LETTERS

No to £10,000 handouts

WILL the punish the pensioners witch-hunt never end? The Resolution Foundation think tank has put forward the idea that pensioners should pay more tax and young people should get a £10,000 handout at the age of 25 (Mail).

Pensioners have paid tax and National Insurance all their working lives, with many working 50 years or more after leaving school at 14.

Stop attacking us and let us live our last few years in peace. No one gave us anything — we have had to work hard for what we’ve got.

I am all for giving deserving youngsters £10,000, such as those who are in work and attempting to save up for a house deposit.

otherwise, have you any idea how much alcohol or drugs ten grand would buy? DAVE CROUCHER, Doncaster, S. Yorks. AS A baby boomer, I have underwritten the nationalised industries, civil servants, police, doctors, teachers and social workers, the military and security services, the Royal Family and every government since 1968 when I started paying tax.

I have underwritten the pensions of preceding generations as well as the medical and social care of children, the disabled and pensioners.

To be told that my contribution was insufficient and that I should be targeted for further contributions is unacceptable. JAMES ROBERT-POULAIN,

Bexhill-on-Sea, e. Sussex. HOW daft to give £10,000 to all 25year-olds with no strings attached.

Whatever happened to working and saving for what you want in life instead of expecting someone else’s thrift to pay for it? This proposal should be consigned to the bin.

JEFF DAVISON, Bishop’s Waltham, Hants.

Border skirmish

I AM puzzled by the Remainers’ plea that we should stay in a newly created customs union with the EU.

This would negate all the benefits of leaving and create a further costly layer of bureaucracy to collect tariffs on behalf of Brussels.

Surely the Irish can use their own ports to ship goods to and from Europe without having to touch UK soil. We need to get our country back, not continue to be twisted to our detriment by Europe.

LAURENCE FREEMAN, Luton, Beds.

River of plastic

CONGRATULATIONS on the Great Plastic Pick Up campaign.

Since March, my wife and I have joined other local community minded people on three litter clean-ups. Together we’ve filled 94 bags of litter.

I sent photos of plastic pollution on the River calder to the Environment Agency and the canal & River Trust and asked what plans they had to deal with the waste that gets washed into the North Sea.

I suggested traps at weirs that would be cleared out regularly. But the only response I received back were platitudes.

PETER DAVIES, Mirfield, W. Yorks. ON LEAVING Stansted airport after my stay in clean and tidy Lanzarote, I was appalled to see rubbish all along the roadside verges.

Even in our small village, grass verges are covered with cans, bottles and sandwich wrappers chucked from passing cars. Locals try to tidy up, but it’s an endless task.

CHRISTINE M. DAVEY, Norfolk.

A right to a pay rise?

I AM perplexed that public sector workers think it is their right to have a pay rise. I work in the private care sector and have not had a pay rise for years.

We only get statutory sick pay, might get compassionate leave without pay and are paid the same rate for unsociable hours and weekends — no time-and-a-half or double time for us.

We don’t get a large pension before state retirement age. Public sector workers need to look at their benefits before playing the ‘poor me’ card.

Name supplied, Blandford, Dorset.

Bring back bank queues

CARDIFF’S main branch of NATWEST has cashiers, but you’re discouraged from approaching them directly.

When you walk in, a watchful staff member requests your name and what business you want to conduct before they decide whether you should use a machine or be allowed to see a teller.

You can’t join a queue — you are escorted to a seat and told to wait until called. A notice advises that you can contact the ‘concierge’ for various banking needs.

When I questioned this approach, I was told it’s all much quicker. In fact, it took twice as long. A shock after 50 years of satisfactory banking.

GORDON ROBINSON, Cardiff.

Victims of mid-life crisis

AUTHOR Marian Keyes calls for understanding for men going through a mid-life crisis (Mail). What about their wives?

When my husband left me and our daughters last year and moved in with a younger women with whom he had been having an affair, he lied for months, spent money on his new relationship rather than his family, taunted me until I nearly broke and was arrogant, brutal and cruel.

Ms Keyes says it is unfair to mock men going through a mid-life crisis, but it is the wives and children who

are being mocked by the men who leave them.

Name and address supplied.

Home from home

OWNING a second home is not selfish ( Letters). My family bought a holiday home in Somerset, close enough to be able to get back home in a few hours, but far enough to enjoy the countryside.

We justified the cost on the savings we made by staying in the UK most of the time.

We became part of the community, paid council tax and the village shop and pub were happy for our custom.

How do those who criticise families like us spend their well- earned break: do they stay in the UK or go abroad? DAVID SCRUTTON,

Upminster, Essex. WE HAVE owned a second home in Dorset for three decades. In that time the value has increased to the extent we couldn’t afford to buy it now. During that time we have paid council tax while taking little from the local services, have always employed local tradesmen and supported the restaurants and shops.

When we die, 40 per cent of our second home’s value via inheritance tax will be taken from our children.

Name and address supplied.

Save our sparrows

THERE was one fact missing from Michael McCarthy’s article on the demise of the house sparrow (Mail). These birds feed on insects, but today few are to be found. Diesel and vehicle fumes may be playing a large part in decimating sparrows’ food sources.

There are house sparrows where I live, but the spotted flycatchers have gone.

V. RUANE, Reading, Berks. LIKE Michael McCarthy, I remember walking through London’s Royal Parks and seeing sparrows feeding from people’s hands.

Today, there seem few, but what has taken their place? Grey squirrels, which are notorious for stealing eggs from nests and killing and eating the young. They even ripped apart one of my bird boxes. A serious cull is needed, but this will never happen. JONATHAN SAUNDERS,

Sidcup, Kent. MAY I add another theory as to the decline in sparrows — UPVC window frames.

Wooden ones provide a home for spiders and their webs, a rich food source for sparrows. Spiders tend to avoid UPVC. Mrs MARGARET VICKERS,

Chesterfield, Derbys.