Readers' letters - August 11

We're paying the price of competition

So British Gas has put the price of gas and electricity up, despite the wholesale costs going down.

Nothing wrong in that, that is competition working.

It means who can charge the most and get away with it.

I remember as a young apprentice back in the late 1940s when the Labour Government of Clement Attlee was nationalising things.

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All the working Tory men were saying it would not work because there would be no competition.

Well, you know now what competition is.

We have had the railways with sky-high fares and bad service.

More than 30 different companies are now running the trains.

The Government had to take over the East Coast Mainline a few years ago.

It was making millions for the country.

Then the great George Gideon Osborne de-nationalised it.

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Virgin Trains made a profit while the country borrowed money.

Now we have European state railways milking our train services and sending all the profit to Europe.

It’s no wonder Jeremy Corbyn jumped on the nationalisation band wagon before the last election.

M Thompson

via email

nostalgia

Happy football memories

Re: Looking Back (LP August 2). The photo shows the team for the season 1952/1953 (I was age 14).

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The team being, back row: Denis Walton; Colin Barret; Billy Whittle; Vance; Charlie Jacob and Keith Walkden. Front row: Jack Judge; Nick Hamer; Eric Beattie; Tony Fairclough and Derrick Beattie.

We played 10 games and scored 14 goals. The 3-0 win over Lancaster enabled me to score the quickest goal.

We took the kick-off. I passed the ball to Tony Fairclough. He passed it to our kid (Derrick Beattie) who passed it to me.

I hit it with my left foot into the net, from just outside the 18 yard box.

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So we’ve gone from the centre spot to the edge of the penalty area, in five to seven seconds and scored.

When we played Blackpool at Bloomfield Road, Preston played Blackpool at Deepdale in the morning (New Year’s Day 1953) and we played in the afternoon.

To our surprise, the great Stanley Matthews came into our dressing room to shake our hands and wish us well – something I’ve never forgot. He played in the Deepdale game, Preston winning 2-1.

On our journey to Morecambe (by rail), we were in the same coach as Andy McClaren and George Hannah, who both played for Preston and had transferred to Barrow (I think? Could have been Carlisle).

Eric Beattie

Leyland

economy

Credit-fuelled fantasy world

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Lib Dem leader Vince Cable thinks he knows better than everyone else, just like the young generation always think they know better than the older generation. Unfortunately, politicians never grow up.

Brexit would not have happened if it wasn’t for the mindless dogma of uncontrolled immigration. He and the young generation are living in a dreamworld if they think it’s not a problem for Britain to take in a million people every three or four years.

Freedom of movement may be the right ideal in an ideal world where there is no economic reason for people to migrate from one country to another in large numbers, but that world does not exist, and that economic situation has not been created.

Create the situation first or don’t put first things first and create chaos.

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The young have not been “comprehensively shafted”, as Cable describes it, by older Brexit voters.

The young generation were left a legacy of debt, unaffordable housing and an old-world capitalist economy on the verge of collapse by a generation of politicians who led us into this mess while we were in the EU.

And no lessons have been learned.

The main causes of the global financial crisis have been swept under the carpet.

Politicians have been allowed to play politics with the financial crisis and blame government spending, using the public sector as a scapegoat, while the disastrous finance industry has been allowed to carry on business as usual, creating money out of thin air as well as complex financial games, mechanisms and derivatives which hide risk, toxic debt and balance sheets.

It’s still a credit-fuelled fantasy world.

Gordon Sanderson

via email

search

Did you stay in Scarborough?

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Were you staying at the Royal Hotel in Scarborough the weekend of July 28 to July 31, 2017? I hope you will be able to help me.

I am trying to contact a gentleman who I met while staying with my friend at the Royal Hotel in Scarborough between those dates.

The gentleman concerned lives in Preston.

He was staying at the hotel to celebrate his sister’s 60th birthday, also with them were his mother, brother-in-law and another gentleman with two children.

On the last day, the gentleman concerned gave me his mobile number but unfortunately I have the incorrect number, after not reading the details properly.

I did tell him I lived in Darlington, Co Durham.

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I would be so pleased if he reads this and could contact me. My name and address have been supplied.

If indeed any person knows of this gentleman, would they please pass this information to him.

He may be a friend or work colleague.

Name and address supplied

n If anyone can help, please call 01772 554537 or email [email protected]

town centre

We need more information

Why did no one at the council in Chorley have the sense to realise that Flat Iron shoppers would need to be aware which stalls are on the various streets (pictured, inset)?

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Not all are fit enough or can be bothered to traipse about trying to find a particular stall. Is it beyond the council to print a plan to be delivered or picked up from various points, giving this information?

D Kemp

Chorley