Gardens to be symbol of city’s creativity?
YOUR efforts to revive Piccadilly Gardens deserve the widest support.
There seems almost universal support locally for creating something worthy of our great city at its heart. To be sure, it will require financing. But the efforts will be worthwhile if they convert an eyesore into a symbol of Manchester’s efforts to sustain its reputation for innovation and creativity.
A ‘friends of Piccadilly gardens’ movement would require backing and leadership from business, politics, the media, our world-class universities, and above all the public.
There is widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo, and visions of a better future are already available. It is time for that small first step to move things forward. Tudor Rickards Emeritus Professor University of Manchester
Scrap callous tuition fees
LAST week the Resolution Foundation published a report which recommended giving £10,000 to every 25 year old in the country.
The reason given for this handout was that there has developed an intergenerational unfairness between the millennial generation and the baby boomers. To put it simply those people over 50 are much better off than people in their 20s.
The Resolution Foundation is chaired by the ex Conservative Minister David Willets, who was responsible for saddling young people attending higher education institutions with debts of £27,000 or more when he introduced tuition fees of £9,000 a year.
It would be better to repeal this callous Conservative policy and compensate the victims of it rather than giving every 25 year old £10,000 even if they are millionaires.
David Willets’ proposals are a product of muddled thinking and will not rectify his policy on tuition fees which will hang a lifetime of debt around the neck of many of today’s 20 year olds. Graham Stringer MP
101 number is waste of time
HAS anyone tried calling the police 101 number? Don’t bother. It is absolutely useless.
I recently tried to get through but was held on the line for 1 hour 25 minutes before they answered.
Police cutbacks in funding is no excuse. The service is just not fit for purpose.
No wonder people are calling 999 unnecessarily because they can’t get through.
It never used to be like this with the old 0161 872 5050 number. There would always be a human being to deal with problem as soon as you got through.
101 get your act together. More operators please! Mohammed Ismail Ladybridge Bolton
Turf layers not psychic
RE Piccadilly Gardens: I feel so sorry for these men that laid that turf, how were they to know it was going to be the hottest bank holiday on record?
I wonder if the manager told them to get that turf down fast as you can and then let’s all get off to the seaside for the weekend? We can come back in a month with the mower!
I have just laid some turf in our back garden but I’m not daft..I waited for a dull weekend! I’m still preying for rain otherwise I don’t know what I’ll do. Eric Lucas, Chadderton
Hard line on Iran is right
IT is profoundly disturbing to see Andrew Gibson of CND (Thursday, Viewpoints) acting as apologists for a tyrannical regime bent on spreading terrorism throughout the Middle East.
Iran is a repressive theocracy and the driving force behind both Hamas and Hezbollah. The former’s charter states its aim to destroy the state of Israel and exterminate the entire Jewish race.
Hezbollah is implicated in the gassing of civilians in Syria, the build-up of tensions in Lebanon, the starvation of millions of people in Yemen and the slaughter of 100,000 Christians each year in the region.
It’s not long since anti-Trump liberals were telling us all that his strong approach to another tyranny, North Korea, risked nuclear war.
The folly of this timidity is shown by the unprecedented breakthrough in peace talks in the peninsula and Kim’s commitment to nuclear disarmament.
Donald Trump has shown what can be achieved when democracies confront aggressors. Instead of denigrating him and pandering to terrorists, we should all acknowledge the achievements of the American president. Joseph O’Neill