Today’s letters to The Courier.
Sir,-As someone who was privileged to accompany Fife’s young sportsmen and women to the recent Twin Town Olympiad, I wholeheartedly agree with Aileen Penny in her praise of these young people.
On and off the field they were a credit to themselves, to Fife and to Scotland, and win or lose every one of them gave 110% effort for the team.
None of this would have been possible without an enormous amount of voluntary work from the team coaches and members of the Twin Town Olympiad committee in Fife.
The games themselves only lasted three days, but many of the volunteers worked for three years to raise the funds for the trip and to make sure that everything went smoothly. Simply getting nearly 200 young people to Italy and back on scheduled flights was an achievement.
Despite the occasional lost passport, lost wallet or lost ticket, everybody arrived on time and everybody got home safely. The volunteers who made this happen, and the businesses whose sponsorship made it financially possible, deserve a big vote of thanks.
It’s unlikely that there will be any knighthoods or million pound sponsorship deals for our young Olympians of 2011, but as ambassadors for their country, and as competitors in the true spirit of the Olympics, they have set an example that participants in the 2012 games would do well to follow.
(Cllr) Peter Grant.Leader, Fife Council.
Right to comment on sentencing
Sir,- While I agree with most of the editorial comment (August 18) about the recent riots in England and the attempted Facebook incitements, I believe that our politicians are perfectly entitled to comment on the judicial aftermath.
Judges and magistrates are themselves human and subject/citizens of our country. They could see for themselves the (literally) bloody mayhem on the streets of our cities.
They did not need to be told that the people wanted arrested rioters to feel the heavy end of the law.
Your leader writer seems unaware our politicians are responsible for law-making. Those laws are then administered by the legal profession, magistrates, etc.
Consequently, if laws seem to be faulty, for whatever reason (e.g. I would recommend the deratification of European Human Rights legislation), then politicians (who are also subject/citizens of our country) are perfectly entitled to make comment, be it seen as interference with judicial process or not.
David Cameron saw fit to condemn the wrongdoers and recommend firm punitive action. It was expected of him.
A. T. Geddie.68 Carleton Avenue, Glenrothes.
Care homes better run by council
Sir,-Don’t privatise our old folk.
Fife Council’s SNP bosses want to flog off all our care homes. Pretty wide of the mark. Remember all the recent reports about how private-sector care homes are run?
And this sloppy standard of care is widespread. Recent reports reveal many homes had no committed managers, have different workers each day and that patients don’t bond with some workers.
The fall of Southern Cross shows what happens when Scottish councils bet everything on one horse. Do SNP councillors grasp how dangerous this experiment could be?
Private operators will always cherry-pick the profitable parts.
Flogging off care homes in some jumble sale is unwise. Surely those SNP councillors weren’t born yesterday and realise the effect on standards?
SNP councillors think council carers earn too much. Yet they stood in support of executive directors receiving a £52 a week pay rise whilst the low paid are told to accept pay restraint. It’s laughable.
Gordon Barlow.Lochgelly.
Firms should be able to cope
Sir-I read the remarks of the UK Chartered Institute of Tax on the proposed reduction of corporation tax in Scotland with surprise.
Firstly, the institute raises administrative cost and complications. Surely, however, a company trading UK wide, if not globally, will have accounting processes that take account of variation in council tax, business rates, etc?
If they trade in London, they will have to take account of the congestion charge, unique to that city.
However overstated their first argument, it is totally contradicted by their second objection. Here they posit that the reduced rate north of the Tweed would prove so popular that the UK Government would be forced to act to prevent a mass decampment of firms to Scotland.
This prediction is made in spite of the first statement alleging prohibitive cost and complication.
The arguments advanced by the institute mutually exclude each other.
Richard Lucas.2 Clocktower Cottages,Gilston.Leven.
Get involved: to have your say on these or any other topics, email your letter to letters@thecourier.co.uk or send to Letters Editor, The Courier, 80 Kingsway East, Dundee DD4 8SL.