I wonder if Clark Cross (Letters, October 12) has ever worked in the civil service? You'd think he must have, to feel qualified to tell us so confidently what it's like.
Yet if he had, his ‘facts’ might actually have a degree of accuracy. As someone who did work in the civil service until recently, I can state that civil servants working in non-devolved departments are expected to come into the office for at least three days a week. In the area I worked, new civil servants would be in the office full-time until training is complete.
Many public sector workers don't have the opportunity to work from home due to the be nature of their jobs. Many private sector workers can and do work from home, as the nature of their work makes it possible.
I can't say for sure that no civil servant treats sick leave as extra holiday entitlement. But I didn't, and nobody I worked with did, so clearly ‘everyone’ didn't. No civil servant recruited today will go into a final salary pension scheme.
The scheme now is a career averaging one. Under most circumstances, taking a pension before the statutory age would carry a heavy financial penalty.
David Clinton, Hamilton.
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NHS: no nothings stay quiet
I am writing in response to Dennis Forbes Grattan’s correspondence regarding who to believe on the NHS (Letters, October 13).
I have a daughter who works in the NHS, and I am aware of the situation within the service. It is very easy to criticise and point out what one perceives to be wrong, but not so easy to rectify the key issues. I once had a gaffer who said: “Don’t come to me with problems, come to me with solutions.”
With this in mind I would suggest that having several axes to grind with the ruling administration of the NHS is one thing. But it would help to offer suggestions on how to make things better, instead of looking for excuses to give the organisation a kicking.
Having spent the majority of my working life in the public sector, I am used to people from outside having a pop at services, yet having no idea what is actually going on.
I don’t offer advice on matters that I have no knowledge about, and would suggest that we should channel our energies towards ensuring that we keep our own houses in order first.
Ian R Robison, Aberdeen.
Christianity: thought plus action
Steve Brennan (Letters, October 9) raises an important and challenging question: how can belief in God be reconciled with the suffering caused by natural disasters such as the recent earthquake in Nepal? It’s a question that Christians (and others) have also wrestled with for centuries. I wonder, however, if dismissing God as “an imaginary friend” brings us any closer to an answer.
Mr Brennan is certainly entitled to his atheism, but such playground name-calling rarely works as a philosophical tool.
As a Catholic Christian (and in all humility) I can't pretend to be able to offer a complete answer to such a complex question. Christianity has never claimed that life is free from suffering. Its central image is not of an avuncular God sitting comfortably in the heavens, but of Jesus Christ nailed to a cross. The Christian claim is therefore that God enters into human suffering, rather than remaining as a detached spectator.
Nor does the existence of suffering logically prove that God does not exist. Mr Brennan offers only three possibilities: that God doesn't care, that God is evil, or God doesn't exist. But why only those options? The fact that we can’t fully understand why suffering is permitted does not establish that there can be no purpose beyond our understanding.
Moreover, Christian faith demands more than mere philosophical debate. It calls on us to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, comfort the bereaved and help those devastated by natural disasters. Prayer and practical compassion go hand in hand.
Perhaps, then, alongside asking why God did not intervene in Nepal, we might ask what we ourselves can do for those who are suffering.
The universe is vast, and human suffering can be bewildering. However, neither fact settles the question of God's existence. Calling God imaginary doesn't make Him so, any more than calling suffering meaningless makes it so.
Mr Brennan invites Christians to “pick carefully”. Fair enough. But perhaps he should first consider whether his multiple-choice question contains all the possible answers.
Jim Kearns, Paisley.
Folly of phones
I agree with David Edgar (Letters, October 14) that people have become so obsessed with mobile phones that they will use them to film and upload any event, no matter how appalling. I imagine that if such technology had been available centuries ago, mobile phones would have been used to film the crucifixion itself.
Truly awful.
Arthur Doyle, Paisley.
Dead funny..?
I came across a book on X called ‘Not All Husbands Are Annoying - Some Are Dead’ written by a divorcee called Ruth Jennings. It’s an adult joke book that contains jokes about husbands and marriage.
My wife bought it, and to be fair it’s quite amusing. However, I couldn’t help thinking that what if it was the other way around, and a husband wrote a book called ‘Not All Wives Are Annoying - Some Are Dead’? There would be an uproar!
The husband would be called a misogynist and branded a woman hater. There would be calls for the book to be banned, and feminists and women’s groups would be stringing the husband up from the nearest lamppost.
Jim Harding, Newton Mearns.
Connae no dae that
I couldn't agree more with Robin Irvine's opinion on the issue of traffic cones on statues in Glasgow, (Letters, October 14).
The original, on the statue of the Duke of Wellington, is a world renowned two finger salute to an arrogant soldier who was no friend of the common man, in Glasgow or anywhere else. The cone on the head of Nelson Mandela is an insult to a man of a very different kind.
Coners! Get a grip.
Sometimes I wish there was a statue of Maggie Thatcher in the city, though…
John Jamieson, Ayr.
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