Readers' letters - January 23

Leave our beautiful Harris Museum alone
How Preston's Harris could look. Copyright Purcell ArchitectsHow Preston's Harris could look. Copyright Purcell Architects
How Preston's Harris could look. Copyright Purcell Architects

Regarding the destruction of one of the most beautiful pieces of architecture in the country. Does the director of the Harris Museum not realise that the museum is an example of one of the highest art forms imaginable?

Superior in form, both on the inside and the integral beautiful interior, to most buildings in the country.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Unique in conception – with the plinth format of the brick base, rising to the Classical Greek columns, and the unrivalled pediment, with the exquisitely carved, white marble sculptures representing Pericles surrounded by his great contemporaries in art, in poetry and in philosophy.

This is one of the most beautiful neo-classical facades in the country – second only to that of the magnificent British Museum. What philistine would want to touch this excellent edifice?

It cannot be matched in the entire country. Nor can it possibly be altered or added to to effectively improve it. It is beautiful and perfect.

Glass supermarket doors, what an abomination. What destruction. What an inexcusable display of bad taste and lack of aesthetic sensibility! And why? So it is welcoming to go in!

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

This building is not a modern commercial supermarket but a beautiful piece of high art and architecture.

What higher cultural experience could there be than observing the façade; entering the discreetly placed cast iron doors at the side; then going into the aesthetically pleasing interior? The whole experience is one to be savoured, enjoyed and relished.

We can all go through the glass doors of any common commercial building in town. All these buildings are expendable in terms of endurance and art. Not built as art but as a temporary edifice to rank commercialisation and financial greed. Why does anyone want to emulate this ?

We do not have the resources to build another Harris Museum. We do not have the unique vision, artistic talent, or the conception of total integral balanced beauty.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

We must bond together and make the destruction of our most exquisitely beautiful conception of high art impossible. This rank vandalism must be stopped!

Interested in Art

Preston

animal welfare

Install CCTV in UK slaughterhouses

I am writing to you as I am gravely concerned about the pain and fear millions of animals in the UK are experiencing at the time of slaughter.

I am calling on you to take action to combat this immense, unnecessary suffering.

Firstly, I would urge you to support a call for new legislation that will require all slaughterhouses to have CCTV.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Monitored CCTV is an important deterrent against abusing animals – be that in any kind of slaughterhouse.

It allows officials to observe slaughter without being observed themselves.

The hard evidence provided also makes it easier to punish those who abuse animals.

Ultimately, CCTV protects animals.

This should be a minimum legal requirement in the UK.

The huge benefits of such a scheme far out-strip any cost.

The UK should not scrimp on something as basic as protecting animals at the time of slaughter.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Secondly, I would urge you to support an end to the slaughter of animals without effective pre-stunning.

While I appreciate this can be a sensitive issue, I would stress that this is an issue of animal welfare - not one of religious freedoms.

Animals should not be allowed to suffer such extreme pain and fear, as they do when slaughtered without effective pre-stunning, be it because of religious beliefs, inadequate stunning equipment or incompetence of staff.

The Government must take action to tackle this huge problem by strengthening the laws around the welfare of animals at the time of killing.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

All animals, whether slaughtered by halal, kosher or ‘standard’ method, should be rendered totally unconscious before the throat is cut.

This means the legislation must

1. Prevent all slaughter without stunning and

2. Ensure stunning renders animals insensible to pain until death.

And finally, whilst slaughter without pre-stunning is allowed to continue, I urge you to call for mandatory method of slaughter labelling on all meat products.

Consumers should be given the choice to decide for themselves whether or not they consume meat from animals that have been pre-stunned.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

While these products are not adequately labelled, consumers may inadvertently buy meat from animals that have not been pre-stunned.

This skews perception of demand for these products.

Peter Ward

Leyland

health

Warwick unsuited to midwifery role

It was satisfying to learn that Professor Cathy Warwick has at long last relinquished her position as President of the Royal College of Midwives, presumably due to the pressures at her total unsuitability for this position due to her chairmanship of BPAS (Britain’s largest Abortion provider), which was total anathema to her midwife members’ aims.

Adding insult to injury, she then endorsed members of the RCM as being in favour of her BPAS aims of the future decriminalisation of anyone performing abortions, without seeking the permission of her members – which she must have known she would never actually receive.

I am not aware of who her replacement will be, but if it is the gift of the Department of Health, as seems most likely, it is to be hoped it will be someone who represents the true purposes of a RCM midwife and will provide the leadership necessary to support them in their training which is continuing to provide assistance in the safe birth of children and handing them over to their grateful mothers.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Unfortunately the Department of Health has a dubious record with the administration of the 1967 Abortion Act, which is winking at the practise of the widening abuse by many doctors in miscertifying their patients as being suitable candidates for abortion on the grounds of mental health problems.

The ultimate tragic result is the increase in rising suicides among potential mothers subsequent to the abortion which demonstrates that their true mental health was never really identified and perhaps their opportunity to receive prior alternative counselling was also probably denied.

E J Tilley

Chorley

trade

NHS and trade deal with USA

Trump is a businessman and the fact he is now President of the US is not going to change that.

As the US economy is three times larger than that of the UK, but the same size as the EU economy, the UK will not get a better deal than the US would be willing to give the EU.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

So to get that “extra special” deal with the Trump administration, the UK is going to have to give something special, something the EU could not offer – perhaps privatisation of parts of the NHS?

Maybe “special relationship” means giving opportunities to US businesses to exploit our NHS.

Bill Greene

via email