Letters to the Editor

Men already excessively subsidise the female population through tax, health care, etc, and the concept of ladies' nights at pubs and clubs is yet another example of this.

Large numbers of women can often be seen out every weekend, spending their family allowance or having their drinks paid for them by nave young lads deluding themselves through blind chivalry.

If these sexist ladies' nights and other forms of discrimination against men are permitted to continue, what next?

It could well prove to be the first step to a state of gender apartheid where men will officially be left as second-class citizens, with zero rights.

Employment recruitment, housing waiting lists, as well as the divorce and child custody courts have already illustrated they endorse this shocking policy.

"Poodle men" who approve of these ladies' nights and other anti-male attitudes should be ashamed of themselves, and any man so curiously desperate for female company can always use the "Two's Company" page featured in this newspaper.

Carl Smith, Crosley Wood Road, Bingley.

SIR - I recently returned to live in Bradford after 20 years working in Lancashire and I'm currently researching my family history and my younger years in the city between 1960-80.

In the 1960s some friends and I used Ye Old Bankfoot Caf on Manchester Road as a meeting place and I'm wondering if any of your readers have any photographs of the caf as it was during the 1960s and 1970s. If so, I'd be delighted to hear from them.

Alan O'Day Scott, 20 Weller Close, West Bowling, Bradford BD5 7BQ (tel: 01274-391432).

SIR - This country is heading for another general election. It is the time when national politicians make promises to electors. Solemn pledges will be constructed by candidates on issues affecting local and national concerns.

Electors will have assurances that taxes will be cut, the quality of education will rise, criminality will be approached with determination and force.

The illusion perpetrated by our highly-paid politicians is that we are a rich country. If that is the case, why then are hospital beds being cut, medicines and services rationed and the poor becoming poorer?

Demonstrably the public's power is perceived as ineffectual by those at the Palace of Westminster.

Reality suggests that political lies, equivocation and prevarication will continue to be utilised by politicians without comment from a dying, once Great, Britain.

David Samuels, Station Road, Oxenhope.

SIR - Two recent news items really distressed me.

1. The £47 million bail-out for the Dome.

2. A young woman with MS who can't have treatment because of the cost and where she happens to live.

Is there nothing this or any government can do about such inequality? It is grossly unfair as is the dreadful waste of money ploughed into the Dome.

If it is so good and popular, then it should pay for itself. If this is a country of equality, Heaven help most of us.

Barry Foster, Gilstead Lane, Gilstead, Bingley.

SIR - May I request, through your columns, that when the Harvest Festival time arrives schools, churches, etc, bear in mind that poverty does not exist exclusively in Eastern Europe, but that there are local needs too.

It has become fashionable to rattle the collecting dish on behalf of the "war-torn" areas, ignoring the fact that there are pockets of poverty within our own area.

Many pensioners, plus single parents and other deprived persons have in the past been glad of the share given to them by the local churches, etc, and felt reassured with the gift, that they were part of the community and not just left on its fringes and ignored.

Not every Eastern European is a peasant - not every peasant is poverty-stricken, though it seems to be fashionable to think so.

So, in your charity, please look a little nearer to home and give some consideration to our own needy.

For that's where charity begins.

Graham Spencer, Hollin Head, Tong Park, Baildon.