Readers' letters - March 2

Winter Olympics an '˜unrivalled success'
PyeongchangPyeongchang
Pyeongchang

For more letters: https://www.lep.co.uk/news/readers-letters-february-28-1-9044946The Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang are now over and already I am having withdrawal symptoms, especially with sports such as curling, skeleton and bobsleigh.

It’s great that Team GB has managed to get five medals this time round.

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As a sporting event, Pyeongchang 2018 has been an unrivalled success and all athletes that have taken part from all countries should be applauded.

I have been particularly engrossed in the curling, what an intricate sport it is, precision personified.

Another winter sport I enjoyed was two and four man bobsleigh, some may call it the Formula 1 of winter Olympic sport.

Very exciting to watch.

I do hope young people will take up these sports and increase Team GB’s chances of many more medals in the years to come.

Peter Keighley

via email

debate

Defend freedom of speech

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I heard that Blackpool Pride cancelled its two-day festival booking at Blackpool’s Winter Gardens in protest against the planned appearance of controversial preacher Franklin Graham.

Graham’s followers argue that he is simply preaching a literal interpretation of the Bible, and his teachings are no stronger than what you hear in many churches. But I don’t want to get into all that.

What I take issue with is the almost daily and casual attack on freedom of speech by so-called social progressives, who further their own agenda not by argument but by the bullying and shaming of anyone who happens not to agree with every little thing they espouse. We have reached a point where people’s hurt feelings are more important than allowing issues, particularly sensitive ones such as mass immigration or gay rights, to be discussed from even a remotely differing point of view.

By cancelling their booking at Blackpool Winter Gardens because Franklin Graham (pictured) is due to speak there eight weeks later, Blackpool Pride organisers are arguably employing a tactic commonly used these days.

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Venues are exposed to potential shame and criticism if they are seen as condoning anything seen as politically incorrect. It is a tactic that works. Witness how quickly businesses pull advertising out of the Daily Mail the instant they are targeted online by sanctimonious social media users with no interest of freedom of speech. I wish Blackpool Pride the best at their new venue but I hope they are big-hearted enough to reconsider and come back to the Winter Gardens.

Mike Barker

Blackpool

environment

Loose fruit saves waste

I deplore that so many goods are wrapped in plastic which cannot be recycled.

But I do save on fruit and vegetables packing by buying loose items and putting them into bags which are reused again and again until they split, and only then will I use a new one.

I then put the unusable bag in an old carrier bag with other bags which have a symbol to indicate they can be recycled, and take it to the collection point in either the Co-op Garstang (sadly soon to close) or at Sainsbury’s.

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The Single Step shop on upper Penny Street, Lancaster, provides a refill service for the Ecover brand of washing-up liquid, toilet cleaner and fabric conditioner. There they also encourage the reuse of plastic bags or brown paper bags for their loose food.

Garstang Market’s indoor fruit stall also promotes the use of brown paper bags.

Margaret Mansfield

Forton

environment

Litter’s worse than you think

The letter by C Turner regarding the removal of plastic by the River Lune is highly commendable (LP Letters, February 26). However, could I also point out that this vast amount of plastic waste extends downstream from Aldcliffe Hall Lane to Stodday and beyond to the county council-run car park near Condor Green.

I have even seen a toddler-size plastic car along the banks. There is also plastic waste on the other side of the multi-user path where there is a water overflow. It would be marvellous if a mass clean-up of all this unsightly rubbish could be arranged.

Pamela Duff

Lancaster