Letters - Tuesday November 24, 2020

I’m really pleased to read that the iconic Tower Ballroom in Blackpool has been awarded £750,000 from the Cultural Recovery fund.

This money has been allocated in order to have essential restoration work done on the ceiling .

This is a magnificent ballroom and is a jewel in the crown for Blackpool. The winter season is the perfect time to undertake this specialist restoration work .

I am also pleased to learn that both The Grand Theatre and Winter Gardens have also been successful with their Cultural Recovery Fund applications .

The news of The Royal Variety (virtual) performance being staged at The Opera House in December is another boost in the right direction. Blackpool has huge potential to raise its cultural profile and attract a wider demographic. It is not hard to image that the next few years could prove to be very challenging for cultural organisations. However Blackpool does have an advantage, it has the unique infrastructure that other towns and cities should either envy or admire.

Further investment in modernising the illuminations with new technology is good news. The illuminations have massive potential to attract major corporate advertising revenue and ongoing investment technology. The updated Blackpool Tower lighting technology is a prime example of good investment, having the flexibility to change images easily and remotely. Savings in long term include reduced maintenance, electricity running costs and being eco friendly. Blackpool illuminations in a few years time could actually have a section of old tableaux displays which are retained specifically as retro exhibitions. An opportunity to show case history and tell the story of the ‘lights’ going back over 100 years .

Stephen Pierre

Unity Music Arts Team

Politics

Patel is exactly what Home Office needs

If there is one Department of State that has been crying out for change for many years it is the Home Office. It was Reid, a former Labour Home Secretary, who described it as ‘not fit for purpose’.

Patel’s direct, and uncompromising approach has clearly ruffled civil service feathers. The report into her alleged bullying behaviour makes it clear that ‘it was unintentional’, and that she has not received the help she had the right to expect from her senior civil servants.

Anyone who has worked in Whitehall knows that senior civil servants have a subtle, and at times not so subtle, way of strewing your path with obstacles. Patel has clearly experienced this.

In addition, like Margaret Thatcher, Patel has no doubt been subjected by some male civil servants to an unspoken attitude that signals a dislike of a ‘strong woman’. Sadly, the fear of such women is all too common in Parliament and elsewhere.

Arguably, Priti’s willingness to stand her corner, and criticise poor advice is exactly what the Home Office needs. Patel does not go in for gentle persuasion. At times her impatience has shown when dealing with a raft of issues, such as immigration, law and order and terrorism, that are political dynamite. In particular she has had to face a service notorious for its lack of flexibility.

Her desire to deport foreign criminals and reduce the number of illegal immigrants has clearly upset her cautious civil servants. Her own background as the daughter of Ugandan immigrants wouldn’t have helped.

Coming from a totally different background her mandarin advisors have urged caution and adherence to the status quo.

This is not what Patel wants to hear, neither is it what is needed in these turbulent times.

Dr Barry Clayton

Thornton Cleveleys

Cars

Where’s electricity coming from?

Rumours abound that we will all be forced to have electric cars by 2030.

I have two comments to make about that - the first is we were told diesel cars were good and then sometime later that they are bad and that mantra continues. The second and most important point is where is all the electricity coming from?

We have five nuclear power stations due to close in the next three to five years and only Hinkley nuclear power station, in Somerset, being built with a Government guarantee of three times the current cost of electricity. The private sector pulled out of the Wylfa Nuclear project, on Anglesey, on cost and continued reliance on wind and solar’s intermittent generation is clearly not the answer.

It is estimated we would need to produce 50 per cent more power than currently just to power electric cars, to say nothing about the cost of infrastructure.

We have not had a coherent energy policy form either Conservative or Labour for over 20 years.

If they want it to work, it is time to wake up and make some urgent investment in the generation industry.

Rchard G Wood

address supplied