So where are our tsunami millions?
HAVING just returned from our sixth holiday in Sri Lanka, we feel people should be made aware that, almost 11 months after the tsunami, many people who lost their homes and possessions are still living in temporary wooden sheds.
When it rains, these offer little or no protection. They have no furniture and sleep on the floor. These wonderful people who would share their last food with you deserve better than this.
They’re very aware of all the millions of pounds the British public donated to their cause. Where has all that money gone? It certainly hasn’t reached the people who need it.
Around the city of Galle, there’s still no running water and people have to carry all their daily drinking water requirements in UN-supplied containers.
We saw refugee villages set up by Austrian, Italian, Danish and Dutch people — but no evidence of British efforts. Someone must know what has happened to our money and why it isn’t being distributed. These people need it.
Mr & Mrs D. JONES,
Fordingbridge, Hants. Check on progress I’VE JUST returned from Sri Lanka after 12 days on a Heroes Return Holiday Tour, taking wartime ex- service people back to the areas where they served.
Included in my tour was a trip south of Colombo to Galle, along part of the tsunami- damaged coast. I expected to see some repairs or semblance of readjustment for the local people. But it seems little is being done.
The railway coach we saw devastated on TV has been moved off the line and is now a museum piece. The only indication of regeneration projects were some American and Belgian signs, nothing referring to any interest from the UK.
When I think of the effort countless people subscribed to the Tsunami Appeal, is there no account of the money made available? This might give some satisfaction to the good people who subscribed to help the appeal.
British people give generously without strings attached, but some proof of the help getting though to where it’s needed would give us a feeling of a job well done.
DENIS CLOUGH, Worksop. Good Christians NEWS that a Christian carol service is facing the Home Office axe, and that Inland Revenue staff have been banned from donating to a Christian charity (Mail) is typical of our godless Government. No Government in living memory has done more to destroy our great Christian heritage.
It’s about time it gave some serious reflection to the religious and secular freedoms secured by British Christian martyrs. New Labour might also recall its own Christian roots, not least in Methodism, and with leaders such as Keir Hardie.
Instead of picking easy targets such as carol services, Christian charities and justice for victims, they should show real courage and conviction. Why don’t they tell the public that our Christian constitution, Christian monarchy and Established Church must go?
They dare not, because they know they would never hold office again. Almost 70 years ago, in a life and death struggle, Sir Winston Churchill spoke about ‘the survival of Christian civilisation’. The time has surely arrived when all those who value true British liberty and freedom, should stand up and be counted.
If we do not wake up from our apathy and kick political correctness into oblivion, our children and grandchildren will have no heritage. Two thousand years of Christian civilisation, though often imperfect and in need of reform, will be swept away for ever.
Rt Rev Dr J. BARRY SHUCKSMITH,
Cosham, Hants.
Illegal drivers BRITISH transport authorities can’t be so naive as to think that sophisticated databases and greater co- operation between insurance companies and the DVLA will make any difference to uninsured drivers.
These drivers won’t have registered the car in their own name — and won’t appear on the DVLA records. They’re outside the system, not bothering with tax, insurance or the MoT .
The key phrase here is ‘ once they are traced’. Cameras taking registration numbers will be of no use if the car is listed under a false name. The only offenders caught would be those stopped on some other matter.
The answer is simple: when a car is insured, the owner should be issued with a disc to put on the windscreen. There should be another for the MoT. Then a police officer or traffic warden who finds a vehicle without three discs could have it clamped.
BOB MARTIN, Flitwick, Beds. Driven to crime IT’S heartening to read (Mail) that the DVLA is linking its database with those of insurance firms to identify uninsured drivers. I suggest that a similar exercise should be carried out by linking the database with that of the Inland Revenue.
I’m confident a significant percentage of the owners of expensive cars will not be listed in the tax records, or will show an income not compatible with the cost of running such a car.
It is likely their income is derived from undeclared activities or criminal acts such as drug dealing, burglary or living off immoral earnings.
