YOUR editorial, Sentence overturned (May 16), displays a blend of personal liberalism and social authoritarianism that is becoming all too pervasive. Too plagued by guilt to look a beggar in the eye, you prefer to have the police remove from the streets anyone who might upset the public.
By your interpretation of the law, not only beggars but the thousands of football fans wandering down London Road or Paisley Road West every week, the youngsters loitering outside the local chip shop, and the old man mumbling incomprehensible one-liners at the bus stop, are all committing a breach of the peace. All these features of the Glasgow we know and love could quite reasonably be said to cause alarm to somebody: would you have these people locked up?
City streets can be scary places. We don't know each other after all. But rather than legislating against fear, perhaps we should just toughen up a little. Personally, I never give money to beggars. Maybe that makes me a meanie, but at least I have the humanity to look these men and women in the eye and tell them ''no'', instead of staring at the sky like someone trying to shake off a stray dog. If everyone did the same, beggars might be a bit less alienated and a bit less intimidating.
Dolan Cummings,
40 Belmont Street, Glasgow. May 16.
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