Your letters

Take care when changing provider

I’d really like to know if others have had trouble with the phone company Talk Talk. I certainly have several friends who have had real difficulties with getting proper service from them.

In the particular case which has made me very cross recently a friend signed up to Talk Talk. His problems were as follows :

n They never advised him how to sign off from his previous phone and broadband provider, with the result that they were both sending him invoices, which in due course became threatening invoices; this has ended up costing him a lot of cash for no service.

n They never got his broadband working but were continuing to charge him for it.

n When, in disgust, he moved to another provider they continue to threaten him and have now sent in the debt collectors.

This seems to me to be the worst kind of service and I’d like to take this opportunity to warn others of the difficulties you can get into if you want to change your phone and broadband provider in these days of the “free market”. So my advice is choose very very carefully, and make sure your new provider is going to give you proper service, and help you to leave your previous provider appropriately. - Janet Alty, Lillington Road, Leamington

Red dawn for Labour Party?

As I said in the last paragraph of my letter that you kindly printed in the Courier a couple of weeks ago: Of course, Ed Miliband will get the support of the six main trade unions.

Well, he did get their full support and now ‘Red Ed’ Miliband is the leader of the New Labour party - although he didn’t get the support of Labour MPs, MEPs or party members.

He said after the result was announced: “The era of New Labour has passed. A new generation has taken over”.

I think the name ‘New Labour’ should be changed to ‘The Union Communist Party’, because all leaders of the six main trade unions responsible for his election were former members of the Communist Party before they joined Labour. New Labour supporters will then know where they stand.

With ‘Red Ed’ as party leader, we can look forward to ‘nationwide strikes’ more than ever, and if his party is ever elected to power again, we can also look forward to more raids on our pension funds.

If Gordon Brown hadn’t carried out his smash and grab raid on pension funds I’d be receiving three times what I receive today.

I lost 80 per cent of my investment in Lloyds Bank when Labour allowed the bank to take over HBOS and all its debts. Now I don’t get a dividend at all.

I also lost most of my pension fund that I invested in Railtrack, together with dividends, thanks to Labour’s snatch back policies.

Just imagine if ‘Red Ed’s’ party was in power, all these “dispossession kind of policies” would be repeated. We would be dispossessed of our life savings, so that he and his cronies could keep their oversized deep pockets topped up forever with our money. - George Sullivan, Pinehurst, Cubbington.

Why no coverage of annual march?

RE: The Warwickshire Regiments annual march through Warwick.After being very poorly advertised in the previous week’s Courier, (a few lines buried within the paper), I was somewhat dismayed to find not a single mention or picture of the event in last weeks pages.

After the church service, the troops were reviewed and inspected by their officers and the town’s dignitaries, and many official photographs taken, before they marched through the town.

Where are and who has seen those pictures, and why has there been nothing reported about this event ?

Come on Courier, these are our troops, we are proud of them, and so should you be.

Please give them the support and coverage they richly deserve. - Tony Burbidge, Robins Grove, Warwick.

Excellent hospital care deserves praise

THERE are so many criticisms of our NHS hospitals that I feel I must write with my recent experience.

I was in Warwick Hospital for a minor sinus operation. Everyone I met, including the surgeon Mr David Phillips, the anaethetist, and all the staff on the 23-hour ward was unfailingly kind and thoughtful.

Every procedure was carefully explained beforehand and any questions answered.

The operation went very well and I’m making a good recovery, thanks to the skill and dedication of all concerned.

It is really good to be able to report so positively. - C. Mary Catt, Dovehouse Lane, Harbury

Letter to disgraceful money-grabbers

COPY of a letter to Warwick District Council parking services.

You disgraceful shamless moneygrabbers.

On what possible basis can you consider there is a need to restrict parking after 6pm in the evening, much less the 9.25pm you plastered a ticket on our truck after we’d done a hard day’s work and came to Leamington to grab a bite to eat and chill out for an hour or two. It never occurred to us for a second that there might be thieves about.

How do you justify it? The shops are closed. The business people have gone home. There’s no congestion or parking issues. So on what basis have you decided to restrict parking until 10pm? Oh I know it’s so that people like us, people who don’t think to check whether there might be a sneaky, illogical and unreaonable restriction you’ve added can get caught out. Must feel like fishing I expect.

Enjoy your £70, reduced to £35 as a special discount for paying you in 14 days.

I look forward to the outside chance of receiving a city hall justification for your actions presumably talking about the need to balance council finances. In the meantime we will leave central Leamington to the youth. I’m sure the restaurants and evening businesses who pay your wages and who create the evening vibrancy on which the town depends are happy to struggle on without your assistance. - Tim Allen, Ashow, Kenilworth.

Support swimming

I was most disappointed to read in last week’s Courier that the free swimming scheme is likely to be dropped.

When we hear how youngsters these days are obese and spend all their time playing video games, surely something the encourages them to take some exercise should be encouraged whatever the cost. - Name and address supplied.