Evening Times: Opinion

THE proposed price hike for booze and the plan to ban under-18s from off-licences are long overdue.

Scotland is pickling itself in drink, our A&E departments are overflowing with casualties of drunken violence, decent people are scared to leave their homes at night and yet we still have politicians bleating that the SNP plans are an attack on civil liberties.

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Should the number of park rangers in Glasgow be reduced?

Yes 11.7%
No 87.8%
Don't know 0.6%

What planet do these people live on?

I suspect, like most MSPs, it's a planet where they never have to face the heartbreaking fallout from Scotland's drink problem.

Well, I suggest they make an after dark fact-finding mission to our public parks and A&E departments.

The facts of lost lives and futures ruined by drink and violence speak for themselves.

RUTH McKAY, Via e-mail

Income tax move

SO, Mr Glasgow, oops, sorry, Steven Purcell, has decided that although most people in the city would be better off under a local income tax, the council will be rejecting the proposal (Evening Times, June 20)!

As one of those who would be better off under a local income tax and also one of the many who are sick, tired and scunnered with our inept council, surely it is about time that we council tax payers made our feeling known on the matter.

However, let's not wait till the next round of council elections when Glasgow Labour and their cronies will most likely be shown the door.

If the 70+% of us who would be better off under the SNP proposal were to withhold our council tax Mr Purcell would soon get the message.

HUGO, South Side

U-turn over garage

GOOD to see (Evening Times, June 17) that car boss Arnold Clark has had second thoughts on demolishing the historic garage in the West End.

Although, how he thought he could ever get away with knocking down this local landmark I'll never know.

I know Glasgow's city centre and its West End are changing, but we are in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It is the quirky details that make Glasgow the brilliant city that it is. We ignore them at our peril.

We all have to be vigilant that progress' doesn't sweep our city away.

NEIL DEWAR, Via e-mail

Rethink on homeless

AT the same time as Glasgow Art School is planning a £50million redevelopment (Evening Times, June 18), the council has given the go-ahead for a next door hotel to be turned into a homeless hostel.

If Glasgow is such a successful tourist city, why is it that so many once thriving hotel businesses think there is more money to be made from the Giro brigade?

And why is it that residential areas such as Queen's Park and Garnethill are thought suitable locations for such facilities?

The council really needs to rethink its policy on housing the homeless.

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HOT TOPIC: Service needs nurses not more managers

THERE will never be enough nurses while we have all those managers and executives to pay.

It's not only that there's not enough nurses, there's not enough doctors either. Maybe they should send the managers to medical school - that would help.

HIGHTOWER, Glasgow

Too much bureaucracy

THE Problem? The Knowledge, Skills Framework. You get a KSF facilitator on £36k a year to draw up what used to be a "job description". It takes months now to employ new staff because of Disclosure Scotland checks. It can take up to six months from interview to fill some posts.

But then, some NHS managers couldn't find their own backside with both hands.

STEWIE GRIFFIN, Glasgow

Prioritise real patients'

Hightower is right too much money being spent on bureaucrats instead of nurses, doctors, surgeons and cleaners. But an even bigger drain on the NHS is the obligation to care for drug addicts, career alcoholics and other people who refuse point blank to take any responsibility for their own health.

The NHS is meant to provide medical care for the truly sick not act as a battery farm for these wasters.

FMJ, Glasgow

Ward staff are suffering

I AM a staff nurse with North Glasgow and Clyde Trust and I am glad that at last someone is highlighting that there is a serious shortage of nurses.

Management put more demands on us but don't supply sufficient staff for us to do the job. Some departments have cut back so much that permanent staff are working every weekend for 7-8 weeks in a row.

Few managers will give up their holidays the way they expect us to.

The whole system is too top heavy.

Name and address supplied

Only ourselves to blame

WE should all be ashamed of ourselves for allowing previous governments to run down our NHS. Improvements have been made recently but a long road lies ahead.

We must all make this service a priority and complain properly when things go wrong. The alternative is more two tier health care.