Absolutely bonkers

I thought I’d treat my youngest son to a provisional driving licence for his birthday to give him a better chance of getting a job.

Well, his birthday was in September and he finally got it last week.

Oh and what a nightmare that proved just to get a provisional.

Next thing he tells me he needs something called a CSCS card before he’s allowed to work.

So he rings the appropriate test centre and is told it will come to a total of £200.

And they wonder why there are so many people out of work.

I mean, where are these people’s brains?

If someone is out of work, where do they think they can magic £200 from before they can get a job? Absolutely bonkers.

So it’s cost £38 for a provisional license, then it’s £30 for a theory test, then God knows how much for the driving test and lessons. It just doesn’t give you the heart.

Oh, then his older brother had to get himself a driving licence because his firm moved premises to the other side of town and it would have been virtually impossible to get there on time using public transport.

So he does it and a couple of weeks ago he says to me that he was a bit wary because they wanted him to drive the firm’s van.

I told him, not to worry and that it’s actually easier to drive than a car.

At the end of the week he agreed with me, saying it was easier.

Then last Friday the company told him that his licence doesn’t in fact cover him to drive a van. Wha?

Sorry, but this country is strangling the life out of the working class.

It’s all about making money for the government.

So cheers, Mr Peabody.

Ted Fowler

by email

Student tuition fees

Even Theresa May now admits that students face one of the “most expensive systems of university tuition in the world.”

Charging students for tuition fees has been a disaster. The Government still has to pay the money to universities.

On the other hand, very many students won’t be able to pay off the thousands of pounds of debt.

The problem lies in the principle of treating university education as a commodity, only for the benefit of the individual.

Medical students are the doctors of tomorrow; can we say their education is solely for individual gain?

What students do with their education benefits everyone in society. Some end up earning good money and could pay a fair share of tax based on income; others contribute to society in other ways.

The Labour Party should be ashamed of its decision to introduce tuition fees in 1998.

The Green Party’s policy is to cancel tuition fees and write off outstanding student debt.

We need to give our graduates a hope for the future and allow them to flourish free of society’s debt.

Martin Phipps

Sheffield Green Party

Surprised by spelling error

I was surprised at your schoolboy error in your heading on page 4,on February 6.

Who needs a lesson on the difference between “your” and “you’re” ?

Education ,eh!

Hilary Robinson

by email

Doctor’s surgeries

I’m sure this letter will be perceived by some as the facetious ramblings of a dissatisfied dinosaur, but what on earth is happening to GPs surgeries?

As a creature of advancing age, I remember the good old family doctors in the small friendly surgeries well, but now look at the worst case scenarios in today’s world!

It takes ages to even get through when you ring up, even longer to get an appointment, then it’s off to a large soulless surgery with more doctors than you can shake a stick at.

If you get to see the same doctor twice, you’ve won the lottery.

Instead of the doctor coming to fetch you when it’s, (finally), your turn, your name is called out and flashes up on a screen – bad luck if both your eyesight and hearing happen to be failing.

The doctor is then so busy looking at, and tapping into, the computer, that they barely look at you, and then you’re left doing the walk of shame if you’ve overshot the allotted 10 minutes by more than a few seconds, possibly leaving with a referral to somewhere with a waiting list as long as the River Nile.

On my mission of research, I did a rare thing by my Luddite standards, by doing a random search of local GP surgery websites.

Along with their job descriptions, words like ‘clinical’ and ‘management’ kept cropping up. This lead, that lead, what next? Dog lead? Cue the theme music to The Apprentice!

Underneath all this managerial fog, there are still some brilliant and caring GPs out there, and that’s the tragedy of it.

I wish the government would invest some of their cash into preserving the few small, homely practices that still exist, where you’re treated like people as opposed to those automaton-powered super surgeries where you’re regarded as sheep being aligned into a pen.

Too much to ask for? Hey ho, at least I’ve had my say!

Sheffield’s finest dinosaur

Beauchief,S8

Sweeping statement

A middle-aged couple are told to leave a petting zoo as they had no children with them.

How dare this farm treat all people with no children who want to look at the animals as paedophiles. Not all monsters who abuse kids are childless, many have their own children.

What a sweeping statement on people with no kids.

Jayne Grayson

by email