an ultra-marathon runner, has completed the London Marathon 20 times and cycled coast to coast across the uK. LOUISE HALPERIN, Maidenhead, Berks.
Not so smart meters
As AN electrician of 40 years’ experience, I’ve always had serious misgivings about smart meters because they are solely of benefit to the supplier, not the consumer.
A smart meter will not save anyone a single penny. All it does is show how much electricity you are using and it’s up to you to go around your home and switch off appliances.
smart meters have been marketed to us as a way of helping the consumer, but it’s a way to appease the Government so it will go easy on energy firms as regards price caps.
These meters save energy suppliers the cost of employing meter readers and the problem of estimated bills.
At present they have to write to you twice before they can enter your property to cut you off. But with a smart meter, a dispute over a bill could leave you in darkness if the company chooses to flick a switch on its central computer.
There is a simple solution: build nuclear power stations so electricity
is much cheaper and people don’t have to choose between a hot meal and a warm home.
M. CAINE, Coventry.
Just kidding
I LAUGHED at the embarrassing things children write in their classwork (Letters).
When he was a lad, my brother-in-law wrote: ‘Every night, my parents leave me with the neighbours and spend all evening in the pub.’
The truth was, his mother went to an embroidery class on Tuesdays and his father spent a couple of hours in the pub on a Friday night after a hard week in the shipyards.
After my mother- in- law informed the teacher of the truth, she was told: ‘Don’t worry, you want to see what some of the other kids write!’
CLIVE GLADSTONE, Cullercoats, Tyne & Wear. WHILE working as a police officer in a small village, I had to spend 12 hours supervising a polling station in the local junior school.
Out of boredom, I picked up one of the children’s school diaries. One interesting entry read: ‘Daddy came home last night with a new telly and one for granddad.’
The date coincided with a break-in at a local electrical shop and ‘Daddy’ was well known to the police. He never worked out how he got caught! ROLAND GRIFFITHS, Nantwich, Cheshire.
Joy of text
IN ADDITION to the usual alerts about flashing images, nudity, violence and strong language, a new warning is needed at the start of TV shows: ‘ This programme contains images of text messages essential to the understanding of the plot.’
That will alert me to be ready at a moment’s notice to spring up, dash across the room, peer at the screen and try to decipher some tiny letters on a mobile phone. KEITH ELLEL, Rishton, Lancs.