The attempt to create a Star Wars system for the defence of the US is due to the pressure from the present discredited US administration.
The Fylingdales system was hailed as the defender of freedom and democracy, and a protector against nuclear attack, when it was nothing of the kind. There were many reasons for the claims to be condemned. Here are just a few.
1. The previous system was capable of providing only 180 degrees of cover.
2. It offered early warning of an attack so that retaliatory forces could be alerted, but by then most of our major cities would have been destroyed.
3. The warning was limited to four minutes.
4. The authorities admitted that by warning enough people in time, only "six to ten million lives could be saved".
5. The BMA claimed that the "NHS could not deal with the casualties that might be expected following the detonation of a single one megaton weapon over the UK".
6. The Civil Defence organisation certainly could not cope, and there were no nuclear bunkers for the civilian population.
7. The then Soviet submarines were considered "invulnerable" (according to an MoD document). They were capable of launching nuclear missiles at close range.
8. At the time of the old system it was claimed that warning would be given over radio and TV, yet the Electromagnet pulse generated by only one nuclear explosion would have shut down both the civilian and military communications over a whole continent.
9. The then ministry publication Protect and Survive, which was only available if the public paid 50p for it, was a complete and utter waste of money.
10. The upgraded radar cost Britain £48m originally (the US contribution was £112m). Since then a bill to us of £33.3m has been added.
Now that we have in force a Freedom of Information Act, a public inquiry should not be a problem. We have a right to know exactly how the upgraded early warning radar is intending to defend the people of this country. Or is the Government afraid that we may find out that it is all just a means of making money for the arms trade contractors?

Exploration of space a real waste of money
From: RC Carter, Malham Square, Wakefield.
Having read your leader column "Ring of confidence", January 15, obviously your newspaper is in favour of spending great amounts of money on schemes of no earthly use to anybody but a few scientists whose only point is to prove a theory. How on earth anyone can justify spending billions is beyond belief.
When you look at the disasters and famines on this planet that could be alleviated by a fraction of the money being spent on what sort of boulders there are on Pluto, or what causes the rings on Neptune, you have to try to imagine what is going through the minds of the people who initiate these exercises.
I am not against anybody that wants to throw their money away on nonsensical projects, but I draw a line where my money is spent and the manner in which it is done.
In the olden days the explorers of the world set out on their voyages to far flung places in the knowledge that they would return and cash in on their exploits, but now there is no prospect of any financial return at the end of the day.
In other words, space exploration is a hobby, a very expensive hobby, and should be financed by those who are interested in it and not the taxpayers at large. That so many scientists are involved in solar exploration when we still haven't found a cure for cancer or aids or even the common cold doesn't stand looking at.
No doubt we will be told there isn't any money to spare for trivialities such as these, but spare a thought for the countless millions who will look up into the heavens and say: "We may be starving but at least we know why the rings around Saturn are the colour they are."
Then there is the cost in terms of human lives lost in the process of putting bodies into orbit and bringing them back, all in the name of experimentation.
Factory farming
From: I Foster, Pasture House, Coxwold, York.
I found your new Country Week supplement very interesting, particularly the article about the intelligence of pigs.
Chris Benfield informed us that Compassion in World Farming is organising a conference to study animal sentience. This academic and scientific approach to our relationship with animals is long overdue.
However, we don't need to be experts to see that animals are intelligent, sensitive beings, with a full range of emotions, very similar to our own. I need only to observe my own little flock of pet sheep, each with their own individual characters, to be convinced that we should protect rather than exploit such gentle creatures, who are more vulnerable and less destructive than ourselves.
I'm thoroughly in favour of farming subsidies moving in the direction of organic production and away from intensive, large-scale stock-rearing. More organic and free-range meat will give consumers real choices. Those of us who don't want to eat cheap supermarket chicken, turkey and pork, because of the cruelty of factory farming, can either go veggie or ask for free range and organic.
Insisting on buying only free range meat is probably the single biggest step we can all take to reduce the suffering of millions of factory-farmed animals. Our own choices and the power of our purses can literally set our fellow creatures free to roam about outside and lead a more natural life.
Taking pain on the train
From: Joan Rochford, Montpellier Court, Harrogate.
In response to Tom Richmond's article on his rail experiences (January 22), I would like to tell your readers of my two rail journeys from Hell. I was booked, with seat reserved, to travel from Leeds on the 8.10 train to Basingstoke, on December 16, 2004.
All was fine until about 15 minutes before Birmingham, when we were informed over the tannoy that they were sorry to inconvenience us, but the service was terminating at Birmingham, to collect our luggage and find the platform for another train.
This meant crossing platforms with the luggage. There was no advice or help, just a surging mass of people.
The train was already very full – there were no seats – and we were packed into the aisle of the coach with our luggage. At Basingstoke I had missed the transport, so had an hour to wait and was late at my destination. It took several days to recover.
On January 6, my return journey from Southampton was a repeat. I had settled in my reserved seat for the journey to Leeds when the same message came over the tannoy – the train was terminating at Birmingham. This time I was shocked and almost in tears, as I'm in my 80s.
Again, there was no advice or help to get to another train – which was quite full – so, another uncomfortable journey back to Leeds and home, exhausted and upset. So, no more travel on Virgin Trains.
The art of profligacy
From: David Rhodes, Keble Park North, Bishopthorpe, York.
Hard on the heels of Michael Howard's announcement that the Tory Party has identified dramatic, detailed areas of profligate waste in government, comes another addition in the Home Office art fiasco.
I care little where this art will come from, but rather the fact that £1m can be squandered on these pampered, vain, self-glorious non-entities, whose numbers seem to proliferate faster than at a rabbit farm.
Surely the Government has enough art stored in dark, cobwebbed cellars to furnish at no cost, this new building. If these are not considered suitable for these super-sensitive souls, then why not sell them to fund the purchase of the modern art required?
When will someone get to grips with expenditure?
Those of us of a certain age may remember that at school to get a new pencil the old stub had to be produced. Why not reintroduce this mentality?
Muddling along
From: ML Cook, Parkside Close, Cottingham, Nr Hull.
THE most appropriate description of the Tony Blair years could be summed up in the one word: muddle.
It certainly applies to those areas that have been terrorised by over administration such as education, where form filling is more important than pupils; the health service, where paper is more important than patients and the law, where record keeping is more important than catching criminals.

