SIR – I must respond to Mrs C Bayliss (Worcester News, December 18).
She responds to the chairman of St Paul’s Hostel saying people who are homeless can afford their own food as they buy drugs, alcohol and cigarettes.
Does she think that everybody who is on the streets is the same?
There are a lot of them there through bad luck. If she would like to try talking to people who are down on their luck she might find out they need real help. We all know some people are alcoholics and drug addicts, but really Mrs Bayliss have you no pity for these people.
Does she know that if you go to the Maggs Homeless Centre you can buy Maggs Free Meal vouchers for the homeless so they can get a hot meal and drink for just £1.
That’s one way of making sure they don’t buy alcohol or drugs. Surely she doesn’t think these people should not have a hot meal. 
So come on Mrs Bayliss try to find out more about people on the streets rather than judging them. Go buy a few vouchers it might make you feel better when you are tucking into your turkey dinner.
CAROLE ROBERTS
Worcester


There’s got to be a better way than bombs
SIR – In his MP’s View column Mark Garnier advocates air strikes in Syria. I don’t think it’s that simple. I’ve read that it has been American Foreign Policy since 2005 to “Take out” Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Iran. That would make our “bombing” of the Middle East a facet of American foreign policy. I don’t like that!
Our government doesn’t have an exit strategy and I think its “70,000 local troops on the ground” is pure fantasy. And the fact that I’ve read that Saudi Arabia is financing ISIS, or whatever they are called, makes me wonder how a bankrupt country like ours can afford to get involved in an unending war bombing innocent people into oblivion. We may kill a few ISIS warriors but the vast majority our bombs will kill will be people like us just, wanting to be left alone in peace, to get on with their lives.
We were told by Osama Bin Laden that if the West killed his people he would kill the West’s people. And that is exactly what ISIS is doing. We have no workable strategy for that type of asymmetric warfare. And when you think through what the consequences of picking a fight with the peoples of the Middle East you end up with the sort of situation Enoch Powell was drummed out of the Conservative Party for enunciating.
What concerns me most of all is nobody is talking about “Oil.” To me what is being done is nothing more than foreign policy writ large: we are going to war with our allies to preserve the West’s oil supplies. That and nothing more! It seems to me that instead of preserving the future profits of the West’s vast oil conglomerates we would all be far better off devising technologies to replace oil, and thereby cut the legs off ISIS, and anybody else wielding the “Oil weapon” at western nations. There’s simply got to be a better way of resolving our differences than chucking explosives and projectiles at each other!
N TAYLOR
Worcester

Raising council tax is not the answer
SIR – In the light of the inflation-busting near four per cent rise in local council tax, it must be remembered that this comes after a 40 per cent cut in central Government funding. The huge scale of government cuts has consequences. 
The Green Party agrees that we have to protect the most vulnerable in our society. However, with staggering hypocrisy, the Conservatives plan a regressive local council tax rise on Worcester residents.
Many of the people paying for this increase will be the very people we are intending to help with their social care costs. The Green Party would instead raise the money needed centrally by introducing serious measures to reduce tax avoidance and evasion as well as changes to corporation and capital gains tax.
LOUIS STEPHEN
Worcester Green Party

Litter is not the fault of our publicans
SIR – So the Mayor of Worcester wants to tax pubs for clean-ups. Can’t see how the pubs are responsible for litter.
My advice to Mr Mayor is, instead of fining innocent publicans who have absolutely nothing to do with the mess why not fine the culprits who make the mess, after all it is illegal. This means you and the police doing your jobs like the publicans are doing theirs. Let’s do it the easy way, eradicate the problem. We expect better from you Mr Mayor.
JOHN MATTHEWS
Worcester

Should we accept this misuse of our NHS?
SIR, Uncontrolled immigration has not been so beneficial when taxpayers are even footing the bill for foreign drug addicts and alcoholics here, whose additions and treatments should be paid for by their own country, not Britain.
Are British people supposed to meekly accept such a flagrant misuse of the NHS?
MRS C BAYLISS
Worcester

I love a good panto!
SIR, Like you John Phillpott (December 19, Worcester News) I love pantos. Nowadays with my old, stiff knees I stay at home and watch them on TV – “look out he’s behind you!!!”
GEORGE COWLEY
Worcester