HAVING spent the last few months, and the last few days in particular, battling with British Sugar, briefing MPs, MEPs and journalists and answering queries from distraught growers, I find Bruce Barton's comments (Country Week, August 12) quite extraordinary and about as wide of the mark as anyone could get.
British Sugar owns the site at York and will therefore wish to sell it at the best price. There are 99 acres and I have heard of figures between £500,000 and £1m per acre being bandied about.
Either way, the site is worth a lot and I would be surprised if British Sugar were not to take full advantage of its value. Selling this site to a consortium of farmers for a song is therefore more than unlikely, particularly when the farmers would then be in direct competition.
The EU is constrained to remove some eight million tonnes of sugar quota from Europe, under pressure from the World Trade Organisation, hence the reform of the sugar regime, which has precipitated this whole sorry affair. Where Mr Barton's magical quota from the EU is going to come from to give to farmers, I am unclear. Unlikely is a word that springs to mind.
And bioethanol from sugar, far from being the answer to a maiden's prayer, is not the easy way out.
The likes of Mr Barton seem to believe that sugar beet growing is subsidised by the EU. Not so. Until last year sugar land was specifically excluded from any form of payment.
As it happens, we have been fighting to find other uses of beet but have been constrained by the Inter Professional Agreement (the contract basis) negotiations. We will be able to come out into the open shortly, I hope.
British Sugar wants to stop sugar beet production in the Vale of York, concentrate it close to its East Anglian factories and increase its bottom line figure by reducing haulage costs to its four remaining factories.
It is not just Yorkshire farmers who will suffer but all those who work in associated industries.
These include hauliers, machinery suppliers and the whole jigsaw of the rural economy – schools, shops, rural post offices and the like.

Saints and sinners in Castro's Cuba
From: Frank Pedley, Gisburn Road, Hellifield, Skipton.
I rarely disagree with Bernard Dineen, but I fear that his analysis of the Cuban situation (Yorkshire Post, August 14) owes too much to a belief that the refugees in Florida are saints and the government of Cuba sinners.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Although generations of Cubans have never experienced the horrors of the Batista regime, the older citizens did and they are sceptical of the "American way of life", however much United States-inspired broadcasts try to promote it.
When there was clamour for Cubans to be allowed to leave, Fidel Castro emptied his jails of criminals who wished to go and they are now part of the Miami mafia, eager to lay their hands on land when the Castro dies.
It is far too easy to forget the good features of the Castro regime which go some way to offset the absence of democracy.
The regime has, for example, never tried to suppress religion. The Catholic Church flourishes.
Although the country resisted the American invasion at the Bay of Pigs, there is no triumphalism there and the only evidence of this historic event lies in a modest exhibition and in the gravestones which can be seen at intervals by the roadside of those who fell in the invasion.
And Castro lives not in the presidential palace, but in a modest hideaway, since he eschews all the trappings of power.
For him to have led his people for almost half-a-century is surely a tribute to his life's work in destroying a corrupt regime and in carrying the people with him in spite of the economic problems they endure, largely because of the embargo on trade with the US.
We must surely hope that, when Castro finally dies, we shall not be sucked into any attempt by the US to invade, or to support those dissidents who are already training to do so.
Tony Blair was deceived into believing that the Iraqi dissidents in this country represented the people under a repressive regime, when they clearly did not.
This must not be allowed to happen in the case of Cuba, a country where, in spite of its huge problems, decency and grace can still pervade the lives of its people.

Myth of 'the war on terror'
From: Michael Swaby, Hainton Avenue, Grimsby.
AS THE thoughtful editorial (Yorkshire Post, August 12) pointed out concerning the problems among the younger generation of Muslims, more has to be done and there is no help like self-help.
However, is it possible that Muslims suspect they are not being told the whole truth?
Politicians in power first decide what they want to do, then what they will tell the voters.
In September 2001, George W Bush and Tony Blair agreed to use the fear and loathing created by the infamous atrocity of 9/11 as an opportunity to pursue the neo-conservative agenda of rearranging the furniture in Central Asia and the Middle East.
The means of persuasion was to be brute force, the cover story being the "war on terror".
Such abuse of the language should have been enough to arouse suspicion. You can't make war on an abstraction, only on people. After five years of this policy, the net result is that we now have more enemies than ever. Meanwhile, the perpetrators remain stuck with their mendacious cover story, to our great loss.
Mr Blair is a trained lawyer. However, this has not deterred him from insulting us with arguments so weak they would struggle to survive a good school debate.
While British Muslims sense that they are being deceived about the continued suffering of their co-religionists, it will continue to be very difficult to convince them that the West is not waging war on Islam.

Danger of individualism
From: Chris Schorah, Gascoigne Avenue, Leeds.
DAVID CURRY, MP for Skipton and Ripon, proposes that we address the enemy of terrorism in our society by encouraging a belief in secularism and individualism and becoming intolerant of those who choose to put their faith in God and community (Yorkshire Post, August 15).
This is a disturbing and dangerous suggestion for a number of reasons.
State secularism, in the regimes of the 20th century and currently in China, does not have a good record in terms of protecting its citizens from violence.
The promotion of the individual is one of the main reasons for this nation's slide into moral and social decline. It may well have encouraged the self-focus of the suicide terrorist, an act that has no regard for anyone else including those of their own faith communities from whom they seem to act independently.
Finally, not all theocratic groupings wish to force their views on others and it is wrong and unthinking to lump all together.
I wonder if David Curry's agenda is not only about defeating terrorism but also one of promoting secularism, a philosophy that is just as much based on faith as any theistic world view.

