Don’t export customer services

WITH reference to the decision to move 165 jobs from the Morrisons’ head office to India, I was most disconcerted on Thursday when had occasion to telephone Asda to query my shopping delivery.

Upon getting through on their customer services number, I immediately knew from the noise on the line that I wasn’t speaking to anyone in the UK.

On asking where I was calling, the answer was South Africa! It felt really weird to be discussing a shopping delivery in Leeds with someone in South Africa. Not right at all, in my view, although I did receive a full refund.

From: D Hall, Stapleton Park Cottages, Pontefract.

AS a long time shareholder (albeit a small one), customer and supporter of Morrisons supermarkets, I am appalled that 165 jobs are to be moved to India.

I can’t imagine that Sir Ken Morrison would have allowed this, had he still been in charge.

I hope many more customers register their disapproval.

Dangers of arming police

From: Charles Rickell, Halifax.

DICK Rothwell called for the routine arming of the police (Yorkshire Post, September 27). I disagree. If all officers are armed it would create more problems than it would solve. More members of the public would be shot and killed by accident.

Arming the police would not make them safer. In the 10 years from 2001 to 2010, there were 12 police officers murdered in England and Wales. The figure for the armed officers in the USA for the same years was 589, or 49 times more than in England and Wales. Even allowing for the bigger population of the USA, 304 million compared to 54 million, (5.7 times greater 309/54) their armed officers are still 8.6 times more likely to be killed.

I would also like to point out that the 10 states that carried out the most executions had 195 police officers killed, 33 per cent of the total (195/589) and had 33 per cent of the total population (102/309), so capital punishment seems to have no deterrent effect.

Unmask the internet trolls

From: Ken Cooke, Ilkley, West Yorkshire.

STEVE Rotheram makes some very valid points in his column on internet trolling (Yorkshire Post, September 29).

If people are ‘misbehaving’ online, it ought to be made clear to them that misdemeanours are punishable at least by having their identity disclosed. With ‘physical’ crimes, an offender can get away with it as long as he is not found out! Most e-mail addresses are potentially traceable.

I think a law on this kind of basis should at least deter people from offending. To me, it would seem easy enough for the police or a magistrate to assess whether a thread of online correspondence was criminal/hurtful. Amongst my online circle savage or offensive comments sometimes arise, but at least we each know who we are dealing with.

As you say: “The test should be whether you would be happy to put your name to it.”

A friend in North America sent me a report in which in the last few days a Canadian court has ruled that a vulnerable victim of online bullying/victimisation has the right – while maintaining their own anonymity – to know the identity of the perpetrator.

Cameron’s great gaffe

From: T Marston, Lincoln.

HAVING had a posh education at Heatherdown, Eton and Brasenose, David Cameron must have had some passing acquaintance with the rudiments of Latin.

I did, in my poor West Riding Grammar school – enough 
for me to grasp the meaning of the adjective “magnus-a-um” (great) in my first year of Latin tuition.

David Cameron must have 
been taking the proverbial 
when he appeared on TV in the States with David Letterman.

After all, he studied 
philosophy, politics and economics (PPE – Modern Greats) for his First Class Honours degree at Oxford.

I suspect his pretended ignorance of the meaning of Magna Carta was to mask his “patrician” background and appear to be a “pleb” to the American audience who – be sure – fully understand Magna Carta’s relevance for them and their constitution.

Or perhaps he was trying 
to appear as menial as the 
police on Downing Street 
should he ever need to defend further the patrician arrogance 
of his chief whip, Andrew 
Mitchell (Tom Richmond, Yorkshire Post, September 29).

Either way he “wallyed”.