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I SUSPECT that there’s an vital cause behind the retirement of so many police on the identical time – pensions (“Pressure going through a scarcity of senior employees as retirement fee soars”, The Herald, Might 4).
When it was found that the pension fund of police in England was paying out greater than it was taking in, because it had not been invested, the pension preparations and retirement age had been altered to manage. Though this drawback didn’t exist in Scotland, the identical modifications had been made, with solely these in put up earlier than an arbitrary date retaining the unique situations for a restricted time.
Now many of those officers have calculated that the extra funds they’d make from now as much as the brand new retirement date would add as much as way over the additional pension they’d obtain because of this. Is it subsequently not comprehensible that they’ve determined to not make these further funds by retiring now?
Sadly, this case and lots of the issues Ian W Thomson (Letters, Might 5) mentions are, for my part, the results of the silly determination to nominate, as the primary two Chief Constables, officers whose coaching and main profession was within the Met, with no, or little or no, background in or information of Scottish policing. Too many different senior posts had been additionally given to officers with related backgrounds.
A main instance is the M9 automobile crash that remained unattended for 3 days. Sir Stephen Home was nicely warned that his proposed centralisation of just about all name centre provision at Bilston Glen would trigger difficulties by way of lack of native information. He went forward anyway, within the perception that the expertise was an enough substitute. So an enormous variety of skilled call-handlers took redundancy and a trainee, nonetheless studying the system, took that essential name.
A redundant Stirling name handler of my acquaintance advised me on the time that, due to his native information, he would have requested two important questions, which might have recognized the realm inside a couple of hundred yards, permitting the accident to be attended nearly instantly by native providers.
You will have beforehand carried evaluation of the background of about 14 senior post-holders below Chief Constable Home, of whom solely a tiny proportion had any coaching in and expertise of Scottish policing. He arrange a system, primarily based on the Met one, that was nearly designed to lead to failures and difficulties.
L McGregor, Falkirk.
JORDANHILL AND A LOSS OF PRIDE
MARK Smith’s article (“The chaos at Jordanhill and the teachings we are able to all study”, The Herald, Might 9) left me feeling aggravated and unhappy. As a former Jordanhill pupil, I had all the time felt a way of satisfaction within the ethos of the college however this has been critically dented.
I can recall senior pupils rising from the headmaster’s examine having been advised that that they had let down the college, their dad and mom and never least themselves. Corporal punishment was seldom obligatory as every pupil had a way of figuring out with the college custom and oldsters had been grateful that that they had secured a spot for his or her teenager and ensured the very best basis for his or her kid’s future.
If dad and mom have out-sourced requirements to the federal government of the day and a peer group, I counsel they pause and replicate if that is what they actually wish to cross on. It’s obvious that requirements are slipping and psychological well being is in decline. I simply hope it isn’t too late to get up and take again constructive management of their children’ future.
Fancy holidays and an abundance of possessions won’t show enough if (or when) tough instances come. It’s a nice gamble to hope that your youngster shall be within the elite few with an over-abundance of property and a choose group of associates who shall be a fantastic useful resource for all times until one falters on the best way and drops out of the group’s requirements.
James Watson, Dunbar.
PROTECT SPACES FOR WOMEN
WOMEN ought to be extraordinarily alarmed by the state-sponsored misogyny that can enable grown males to invade our women-only altering areas. We will solely think about the longer term horrors of this diminution of our privateness and rights.
Contemplate the irony of the place that doesn’t enable boys over the age of eight into ladies’s altering areas in most gyms however will see grown males there.
Please unfold the phrase and let your pals and politicians know that this isn’t acceptable .
Elizabeth Crombie, Milngavie.
DOUBLE STANDARDS
THE Roe v Wade case has induced a whole lot of controversy. However now Deliberate Parenthood, a outstanding US pro-abortion organisation, has waded in. On abortion, considered one of its internet pages says “we consider your physique is your personal”.
It had already waded in to the Covid vaccine subject, placing out a number of info designed to steer folks to get vaccinated and launching a $2 million marketing campaign. But at no level in its vaccine info does it say “your physique is your personal”.
Geoff Moore, Alness.
DON’T LET MUSIC BE PIGEONHOLED
IN response to Robin Dow’s letter about music (Might 7), Billie Vacation’s Unusual Fruit is definitely not gentle leisure, no matter that’s; it’s a cri de coeur. When Mozart’s Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro sings of his current discomfiture, absolutely he’s describing his Lovesick Blues?
I counsel that is artwork and leisure each. Why categorise them?
Irene Conway, Giffnock.
POSH ORIGINS A MISTAKE
I WAS disillusioned to see Maureen Sugden (“Problem of the day: Is your neighbourhood posh?”, The Herald, Might 9) perpetuating the origin of POSH as Port Out, Starboard Dwelling and the notion that tickets had been stamped with that.
The phrase was utilized in totally different senses earlier than it got here to imply well-off, and will in truth come from Romani. All of the respected dictionaries dismiss the ocean liner story.
The final word clincher is the truth that no tickets have ever been discovered with that stamp on them – until Herald readers have one within the attic?
Dr David Syme, Killin.
HULL OF FAME
REGARDING a brand new identify for Hull 802 (Letters, Might 7 & 8), I’ve a number of ideas: Lifeless Duck, Bridge of Sighs, A Bridge Too Far, Painted Home windows 2, Clyde Duffer (apologies to Para Helpful), Simply Rusting Away (apologies to Simon and Garfunkel), Ought to Have Recognized Higher (apologies to Jim Diamond), On the Crest of a Wave – Aye Proper, and The Hulk.
George Dale, Beith.
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