THE reports about MPs' allowances made me fume.
We are an ordinary family of five. With Working Tax Credits, Child Tax Credit, Child Benefit and sometimes Housing Benefit our income is £230 a week.
Our eldest son, who works, contributes £55 a week to the house. If he does any overtime (1-2 days a month) we have to declare this to Housing
Benefit and it is then deducted from our award of £44 a month, which leaves us with no housing benefit for that month. We have basically been told that if he gets any
overtime we should ask him for more money. What kind of parents would do that? And why should they?
Then I open my paper and read that MPs have an allowance of £22,000 for a
second home, when people like me are made to declare measly amounts like £40-£80 a month!
Reader Poll
Does Glasgow need more police on the beat?
Yes
91.8% |  | No
5.3% |  | Don't know
2.9% |  |
|
It's true - money goes to money.
But is is people like me who are paying for MPs' allowances and left to try and survive on an income that is less than half of the cash they are handed.
MRS L HOTCHKISS, Via e-mail
Post Office plans
IN the House of Commons debate on Post Office closures, which I watched on TV last week, I was surprised by how many Glasgow MPs voted for the closures yet are campaigning in their constituencies to keep Post Offices open.
Glasgow South MP Tom Harris has a Post Office possibly closing in his constituency yet he voted with the Government for the closure campaign to continue. I found this odd. On the one hand he is running a petition against closure - which incidentally, no matter how many people sign it
carries the same weight as just one letter - yet on the other hand he votes to carry on with the closure plan.
Is it one story for his
constituents and another story when he is London voting in the Commons?
ERICK FLACK, Via e-mail
Time for clean sweep
I SYMPATHISE with anybody who loses their job but the council's litter wardens have clearly been told to go for the easy targets (Evening Times, March 20).
I would love to see the
statistics on how many lone females or office workers have been targeted for dropping a tiny piece of litter while the real culprits go free. Get gunning for the main offenders - neds. Get them in the bin.
JOHN, Glasgow
President's pension
YOU'VE got to wonder what planet George Bush is living on when he calls the invasion of Iraq a success.
Perhaps he was actually talking about the war's contribution to his and his oil baron family's pension fund. After all, with the price of oil now above $100 a barrel and still rising, he's one OAP who won't have to worry about paying his fuel bills when he is eventually kicked out of the White House.
Meanwhile the rest of us will be topping up his pension fund every time we fill up the car, step on a bus or train or turn up the central heating by a few degrees.
MAY CONNELLY, Carnwadric
WHAT DO YOU THINK? Email your views to us here.
WRITE: Evening Times, 200 Renfield Street, Glasgow G2 3QB. Please include your name and address.
TEXT: key in the word 'etletters', leave a space then send your comments to 88010. Max 160 characters. Please include your name or initials and where you're from. Texts cost 25p at all times.
HOT TOPIC: SPT Subway plan is running late
THE travelling public have had more SPT studies, surveys, plans, feasabilities, pilots, fact-finding missions, artist's impressions and
consultants' reports than we can stomach.
And what's the result? Partick station a bombsite for years. The Subway unextended for well over a century. No extension of
electrification to suburban rail routes. No light rail. No European-style integrated ticketing. No regulation of bus services. No Crossrail. Disused rail lines all over the city ignored and neglected, or worse still, built upon and lost forever.
Instead of "Joining Up Journeys", shouldn't SPT change its
advertising slogan to the snappier "Just Go Away"?
GERRYMACG, Linthouse
Close Subway, use trams
GLASGOW should go ahead with trams, just like Edinburgh.
It's time to close the Subway. The staff are lazy and have a bad
attitude towards the paying public.
JIM, Glasgow
Need for forward thinking
CLOSE the Subway and you'd have massive problems - thousands of people use it every day. If it wasn't for our forward-thinking Victorian ancestors we really would be stuck up a gum tree - it's just a shame that nobody has been as forward thinking as them since!
THE MISSING CITY, posted online
Nightrider a no-brainer
I'M not surprised the nightrider' scheme has failed to take off. What's the point exactly of replicating a subway service with a bus, when what people want is the
Subway to open later?
A complete no-brainer to me.
BIG AL, Paisley
One line at a time is way
CAN the crews not do the overnight maintenance one line at a time? i.e. keep the Inner Circle running while they check the Outer, and then
vice-versa?
CM, Whiteinch
Automate & sack staff
THEY should automate the Subway and sack the staff, starting with Councillor Watson.
Automated trains can work round the clock, they aren't rude and they'll run on time. Can't be that difficult, it's not exactly a
complex track system.
TARRY BREEKS, Partick
What about overground?
WHY just the Subway? At weekends, SPT overground trains need to run past midnight as well.
ANDREW STEPHEN, posted online
Comment | Read Comments (6)
