Sir, On Saturday January 31 a small number of our students took to the streets of St Andrews with a sandwich board displaying the message “F*** the Poor.”
As The Courier has reported and as the students themselves made clear, this was not gratuitous profanity but an established tactic, first tried by the Pilion Trust in London, to draw attention to poverty and social injustice.
May I through your columns offer a sincere apology on behalf of the university to anyone in St Andrews who witnessed this and who was genuinely offended by it?
It is a moot point whether a Saturday afternoon in Market Street was the wisest choice of time and place to exercise the right to such provocative freedom of expression, particularly with children and young families present.
It is also debatable which is more offensive the public display of a common swear word, or the fact that more families than ever before in Fife and across Scotland are relying on food banks to survive?
Niall Scott. Director of Corporate Communications, University of St Andrews.
‘Noble gesture’ a good concept
Sir, In reply to Jane Anne Liston’s letter in Tuesday’s Courier in which she suggests that poll tax protestors should make “a noble gesture” and pay their outstanding debt I think the concept of retrospective correcting of history is a marvellous idea.
Perhaps we can start with all of the major estate owners in Scotland returning the land to the descendants of the people cleared off the land during the genocide we fondly refer to as the Clearances.
Then we should expect the Tories to repair the damage they did to communities up and down the length of the country when Mrs Thatcher destroyed British industry. Next we should put Blair, Brown, Murphy et al on trial for taking Britain into an illegal war that has led to the mess that we now see in the Middle East. After that we should ensure that the bankers repay every penny that they have taken from taxpayers.
Finally, we should ensure that all of the multi-national companies pay all of the tax they have managed to evade paying to the Treasury.
If we achieve all of these things I suspect that poll tax protesters would be happy to make their comparatively tiny “noble gesture”.
Harry Key. 20 Mid Street, Largoward.
Council is not listening
Sir, There is a growing body of people who feel that Perth and Kinross Council are not listening to, or taking into account, their views about the highly sensitive issue of the proposed road at Perth Crematorium.
The Tulloch Tenants’ and Residents’ Association has been trying very hard to open up discussion with the council about the proposals in a transparent, open and public way but because it is not recognised as a formal structure, a community council, this is proving hard to do.
Although we are a constituted community group, we have no formal role in the planning system. We believe we need to think about re-forming a community council for Tulloch.
If any resident in the Tulloch area is interested in taking up their rights as a citizen and would be interested in developing a community council please contact TullochTenants
AndResidents@yahoo.co.uk or come along to the next open meeting of the Tulloch Tenants’ and Residents’ Association on Tuesday February 24 at 7.30pm in the Tulloch Community Centre to register your interest in person.
Gareth Dimmock. Vice-Chairman/Secretary, Tulloch Tenants’ & Residents’ Association.
We should not let this happen
Sir, Is the Fife rail concession going to end after a quarter of a century of helping pensioners get around the kingdom (Courier, January 31)?
I think SNP councillors John Beare and Ross Vettraino are weeping some crocodile tears over a council officer’s suggestion that this should happen.
After all, they were part of an administration five years ago that did away with the discount for journeys from the region to Dundee, Edinburgh and Perth. It was inevitable that someone would put forward a suggestion that the concession should go altogether.
In its budget consultation document published in December, the minority Labour administration put forward something different. It was to increase the charge per journey within Fife from 50p to £1. This would save £120,000 a year up to 2018.
It is not clear that ScotRail would ever agree to this. If it didn’t then pressure for the concession to go would be all the greater. It would mean that Fife pensioners would be getting a rawer deal than those in the Strathclyde, Lothian, Tayside and London areas.
It would mean that the area that pioneered the case for concessionary travel all those years ago was one of the first to dismantle it. That should not be allowed to happen.
Bob Taylor. 24 Shiel Court, Glenrothes.
A long list of incidents
Sir, Re the A937/A90 junction. The latest incident joins the long list and until a safe crossing is provided by the Scottish Government, such incidents shall continue we can only pray that there are no tragic outcomes.
When my children started attending Mearns Academy, around the time of the then Laurencekirk bypass completion, I wrote to the then MP, Alick Buchanan-Smith, expressing my concerns regarding the school bus crossing.
Speed cameras have been installed to enforce a 50mph limit, but anyone travelling on the A90 approaching these limits can see traffic travelling at 50mph plus, past the limit signs, braking hard just before the cameras, then accelerating rapidly as soon as they clear the camera.
While the bus driver on this occasion made an error of judgment and, luckily, got off with it, the real fault lies with successive governments and authorities over the years more interested in penny-pinching than providing a safe crossing at the A90/A937 junction.
Edward F Valentine. 15 Napier Place, Marykirk, by Laurencekirk.
It’s information we need . . .
Sir, With reference to reported comments of various Fife Councillors about council cuts, it would be more helpful to those of us who elected them to represent us if, instead of throw-away comments, we could see rather more informed opinion appearing in the media and which might contain, for example, details of personnel numbers, job descriptions and salaries paid.
I don’t think it at all reasonable to simply take the easy option of increasing everyone’s council tax to meet the budget deficit without at the same time, closely examining the functions and rates of pay of all those people paid to deliver “public services” to Fife residents.
There is the further question of the scope of public services that are appropriate and affordable.
From my own observations, there is evidence of unnecessary council expenditures on services and environments and these should be examined and curbed as a preferable alternative to the timeworn socialist ideology of “tax and borrow” to sustain levels of services and personnel that have to be paid for by Fife citizens, whether they like it or not.
Derek Farmer. Knightsward Farm, Anstruther.
Why is there so much litter?
Sir, Why is it, I wonder, that we have so much litter everywhere?
Is it because we have no pride in our surroundings? Sheer laziness? A problem for someone else to deal with?
Or is it because our children have not had civic values inculcated from an early age by their parents and their mentors?
I live near a primary school and daily observe the junk discarded by the children as they walk from the local shop to the school.
Even accompanied by a parent they cheerfully discard on the pavement sweet wrappers, cans, crisp packets etc as they go.
To be fair, some parents even tell them to drop them over the low garden walls!
John Dorward. 89 Brechin Road. Arbroath.