ERIC NICHOLS, London SW5. Buyers beware THOSE looking for a ‘ home in the sun at a snip’ (Property Mail) should beware of ‘ buying’ property in what is misleadingly called ‘Northern Cyprus’ — the Turkish- occupied area of the Republic of Cyprus. Entering into a deal for the supposed purchase of property belonging to Greek Cypriots in the area of Cyprus under Turkish occupation is an illegal act, exposing the buyer to grave legal and financial consequences.
The European Court of Human Rights has, in numerous cases brought before it by dispossessed Greek Cypriot owners, confirmed that the title of owners dispossessed by Turkey’s 1974 invasion remains as valid as ever.
Greek Cypriot owners can’t be deemed to have lost legal title to their properties as a result of the occupation — they remain the lawful owners.
Furthermore, since Cyprus’s accession to the EU in May 2005, arrest warrants and civil judgments issued by Cypriot courts can be juridically enforced in the rest of the EU. A court’s judgment can be enforced against a defendant’s assets in the UK.
PETROS EFTYCHIU,
Cyprus High Commissioner,
London WI. Swept off her feet JUST more than 62 years ago, I approached a pretty, tall, slim girl with a chat-up line (Mail) which I’m sure a great number of my generation used.
It must have been successful because we hope to celebrate our Diamond wedding anniversary at Christmas.
The magic words? ‘Would you like to dance?’
ALF TULETT,
Christchurch, Dorset. Numbers up I SYMPATHISE with the gentleman who is afraid of the numbers two and four ( Mail). Mental illness is a terrible affliction which few understand.
I was a sufferer for many years until a decade ago when I was treated by a top psychologist who — thankfully — helped me to live a normal life. But I still struggle.
I’m paranoid about the number 29: I can’t shower on the 29th of the month, I can’t go out on that day and can hardly speak because the words I say would remind me of that number. I can’t read the paper then. I wash my hands frequently, not for cleanliness but because it eases the fear in my head temporarily.
I could go on: I just want to explain the extent to which people like me suffer.
It’s difficult, I know, but if you see someone struggling, don’t think he or she is mad or stare at them. Be kind and accept they are probably having a ‘ difficult moment’.
Ms M. L. HAYNES, Lincoln. La Plante’s roots ANNE ROBINSON is perfectly correct in implying that Lynda La Plante is older than she says. Lynda Titchmarsh (as she was then) was two years above me at Streatham House School and I’m now 61. And she lived in Crosby, not Blundellsands, the ‘ posher’ part of the area. Perhaps Lynda’s been living in America too long.
ANNE JONES, Crosby, Liverpool. I WAS amused to read of the bad blood between Anne Robinson and Lynda La Plante, the latter accusing our Weakest Link diva of dishonesty.
Anyone who watched her latest creation, Trial And Retribution could be forgiven for feeling a sense of deja vu.
The script is, apart from the setting, pretty much the same as that of the Eighties film The Vanishing, which starred Keifer Sutherland.
E. RUSSELL, Greasby, Wirral. Burnt at the stake FURTHER to Antonia Fraser’s history of the Gunpowder Plot ( Mail), in the interests of historical accuracy and impartiality, I feel it a pity that she doesn’t mention the hundreds of Protestants who were burned at the stake during Mary Tudor’s mercifully short reign.
One might also consider, for instance, the part played by the Roman Catholic Church during the Spanish conquests in South America. In terms of cruelty and intolerance, there was little to choose between the two branches of ‘Christianity’.
G. S. STEPHENSON,
Huddersfield, W. Yorks. Title race LET’S see if I’ve understood the figures: 18 people gave Labour £ 16,810,250 — an average of £933,000 each, and got peerages (Mail).
Four people gave the Tories £416,493, an average of £104,000 each, and got peerages.
Which proves the Tories sell peerages more cheaply than Labour. Shouldn’t Tony Blair be praised for making titles harder to pick up?
T. J. HEWITT,
Smethwick, W. Midlands.