Bus fare increase so unreasonable

SIR - Heading back to work for the first time after Christmas, my bus was ten minutes late - a great start to the New Year!

My jaw almost hit the ground when the driver told me my usual fare was 20p more than it had been a week ago.

I had no choice but to pay and fume over the fact it had cost extra for the privilege of being late to work!

It then hit me I was going to have to find an extra £2 per week to cover what is almost a 15 per cent increase.

How can the bus company justify this appallingly high increase? Travelling by bus is not a pleasant experience at the best of times. Buses are invariably dirty, while the budding yobs of tomorrow constantly swear and spit on the floor.

The bus is usually full on my way home as the buses are not big enough to accommodate the number of passengers.

How can people on low incomes afford this increase? I'm lucky; at least when the mornings are lighter I can walk to work. It only takes ten minutes longer than the bus!

Karen Pidduck, Upper Grange Avenue, Allerton.

Using our trains

SIR - Although it is to be welcomed that rail travel has increased by 12 per cent over the previous year (T&A, January 4), certain routes remain poorly patronised such as the Bradford-Huddersfield service.

Spare capacity remains, even at peak periods, on the Forster Square-Leeds service, and even the Wharfedale and Aire Valley services are under-used outside the rush hour.

It should be a requirement of Northern Rail's franchise that it better promotes its services so passenger numbers are increased and, in turn, its revenue rather than being permitted to do this by unjustified price increases.

Special off-peak rates should be made available to fill trains which would otherwise run empty and price reductions on certain standard fares. In addition to fares increases Northern Rail will be receiving a £283million subsidy for this financial year and £343m for the following year. It is to be hoped they will be able to show the public that the money they are receiving will be well spent!

Further increases in passenger numbers are dependent on station re-openings at Low Moor and Apperley Bridge, as this would give more people ready access to rail services.

Alec Suchi, Bradford Rail Users Group, Allerton Road, Bradford.

Sinister history

SIR - Further to Mr P Craven's comments (T&A, December 5) on the Coun Greenwood/Philip Davies MP saga, political correctness has a far more sinister history than he is possibly aware of.

The term was originally used by Stalinists such as Andrei Vishinsky, the 'show-trial' prosecutor of the 1930s, as a 'catch all' term to label all 'enemies of the people' ie those who deviated from the current party line; it is all of a piece with the infamous Article 58 of the Soviet Constitution dealt with at length by Solzhenitsyn in the Gulag archipelago series.

As Pat Buchanan and others have pointed out, its adoption by the post-war Neomarxists marks the end of the traditional attempts to seize control of the 'commanding heights of the economy' in favour of a 'long march through the institutions', an assault on 'bourgeoisie values' so as to destroy western civilisation from the top down rather than the bottom up.

Judging by the utterance of the new boy in charge of the Tories, PC bigots are now at the heart of the establishment.

Coun James Lewthwaite, (BNP, Wyke), City Hall, Bradford.

Parking abuses

SIR - I have every sympathy for Roz Rushworth (T&A, January 3). Yes, disabled bays are abused. Security and delivery vans park in them as do police cars, quite frequently.

I once commented to the driver of one of the last mentioned that he should not be parked there, only to be told that he knew but remained where he was.

It is a pity that a parking meter cannot be installed at the complex and a traffic warden's pad given to Mrs Rushworth for her to issue a ticket and send the copy to the relevant authority, which in these cases should dole out a double fine.

P E Bird, Nab Wood Terrace, Shipley.