All profit, no risk for textile firms

Your news item "Textile firms to bring work back" (Tuesday, January 22) deserves some comment.

The six firms in question relocated to India and China in the 1990s, closing down in Leicester and throwing their workforce on the dole.

Realising that they could make a "fast buck" from a low-wage economy in another part of the world, they moved.

We, the taxpayers, picked up the tab in terms of expenses for the ensuing social dislocation.

Now, as the workers in India and China get organised and demand higher wages, these manufacturers decide to come back, presumably to take advantage of the austerity conditions in the UK.

However, they won't move unless they get a state handout to ease their way back in.

Again, we pick up the tab.What is wrong with this society? For the minority at the top, it is all profit and no risk.

For the majority further down the scale we have poverty-level wages (if wages at all) and constant insecurity.

Spare a thought as well for the Indian and Chinese workers who also deserve a living wage.

Paul Henderson, Leicester.

Just who are the textile firms seeking taxpayers' cash to return to Leicester?

They, in effect, put hundreds on the dole after exporting the jobs overseas "to cut costs".

No way, I say, should our cash go to such a daft cause. Why? It would be like paying for the privilege of having one's old job back!

Yes, we once had a proud and flourishing textile trade. This was on sale in M&S, whose proud boast was "Ninety-eight per cent of our stock is British-made".

The names Corah and Russell and others may be history now. However, I will believe that the textiles industry can only be revived if and when M&S and other high street names renew the M&S slogan.

Such a move will not cost the taxpayers a penny!

John Burrows, Leicester.

I was interested in the letter from the gentleman who could not get a GP home visit. My daughter had a poorly toddler of 18 months and a new baby.

The toddler had a high temperature and a sore throat. She was denied a home visit, as home visits are for the elderly and housebound. Which I fully understand. But my daughter was housebound with no transport.

She was told to get on a bus, which was impossible with two babies, one newborn and the other poorly. They gave her an appointment at the infirmary, which she attended and was seen two hours late. She commented there were a lot of ill children at the clinic, and some looked as if they had contagious ailments. What if there were pregnant women or patients with low immunity present?

I had my children in the mid-80s and early-90s, and there was no quibbling, my GP would always come out. I know some people abuse the system, but the majority do not. I was very angry and upset about the whole affair.

Especially when you know that GPs' working conditions have been improved.

Noeleen M Bennett, Leicester.

All bus lanes do is create congestion. Each route in and out of Leicester is now single-file, creating pollution.

The simple answer? Do away with the bus lanes and pay as you enter at peak periods and replace with a conductor, say from 7am to 10.30am, and from 3pm until 7pm.

This would enable the buses to travel a lot quicker and keep the traffic flowing. It would help employ more people, or work a split shift, one week driving and one week conducting. The money allocated for the proposed bus lane would then be well spent.

Perhaps the mayor and County Hall would then listen to the people.

David Carter, Thurlaston.