We’re all at fault for the scourge of knife crime

AS A retired counsellor and therapist, I believe the true cause of knife crime is that society has let down our young people. We haven’t nurtured them as we should have done.

We stopped valuing mothers and forgot that the role of both parents is paramount in forming emotionally healthy children. We failed to teach youngsters how to respect others. We neglected them, abused them and left them vulnerable to bad influences.

We gave them a faulty value system based on money and greed, and stopped teaching them the difference between right and wrong. We put money and property before children and stopped spending time with them.

We got rid of faith- based assemblies at the start of each school day, when pupils could learn about the human spirit and our relationship to God.

Unless we go back to basics, learn how to treat each other and raise our children properly again, it can only get worse. CHRISTINE FADHLEY,

London N22.

Hire nurses, not bosses

THERE are 100,000 vacancies in the NHS (Mail), but you can guarantee that a lot of those positions will be for managers, not doctors and nurses.

Having retired from the NHS after more than 20 years of service, I have seen the vast increase in managers. The majority are on salaries in excess of £50,000 a year, but I rarely met one who was worth half that.

All NHS vacancies should only be for front-line staff. Nursing is a vocational career and you should not need a degree to enter the profession. In-house training used to be the norm and if it were brought back, I’m sure many more prospective nurses would apply.

JULIE PERKIN, Bristol.

Speeding to disaster

CAR speed limiters are not only a challenge to freedom, but are potentially anti- safety, despite what their supporters say. Either you drive a vehicle or you don’t. Speed limiting can’t take into account the other issues observed by a driver to make a safe manoeuvre. Poor driving, not speed, is the main cause of accidents.

I believe that driving test standards need to be increased before licences are granted.

We are overwhelmed by CCTV, yet crime continues to rise. Do we benefit from this creeping state control? We already have restrictions on banking transactions, movement and travel with claims of justification because of terrorism and money laundering.

I will not buy another car if I must have one that independently limits the speed or monitors my driving. I’m not advocating reckless speed on the road, but proposing a sensible approach to vehicle use and freedom. MICHAEL J. COLE, Wolstanton, Staffs. RATHER than speed limiters, what about mobile phone blockers when the car ignition is on.

ROD WILLIAMS, Great Holland, Essex. I HAVE been in many driving situations where slowing down or stopping wouldn’t have avoided an impending collision, but accelerating away has.

PAUL MORLEY, Skipton, N. Yorks.

Art with a heart

I UNDERSTAND why some of the residents of Plymouth are unhappy about the 23ft-high statue of a crouching woman outside the Theatre Royal (Letters).

If they’d like to see a real work of public art, visit John McKenna’s The Brownhills Miner, which commemorates 300 years of coal mining in the area. It was not foisted on locals: 84 per cent of the public approved it in a consultation.

This giant memorial to miners who lost their lives or were maimed in the coal pits is also an eye-catching welcome for visitors to Walsall and the Black Country. DOUGLAS BIRCH,

Walsall, W. Mids.

The great unknown

BEING more interested in psychology than general knowledge, I wonder why people are addicted to TV quiz shows.

It may hark back to our schooldays when knowing the answers to questions won us approval.

Parents and teachers are misleading intelligent youngsters, who should be encouraged to discover the as- yet- unknown answers to important questions, not to regurgitate information.

JOHN A. DAVIS, Cambridge.

Fight the cold-callers

I WAS amused by the reader who turned the tables on the phone scammers ( Letters). When I received a call from a claims company about a non- existent road accident, I told them I had been fatally injured.

‘Are you some kind of idiot?’ was the reply.

‘Not me, pal. Now please take me off your database.’

Now, when I receive unsolicited sales calls, I wind up a musical box that plays Jingle Bells for two minutes and leave it by the phone. I always find they’ve rung off when the music stops. JOHN VIZE, Hellidon, Northants.

Cashew hell

YoUR article about cashew nuts showed producers are putting profits before the health and well-being of workers (Mail).

Creating awareness gives shoppers and supermarkets the opportunity not to buy and sell them until the conditions for workers are improved. The sore hands and sad face of the woman featured in the story are haunting. SHIRLEY CLANCY,

Hook, Hants. WE HEAR from do-gooders about British children living in poverty. I hope the people behind these reports read Emily Clark’s article about cashew shellers in India.

Unlike our children, the Indian workers don’t have games consoles or giant TVs. Nor do they have free medical treatment nor clean water. They live in real poverty.

our youngsters have everything laid on for them. If they go hungry, it’s only because their parents are spending the family’s benefits on other things.

C. VAUGHAN, Southampton.