Readers' letters - April 10

We are hearing about escalating violent knife

and gun crime in London and other cities on a daily basis.

I wonder if the BBC and ITV would accept any responsibility for bringing ‘war-zones’ into our homes each night on a regular basis?

Night after night, the evening news invariably begins with an ‘in-depth’ report on fighting in Syria or the Congo or somewhere similar.

Young boys are fascinated, watching this whilst eating, before going out to meet up with the ‘gang’.

If the news media are simply reflecting on an ever-increasingly violent society, then they are doing a good job.

I just wish they would not promote it in my living room and give us some positive news for a change, but please not any more of Prince Harry’s silly antics!

Basil A Smith

via email

Social care

Give us back the taxes we pay

Regarding the continuing debate about social care funding and ideas to improve funding.

Forgive me for being obtuse but the straight answer is taxation and National Insurance.

We have paid it all our working lives so why do we have to pay again?

We are taxed to the hilt as it is. Oh I forgot, apart from those who get tax breaks – supermarkets, big businesses and such like.

I am not elderly but I do have home care and one gets an annual financial review. Once we get to keep what we are allowed to live on, social services take the rest.

It’s a fallacy that sick/old/disabled people get care for free.

Nor are we getting pots of money and living off the fat of the land.

The care providers work hard on a tight budget and are obliged to provide endless training on a three- year cycle.

The answer to the original question of how to fund social care is to stop the Government from cutting council budgets to the bone and give us back the taxes we pay.

Also stop wasting money on projects that usually fail and become a white elephant, like high speed trains.

Jenny Dent

Address supplied

poverty

Money spent in wrong places

Unless politicians, both national and local, stop spending money they haven’t got and, more importantly, money WE haven’t got, there are going to be a lot more homeless people on the streets of this poverty-stricken nation.

A 10 per cent rise in council tax is unacceptable, on top of all the other unaffordable rises in utility bills and so on.

While blinkered politicians continue to funnel our money abroad on insane foreign aid schemes and deny investment in our local services, many more people will die on the streets and on the hospital wards, while waiting for transport that never turns up.

One hundred and forty one homeless people died on the streets of London last year while politicians walk by on the other side.

The young will probably never appreciate a glorified youth club but the homeless would definitely appreciate a life-saving shelter.

G Kendall

Chorley

development

They paved Paradise

“They paved Paradise and put up a Parking Lot”.

Chorley Council’s obsession with knocking down perfectly good buildings in order to “build” car parks reminds me of the Joni Mitchell 1970 hit Big Yellow Taxi.

A couple of quotes from that song seem to sum things up:

“They took all the trees and put ‘em in a Tree Museum

“And they charge the people a dollar and a half just to see ‘em”.

And especially:

“They paved Paradise and put up a Parking Lot”.

Improving the often very poor local bus services, which would mean there was less need for car parking, would surely be a much better way of spending our money.

Paul Tate

Chorley