READERS’ LETTERS

What our readers have been writing about this week.

Sir, – Local government elections are scheduled to take place in all councils across Scotland on May 3, 2012.

By making sure they have returned their annual registration form your readers can make sure they are registered to vote and can have a say in electing their councillors.

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I encourage all households in Scotland to ensure they have filled in and returned the annual canvass form they will have received through the post.

If anyone has lost their form they should get in touch with their local electoral registration office. Readers can find the contact details for their local office on www.aboutmyvote.co.uk

If people don’t register, they won’t be able to vote. – Yours etc.,

ANDY O’NEILL

Head of Electoral Commission in Scotland

Lothian Chambers

Edinburgh

Time stands still

Sir, – I had to laugh as I read the reminder in last week’s Cumbernauld News about the clocks going back by one hour at the weekend. An employee of Frisco Hair was pictured in front of the St Enoch clock, now in the Antonine Centre. A clock that hasn’t worked since it was moved from its previous location . . .

Or perhaps that was your intention? – Yours etc.,

ALLAN McPHAIL

Larch Court

Cumbernauld

Give clock to a museum?

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Sir, – Re October 26 Cumbernauld News article and reminder to turn back our clocks this weekend.

We were treated to a picture of a local girl in front of the clock stuck to the side wall leading down to the Antonine Centre, the clock that hasn’t worked since it was installed it seems, a clock that last worked when I was a teenager I think.

Why is this clock still showing twenty to eight, despite what time you pass it and check it? Why is it not maintained properly? Is it not time to give this clock back to Glasgow?

Could we not have given this clock to the Riverside Museum in Glasgow when that was being constructed, seeing that it once was Glasgow’s and has a link to Glasgow’s transport history, that way it would have been given a more fitting display and would have been maintained.

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I know we have a fantastic cinematic link to the clock, it featured in Gregory’s Girl, a meeting point in the film and a meeting point for many people since then when it was at the foot of the stairs between “What-everys” and Woolco (showing my age now eh?).

Is it not about time someone was either brought to task over the maintenance of the clock, or it was taken down and given to a museum.

But that would leave a bland featureless white wall leading down to the Antonine, if it isn’t already bland enough as it is. Time to put a mural up over the stairs maybe? Pictures of scenes from Gregory’s Girl to remind us of the clock in its glory days when it worked? Fitting tribute to the clock, the film, and the old Town Centre maybe. There are plenty of great artists in Cumbernauld, both photographers and painters, and students at Cumbernauld College would no doubt bring fresh ideas to an already tired and dull display.

For everyone’s consideration and ideas, – Your etc.,

D. MacCrimmon

via email.

All in this together?

Sir, – People may remember our Prime Minster, David Cameron (whose personal wealth has been estimated as being in the millions) telling us that we are “all in this together” when it comes to dealing with consequences of his government’s savage austerity cuts.

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Dave the Toff’s statement was further undermined by a report last week that highlighted that Britain’s wealthy directors awarded themselves average pay rises of 49 per cent. This means that company directors now earn 113 times more than the average wage and when compared to wage rises of 2.5 per cent in the private sector and pay freezes in the public sector hardly suggests that the burden of Cameron’s cutbacks are being spread evenly.

That such obscene inequality continues in these straightened times not only gives a lie to Tory claims that we are all in this together, but highlights the failure of all mainstream politicians to do anything to check the continued culture of greed that permeates throughout the economic system. Just as nothing will be done to profiteering fuel companies who are ripping us off to maximise profit; company directors will face no more than the mildest rebuke whilst the business of lining their pockets continues apace.

There is a shameful silence across the political spectrum about the continued accumulation of wealth by a rich minority whilst the majority are asked to pay the price for a crisis brought by the same greedy elite. There is no shortage of wealth in our society; it is simply that it is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a tiny percentage of the population. Wealth redistribution through progressive taxation that targets the rich, linked to public ownership of our major utilities rather than cuts in jobs and services, will create not only a fairer society but one which is not scarred by the inequalities in wealth and opportunities that blights so many lives and communities in Scotland at the start of the 21st century.

The majority of us are in this together. Whether it is public sector workers striking for their pensions, students campaigning for an education system that doesn’t favour the wealthy or communities defending their local services, we will need to stand united if we are to create a fairer society that is not scarred by ever growing inequalities of wealth and power. – Yours etc.,

KEVIN MCVEY

Cumbernauld & Kilsyth Scottish Socialist Party

A project that provokes adjectives

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Sir, – Not a week seems to go by but the News doesn’t have a headline detailing some blunder, either by North Lanarkshire Council, or one of their arms length bodies, with the latest being that the cost of the waves is even greater than first thought.

All this for a project which provokes adjectives, none complementary.

Following on from this news, we learn that the demolition of the bridge to nowhere, crossing Central Way, which should have taken place last weekend, has now been put back to next year, apparently due to a miscalculation of it’s weight, and one must wonder whether the cost of this undertaking will remain within the estimate. Given the track record of NLC, I have my doubts. – Yours etc.,

ALEX BEVERIDGE

Carbrain

Cumbernauld.

Thank you

Sir, – I was involved in an accident at the Back ‘O’ Hill (M&S) roundabout on Friday morning.

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I would just like to say thank you to the two kind strangers who stopped to help me. I broke my collarbone but am otherwise fine, thanks to your quick actions. No more scooters for me! – Yours etc.,

LIAM BRYANT

Eastfield