Nostalgia for the days of traditional school songs
From: Paul Corney, North Walsham Road, Bacton, Norwich.
I WAS most interested to read about the recent debate about school songs, and to see examples of them.
Although, of course, I had heard of schools songs, I had never seen or heard one, and had always imagined that they belonged to the lost days of Empire – Rudyard Kipling and all that – and that they had, deservedly, died out before I started school in 1930. Those named certainly bore out that impression: they valiantly tub-thumped the glories of the nation or of the school, or both, in a manner which might have pleased Queen Victoria but seems terribly embarrassing today.
However, in 1967, I met my first ever school song at a tiny grammar school of 150 boys and girls in the remote fastnesses of Upper Wensleydale in the North Riding of Yorkshire, a region by the side of which even North Norfolk seems positively metropolitan. This was a song of a very different stamp from those that you printed.
The chorus went to the well-known tune of "Vice l'Amour....Vive la Compagnie". The song appears in the Boy Scouts' song-book, but I would guess that it really owes its origin to some unnamed foreign wine-cellar.
Striking as the chorus was, it was nowhere near as striking as the verses. Every year the sixth form wrote 12 verses, one for every permanent member of the staff, in which their every quirk of gesture, speech or behaviour was lampooned in public. (I blush to this day).
Meantime, the pupils had made outlandish hats, representing some characteristic of every teacher.
The teachers had to wear these while the song was sung in Assembly to the delighted school.
All this took place at an annual celebration known as Rose Day, for which all the pupils and teachers came to school wearing the white rose of Yorkshire.
All, that is, except for the head and the deputy, both Lancastrians, who duly sported a red rose, and, of course, me.
As a Norfolkman, I couldn't wear either, so, I am ashamed (a bit) to say that I eventually pinched a yellow rose from the headmaster's garden.
Oh, Yorebridge, I still mourn your passing!

Points
Tales of Heaven and Hell
From: George Appleby, Leighton Croft, Clifton, York.
MANKIND, of which every living one of us is a member, is becoming ever more intelligent and creative and we (mankind) are bringing into question the idea that God (good) in the Heavens, in conflict with Satan (evil) in Hell, determine our existence through their chosen leaders among us.
Each of us has good, evil and the inevitably linked conflict within ourselves. We are capable of using them in defence of our own ideas or rejection of others to create our own versions of Heaven and Hell on earth, as is seen in art, craft, horticulture, industry and war, throughout time.
When it comes to the forces of nature, our creativity and intelligence are almost worthless. We just have to keep trying to understand what is beyond us and get on with our lives, with others, as best we can. We can draw comfort from our belief that the force of good can give us strength when we need it to face dangers of our own making.
Hunting and the hunted
From: David Quarrie, Lyndon, Acomb, York.
If the Country Landowners' Association were to win their present High Court action against the Government by claiming the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949 were illegal, fox hunting would still not be saved.
Why? Because to hunt requires land and the hunts must get a farmer's permission to go onto his land.
This Government would then tell farmers that if they want to receive their annual single-farm payment under the new CAP reforms, they must not allow any hunting with dogs to take place on any of their land.
This is a form of blackmail, but this Government is so determined to ban all hunting it would be prepared to carry out this action and once having achieved that, will almost certainly try to ban shooting and then fishing. Socialist governments nearly always end up hurting their core supporters the most.
Local hero
From: GB Hiscoe, Aspin Park Lane, Knaresborough.
Now that the various political parties are warming us up with their ideas of catching our vote, I will disregard all the spin. I will give my vote to a candidate who has been our MP for quite a while. I am not concerned with party politics.
If he stood for Labour, Tory, Communists or even the Looney Party, I would still vote for the person who lives locally and has the welfare of us at heart.
Circular motion
From: BJ Cussons, Curly Hill, Ilkley.
WHAT characteristic is common to the issues of waste recycling, and aid to the Third World?
They both ignore the cause of the problems, and thus the methods employed perpetuate the problem.