Letters - January 30, 2018

I read with interest and despair about the increasing problem in the resort of so-called ‘bus surfing’ (The Gazette, January 11).

I have to say, after reading it I found it hard to muster much sympathy at all for these tracksuit-clad young losers or the injuries they sustained.

If you hang on the back of a moving bus and fall off, you’ll get injured. Simple.

My main concern is for other law abiding motorists behind the bus and for the bus drivers themselves, who might be affected and put at risk physically, emotionally and financially.

On that note, how long will it be before the no-win no-fee solicitors come sniffing around and try to pin the blame for serious injury on the bus driver or other road users?

The article states that these disgusting oiks (my words) will get taught in school of the danger they are causing to themselves and others.

This is as pathetic as it is predictable.

The only thing that works is to punish them.

Only tough action like destroying their mobile phones will have any effect.

If I see a youth fall off the back of a bus, I will think (at least) twice before I stop and help.

Could it be a trick to rob me? And should I interfere with Darwinism in action?

Mike barker

South Shore

CARILLION

There must be a public inquiry

Carillion is tragic for the workers and families affected by the latest corporate mess both locally and nation-wide. Whilst the senior executives and the fat cat bosses rake in huge bonuses at our expense.

They have left a trail of destruction with small and medium firms in every sector now floundering and put them and thousands of their workers on the brink of going under. Let’s hope the workers, both public and private, get financial support? The banks who were bailed out are pretty quiet.

There must be an independent public inquiry to leave no stone unturned. The corporates and the politicians should be held fully accountable for their actions and decisions. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has rightly attacked government policies and called Carillion a “watershed moment”.

In the wake of the collapse of the contractor Carillion, it is time to put an end to the rip-off privatisation policies that have done serious damage to our public services and fleeced the public of billions of pounds.

Politicians ignored the warnings for months. Some of these warnings were profit warnings which is meant to act as a red flag...were this Conservative Government asleep on the job or simply stuffing the pockets of their friends whilst it was possible, legally possibly I might add, to do so.

Over the last 25 years, under successive Governments they have had a love in with these huge oligarch firms and sucked up to them. Where the political mantra was “public is bad and private greed is good.”

Governments and local councils have ignored their own members and public to refrain from the folly of outsourcing and PFI contracts that are massively hiked up and like paying off your mortgage on the credit card. National Audit Office report now shows taxpayers will have to cough up £199 billion bill for schemes under the flawed Private Finance Initiative (PFI).

It’s time our public services were all brought back under public control and not just pick up the tab when they go bust or to bail out the ilk of Bransons and Co running their gravy trains. We have seen the big rip off by water and the utilities to the public.

Ged Dempsey

Address supplied

POLITICS

Let the best 
lead the rest

The US Senate has passed a short-term funding bill that will put a stop to the government shutdown or at least until February 8. It was always likely to be resolved or put on hold within a few days but what does this really mean on the global scale?

It’s an easy throwaway quip to say that no government may actually be an improvement over the Trump-led government but how much difference will it make to the unemployed, the refugees and the hundreds of thousands who face deportation? Our political futures are too big a concern to give to the petty politicians we seem to have in most countries.

This ‘minor’ political catastrophe has value in the light it shines on politicians who should be the best we have. Other countries should not be gloating about their own performances as the events may be different but the characters are the same.

Let the best lead the rest.

Dennis Fitzgerald

via email