Letters Page

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Using the past to see into political future

SIR, – At Aberdeen University in the 1960s I studied French, German and European history. In one of our tutorials, we were asked to consider if a knowledge of history could be used to predict future events.

We came up with the theory that strong leaders are often followed by weaker and less successful leaders. My knowledge of Germany brought to mind their great postwar leader, Konrad Adenauer, 14 years in the job, while waiting in the wings was Ludwig Erhard, the finance minister, who eventually became leader but only lasted a few unsuccessful years.

Our own country produced the great firework, Winston Churchill, followed by the damp squib, Anthony Eden, who lasted 13 months. We could think of a few other examples, but has recent history not proved us right? Harold Wilson won four elections, James Callaghan won none. The explosive Margaret Thatcher won three elections, John Major just the one, leading to five years of mediocre and unhappy government.

Tony Blair won three elections and along comes Gordon Brown, for whom the future looks bleak. So if David Cameron pulls it off and wins by a landslide, as the polls predict, who would want to be his successor?

Murray Walker, Fife Street, Keith.

Banning chips in schools won’t help

SIR, – Once again the food police are trying to dictate how we run our lives, or our children’s lives.

Does anybody seriously think that banning chips in school canteens will make a blind bit of difference to teenagers’ likes and dislikes or their overall health?

As a chip-shop owner, and a feeder of many teenagers, I would point out that traditional chip ranges are designed specifically to drain oil from food. They are also designed to cook volume at high temperatures, thereby reducing the cooking time.

It is likely that school friers are not truly designed for volume or fast heat recovery, and therefore their chips will be higher in fat content. You can get a chicken mayonnaise roll in our local school’s canteen. Chips have 9% fat content, mayonnaise has 68% fat content. Those with internet access should search for the investigation of the fat content of fish and chips by the Sea Fish Industry Authority (Seafish) and get the true picture.

Stewart Wight,

Tower Restaurant,

Laurencekirk.

Robust response to travellers

SIR, – Many people who call the council to complain about travellers get one or all of the following reasons for no action being taken: “We can’t move them on because we don’t have a travellers’ site; we’re held back by the law; Scottish Government policy holds us back; council policy holds us back”.

I have done some research on this and can tell your readers that the only valid reason is the last one – that is, Aberdeen City and Shire policy is what is stopping any firm action being taken. To be clear, the council is under no obligation to provide an alternative site. Further, the law clearly entitles any landowner, including councils, to get a court order to remove illegal encampments on their land.

Aberdeenshire Council’s policy has been rewritten and will be reviewed by councillors next week.

Councillors and MSPs should be aware of the above legal and Government conditions which absolutely allow a more robust response to this growing menace to our communities and tourist industry.

Allan Sutherland,

Willow Row,

Stonehaven.

Trouble in Manchester

SIR, – Further to your comment on the behaviour of a small minority of alleged Rangers fans in Manchester on Wednesday, I would like to make my own comment.

I was present at Albert Square until 5pm on the day and saw no trouble whatsoever. All we saw were thousands of mainly Scottish people having fun in the sun while enjoying some cold beer.

We actually went to the game and saw absolutely no problems (apart from the result). There were, by all accounts, more than 200,000 Rangers fans in the city for the game and you are always going to get a few bad apples with this amount of people.

However, an arrest rate of one in 5,000 people (most of whom were full of drink) is not that bad a statistic.

In case you have forgotten, the last time such violence was seen involving fans from Scotland could have been in Munich this season when one of our local teams was playing, or it could have been in Bradford a few years back when many thugs local to the Aberdeen area were put behind bars.

Every team has followers who should not be able to accompany them on their travels, and I suggest these same people would cause trouble even if they were in their home town, no matter what colour of scarf they were wearing.

William Ferguson,

Main Street,

Alford.

Approach to pupils’ actions

SIR, – I write in response to Fiona Petrie’s letter (Press and Journal, May 14) and the editorial the previous day.

I have to say I find her attitude at best naive and at worst plain ignorant. To justify the actions of the pupils as “high jinks” is irresponsible.

One person’s “high jinks” is another person’s vandalism.

Several hundred pounds’ worth of damage was done to my car last year by the “high jinks” of children of around 11-13 years of age.

One final thought: perhaps Fiona Petrie would like to volunteer the use of her house instead of the school for the “high jinks” next year. No, I thought not.

Gareth Jones,

Meadowlands Drive,

Westhill.