YP Letters: How many more cards and letters lost in the post?

DELIVERED to my house on January 18 was a Christmas card from a friend in Winchester, Hampshire. It bears its original postmark of December 15 and another reading “North and West Yorkshire 16.01.18”. Where has it been for over a month?

To add insult to injury, the first postmark also bears the legend “Last Posting Dates 1st Class: 21 December / 2nd Class: 20 December”. Another card was posted to me from Harrogate on December 12 and was delivered after Christmas.

Are other people from whom I usually receive Christmas cards, and from whom I have not heard this year, dead? Have they sent cards which have not been delivered? How many of the cards which I posted have not arrived? The previous year, on December 19, I posted, first class to central London, a card for a birthday on December 27. It has never arrived. My brother posted his card to the same recipient on December 23. It was delivered on the 24th.

Apart from not knowing whether or not contacts have actually sent cards which have not arrived, a great deal of money is wasted on both cards and stamps when they are not delivered. It is no wonder that people are abandoning Royal Mail and resorting to e-cards.

Impossible to report scams

From: ME Wright, Harrogate.

I RECENTLY received a call, purporting to be from the Telephone Preference Service (TPS). He claimed to be “upgrading my information”. I was intrigued.

“Do you still pay your phone bills by direct debit?” he asked.

“Yes, goodbye”. I rang off. There followed about 12 calls in rapid succession, all of which I left to the answerphone.

Eventually, 1471 produced a valid Sheffield number. I didn’t ring it, but emailed all details to the TPS, “not us – Trading Standards”. I emailed them, 
“Dial 0345...”. I did, and a recording told me I’d have to wait a while. I e-mailed North Yorkshire County Council, who also suggested that I dial 0345. I gave up!

We are told to “contact the organisation directly” (The Yorkshire Post, January 22). If we could I’d be happy to do so; but not to pay for the questionable pleasure of pushing buttons 
and listening to disembodied voices.

If anyone is serious about killing off these scams, could we please have a readily accessible means of contact?

An 0800 number, or an email contact; not designed by someone who cannot accept that many thousands of us do not spend every waking moment glued to, or faffing with, a screen.

PFI licence to print money

From: Dr David Hill, Huddersfield.

QUITE a few years ago I was a governor at the largest school within a metropolitan authority, which had been signed up to a PFI scheme.

Having dealt with construction contracts in my career for over 20 years, I was asked to look into the contractual arrangements after the local authority had signed up on behalf of all the schools.

Usually I had become associated with contracts that ultimately looked after the interests of the client, but were fair to both sides.

When I analysed the PFI contract, I found for the first time in my construction life that it was totally the opposite of that situation. The contractor was totally in the driving seat being able to charge astronomical amounts for building works and school support services. Indeed it became clear that it was a licence to print money.

Basically PFI was a total rip-off, to put the matter bluntly, but the local authority had signed up blindly to the whole affair and where their thinking appeared to be that they were not particularly bothered, as the taxpayer was paying for it anyway.

Unity out of squabbles

From: Vernon Wood, Wharfedale Crescent, Garforth, Leeds.

EVER since devolution was proposed, voted down and then miraculously reborn, it seems the concept has been enveloped in a dense fog of obfuscation, contradiction, indecision and a disgraceful display of barefaced local authority and political manipulation and disagreement.

Conflicts of organisation from county-wide cohesion to city region disputations, with mayoral or management team leadership remain unresolved, presenting to the country and government a squabbling, self-centred region.

At last, and despite central Government opposition, it seems that a degree of agreement may be on the cards, although success will only be achieved by a concerted, aggressive drive by our representatives (The Yorkshire Post, January 22).

Praise for priest’s words

From: Douglas Metcalfe, High Hoyland, Barnsley.

I HAVE just read Father Neil McNicholas’s latest delightful and amusing column (The Yorkshire Post, January 19).

I am nominally CoE and the only thing which could make me convert to Roman Catholicism is Fr McNicholas.

Long may he continue to write for The Yorkshire Post.

Fr McNicholas for Pope!

Loyalty of a football great

From: Bob Simons, Rowborn Drive, Oughtibridge, Sheffield.

AS one soccer mercenary signs a multi-million pound wage deal with Manchester United FC, the sad death of Jimmy Armfield, a Blackpool FC player all his career (The Yorkshire Post, January 23), serves as a stark reminder that club loyalty did at one time exist in English football.