Armed Forces overstretched
From: David Wright, Little Lane, Easingwold, North Yorkshire.
Over the past week there have been numerous reports about the funding crisis affecting our Armed Forces and the serious prospect of yet more cuts and re-organisations. And this when Tony Blair is committing our forces to even more deployments worldwide, even though it is painfully obvious that we do not have the resources or manpower to embark on the global "peacekeeping" role that should be done by the United Nations.
Even the Defence staff are seemingly party to this conspiracy of constant cuts inspired by the Treasury.
It would appear that neither has yet come to terms with the conflict between politicians, civil servants and the over-zealous Bush/Blair world-saviour campaign, while our Armed Forces struggle against the odds.
Ideally, we should not be doing this dirty work on behalf of the UN and the rest of the world.

Far fewer second homes
From: Paul Rouse, chairman, Association of Second Home Owners, Elvington, York.
AS THE second-homes debate is inextricably linked to the issue of affordable rural housing, I must correct the impression given in the article (Yorkshire Post, August 14) that there are 300,000 such second homes.
The 300,000 figure is one bandied about by a researcher who works for one of the major estate agents and has no basis in fact. Actually, there are 94,000 second homes in rural Britain, according to the Government's Affordable Rural Housing Commission.
As you go on to say, many of these are holiday lets, or properties designed and built as holiday accommodation. As such, they have little or no impact on stocks of affordable rural housing.
It seems that all any politician or headline-seeking researcher has to do these days is to attack second-home ownership and coverage is guaranteed.

From: Bill Forster, Wellington Mews, Ripon, North Yorkshire.
You report (Yorkshire Post, August 12) that three-and-a-half million people in this country possess a second home. It is indeed a necessity for those whose work takes them all over the country but when the second home is for holidays, it is baffling that a Labour government can tolerate a system inflicting such hardship on low-paid country people.

Flower display which gives great pleasure
From: S Pelham-Howell, Lady Wood Road, Leeds.
Regarding Gerard Binks's front-page photograph (Yorkshire Post, August 16), we would like to say a big thank-you to Robin and Anne Strange for the great pleasure they give to us as motorists as we pass their property at Coniston Cold. We look forward to seeing their house each year as we travel north on holiday and we are delighted they have received recognition through your newspaper.

Putting the Old Testament in context
From: Frank McManus, Longfield Road, Todmorden.
My compliments to the Rev Richard Kayes for his warning against the over-facile use of the Old Testament, the 66 books of which are a library of the culture of the Hebrew peoples.
There's a history shelf; one of poetry; a few short stories (Ruth, Job); and fine prophecies in the theology section.
Its splendour is that it sets faith in the life of the Hebrew tribes, with no nonsense about separating politics from religion (Our own 1960s Archbishop Ramsey stressed that "it is in the life of the nation that the battle for the faith must be mounted").
But fascinating as the stories of old-time heroes are, it was not until the great prophets, Isaiah and Co, appeared on the scene than the perception of God rose above the tribal; eg, Joshua 13.6 has God promising to drive out "all the inhabitants of the hill country from Lebanon... from before the children of Israel" – yet surely God loves all peoples equally.
I recall being asked, as an Anglican lay reader, to take morning service in a Fenland church and receiving a service-sheet showing that the Scouts would parade and that the story of David and Goliath would be read.
Realising that Goliath, after all, was fighting for his tribe, I insisted, against strong protests, on replacing the final hymn with Hail to the Lord's Anointed, Great David's Greater Son, so as to stress that the courage of the suffering Jesus, Prince of Peace, is of a higher order than that of the stone-slinging youth.
Thus, although there is much to be learnt from the Old Testament – the Samson story shows the man's unbearable wrongs prompting his suicide-terrorism of bringing the house down on many innocent heads – the Christian Church does well to proclaim the superior new Covenant as prophesied by Jeremiah 31.31-34, and set out in the New Testament of the man Jesus, risen and glorified as "High Priest of good things to come" (Hebrews 9.11), "King of Kings and Lord of Lords" (Revelation 19.16).

Points

Unfair rail cash distribution
From: Robert Craig, Priory Road, Weston-super-Mare, Somerset.
LEEDS commuters no doubt rejoice that, after the spending of £7m on the West Coast Main Line, Transport Secretary Alistair Darling can now speed home to Glasgow in under four hours. However, the trains no longer stop in Cumberland over the weekends.
It is surely time to resurrect the medieval "Council of the North" to ensure an equitable distribution of spending between the East and the West (rather than the bulk of it being directed towards Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow).

Command of the language
From: Elizabeth Brumfield, North End, Seaton Ross, York.
I congratulate David Quarrie (Yorkshire Post, August 16) on his excellent letter and his use of the word "debauch".
This is such a very fitting word to describe the way in which our beloved country is being torn apart and degraded by the ignorance and inefficiency of our leaders.
It is good to know that there are still people with such a command of our language and who value our heritage.

Search for
earl's grave
From: Dr Dorothy Davies, Half Moon House, Church Lane, Ryde, lsle of Wight.
I am researching the biography of Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers, executed in Pontefract Castle on June 25, 1483, together with two other knights, and I would very much like to discover the location of the Earl's grave.
Apart from wanting to include this in his biography, I am planning my research journeys for next year and would like to visit the grave (or memorial, if there is one) to pay my respects.

John Prescott's
flight path
From: Ken Holmes, South Duffield Road, Cliffe Common, Selby.
WHILE chaos raged at all the major airports, what did John Prescott do to restore confidence? He visited Humberside and Robin Hood airports.
Didn't he do well?