SIR – Newspaper(and global on-line) images of the amputated legs lying in a truck, wearing Army boots, is sad.
On the same street, a couple of years ago, our local regiments, The Queens Royal Hussars, The Grenadier Guards and The Mercian Regiment, marched proudly. The crowds welcomed them. But, sadly, some boys from these regiments lost limbs; some lost their lives.
 Why are those Zombie Carnival dismembered legs wearing Army boots? What’s the joke? And why are the Sea Cadets in the same parade?
 But, saddest of all is to compare this ghastly and tasteless spectacle with the images, on the same day, of bodies at Bodrum, the holiday resort.  
 What on earth is Worcester trying to achieve with this spectacle? Is this really the image that the city wants to give to the world?
GERRY TAGGART
Powick 

 
Less than faultless coverage of the EU
SIR – The BBC has been accused in its EU coverage of not always being “faultess”.
Complaints should normally be adjudicated within 24 hours amid fears that its partial coverage would mislead voters.  This shows the depth of concerns about the BBC’s  European
 coverage in government.
The former Culture Secretary and one-time backbencher said:   “There can be no doubt that the EU referendum will be a pivotal moment in this country’s history and he is sure
 that the public would agree that coverage of it by our broadcaster should be beyond reproach.  
 Back in March the BBC licensed an alarmist
pro-EU film called:  “The Great European Disaster Movie”.  With the election only weeks away, and our relationship with the EU being a major issue, he said that it seemed a questionable decision for our state broadcaster to air such a  piece of political propaganda;  in addition, who funded this film? Had the production company received any EU money?  UKIP and others suggested that it had. 
 The BBC firmly denied that this was the case.  “No EU money was used in the making of the programme.”  Its impartiality is of  paramount importance.
The Taxpayers’ Alliance published its investigation into “Creative Europe”,  an EU Commission project which hands out grants of taxpayers’ money to support TV productions. 
 The TPA report includes a grant of 96,991 euros  (£70,995)   for a project entitled “Who do you think the EU is?”  The grant was given to Springshot Productions.  It depicts  a dystopian future where a British archaeologist  (played by Eddie Izzard)  laying out how it was a disaster that the EU had fallen apart.  So the project did receive EU Commission funding after all?  This raises obvious questions:  did the BBC know about this funding but lie?  If it did not know about it, did it simply fail to check with the Production Company?
Or did Springshot Productions fail to inform the BBC of the funding if asked? 
 A civic education course for schools and universities,  based on a documentary about the EU, was made by Springshot Productions.  An analysis was commis-sioned by the BBC to look at  any evidence of political  bias with regard to the EU.  That analysis claimed that the BBC was biased against the EU .  However, its methodology was torn to shreds by Civitas last year. What a small world pro-EU propagandists inhabit. 
As an ex-employee it is disappointing to learn of such bias not to say deceit
WENDY HANDS
Upton-upon-Severn


Is it any wonder the hospitals are in deficit
SIR – I wonder how many readers of Worcester News,like me, are not surprised at the huge deficit run up by our local hospital trust (Worcester News, September 8).
One reason given is the amount spent on agency staff. Does anyone remember that the Coalition government greatly reduced the number of nurse training places in the UK  to howls of protest that it would leave us short of nurses? Did they listen? 
The answer is in the number of agency staff they are now paying exorbitant rates for. 
The hospital trusts were then virtually forced to recruit nurses from overseas, thus robbing other countries of nurses that those countries had paid to train.
Another reason given for the deficit was the fines that were imposed for not meeting targets. 
Only politicians could think of such a stupid idea that took money away from hospitals that probably failed to meet these targets because of monetary shortages in the first place.
A yet further reason for the deficit was given as bed-blocking, whereby vulnerable patients could not be discharged until care packages had been put in place by local authorities, whose budgets the politicians had savagely cut.
All in all it is a case of ‘penny wise, pound foolish’ by a bunch of politicians of all parties. 
Politicians who are intelligent people without any common sense, most of whom have come up through the ranks of politics and never done a day’s ‘real-life’ work in their life.
TERRY JAMES
Drakes Broughton

Shopping centre risk
SIR – I belong to Worcestershire, but live in Ayr. The thought of an out-of-town shopping centre is a good idea – theoretically – but it will KILL what is a lovely historic city centre. 
Where I live shops are closing on a regular basis, and what was once a nice holiday town is now dirty and run down. If it goes ahead you will live to regret it!
DIANE MURRAY
Ayr