I support the Alliance for Green Socialism, which backs measures which make it easier for electors to vote – provided they do not also increase the opportunity for fraud.
However, running this election as all-postal is irresponsible. Indeed, the Electoral Commission declared that the region was not ready for an all-postal experiment.
This election is unusually complicated because there are
two elections at the same
time (Local Council and European Parliament); there are
two utterly-different voting systems (locally you vote for individual candidates under a "first past the post" system, but for Europe you vote for the Party, which puts up a closed list under a proportional system,) and because of boundary changes, the voter has three votes for individual local candidates.
So electors are going to suffer a completely new postal voting system, for two utterly different elections, a quite unfamiliar PR system, and a quite unfamiliar "three votes" system.
What has been Leeds City Council's response? It first opposed a postal ballot in Leeds but when it saw that Tony Blair wanted one, it changed its mind and did what London told it.
In many of the pilots of all-postal elections, voters were able to hand their votes in at local polling stations. Leeds has refused to provide any local facilities at all: no polling stations, no use of post offices or supermarkets.
The only way you will be able to vote in person on election day itself will be to go to the Civic Hall. One polling station for the whole of Leeds…
In some pilots 30 per cent of the voters have handed in their papers on the last day, even in far more straight-forward elections.
Given the unprecedentedly complicated nature of this double election in Leeds, even more may want to vote in person and ask for assistance.
Simple arithmetic says we could see 100,000 people trying
to get to the Leeds Civic Hall
on Election Day. More likely, people will just be put off by all the complications, and fail to vote at all.

Blair should keep promise on hunting
From: Jeanne Young, North West League Against Cruel Sports, PO Box 359, Chorley.
THE Countryside Alliance must be really desperate if it is willing to commission a poll which confirms the blindingly obvious: the vast majority of the public want the Government to make further improvements in education and health care.
A more relevant question – and one the Alliance dares not ask – would be: "Do you believe the Government should fulfil its promise to ban hunting with dogs?" The majority of people would, I predict, say yes.
To imply, as Peter Hole (Letters, April 30) does, that MPs spend a significant amount of time on bloodsports at the expense of other issues is misleading and insulting to the hard work MPs do for their constituents.
MPs from all political parties have voted overwhelmingly to end hunting with dogs so the issue need not consume a great deal of Parliamentary time. It could and should be dealt with in a day.
The public quite rightly expects Tony Blair to keep his promise to ban hunting with dogs and rid this country of this shameful so-called sport.
From: CJ Horsman, Allangate Lodge, Rochdale Road, Halifax.
I NOTE that despite the fact that the mess in Iraq is getting worse, that violent crime is on the increase and the looming European constitution is still a mystery to most of us, several Yorkshire Labour MPs have signed a motion calling on the Government to try to ban hunting.
Do they believe that something that brings together people from all walks of life and age groups in fresh air and gives employment to many should be under threat or indeed be on their agenda when there are so many more pressing matters that concern us all?
A recent poll showed that only two per cent of the public thought that any more Government time should be given to the subject, this would seem to indicate that hopefully the other 98 per cent have some sort of grip on reality.
Is it any wonder that many people have no faith in our politicians and simply don't bother voting?
Until they realise that they are employed to represent us rather than rule us things are unlikely to change.
True causes
of crime
From: Tim Mickleburgh, Littlefield Lane, Grimsby.
Those of us traditionally hostile to tough penal sentences for offenders often get criticised as being "do-gooders". Apparently, we are naive in our thinking.
Well, as someone who has both been mugged and who doesn't live in an ivory tower, I ask if it is our critics who are being unrealistic? For the assumption in arguing for stiffer sentences (even the death penalty) is that criminals will be logically deterred from offending by such punishments.
Trouble is, many of today's crimes are carried out by those who're either drug addicts or under the influence of drink, and thus aren't thinking logically at the time. So if we're serious about cutting crime, it is more important that we get to grips with its causes. And as an interim measure, the likes of CCTV and more police on the beat would be welcome.
Which considering they are actions supported by the majority, must make a mockery of any "do gooder" label.
Passport to better care
From: Dr Paul Charlson, Westfield Park, Brough, Nr Hull.
Delegates at the Royal College of Nursing congress have rejected the Conservative's Patients' Passport. One delegate is quoted as saying: "It's not really a passport, it's an exit visa from the NHS. It's a scandalous subsidy paid out of taxpayers' money to help the better-off jump the queue." (May 11.)
This kind of response is regrettable because it really misses the point of the Passport.
Those "queue jumpers" have already paid tax and are just as entitled to treatment on the NHS as anyone else. Secondly, by only using part of the money they would have spent on NHS treatment and providing the rest themselves they are in effect paying extra and saving the NHS money. Thirdly, provided the passport encourages growth in private-sector capacity, then by opting out of the NHS they allow others to move up the NHS waiting list, benefiting everyone.
Queue jumping is only unfair if people use unfair means to get ahead of someone else in the same queue; this is not the case with the Patients' Passport as people are swapping to another queue.
Is the delegate really saying that everyone should wait in misery when alternatively
they can decide to spend their money to get treated earlier without disadvantaging someone else?
This mentality smacks of 1970s Eastern Bloc, and will not further quality health care in UK.
Please help Spanish cats
From: Suzanne Thorpe, Bucknall Avenue, Hartsholme, Lincoln.
I would be very pleased to hear from any cat lovers visiting the Costa Del Sol in the near future, in particular Arroyo de la Miel/Benalmadena.
During twice-yearly visits to
this place, for the past three
years I have fed three adult
cats (all spayed) which were
quite literally dumped when
their British owners sold up
their bar and returned to
England.
The three now have to live rough outside their former home and survive on handouts from people visiting the bar.
Despite raising funds in the UK to help stray animals in Malta, Greece, and Cyprus,
including organising spaying
and feeding programmes, I
have drawn a blank for these
poor cats, despite repeated
letters to all the English papers in Spain.
Therefore any cat-lovers who could feed them during their stay, with funds provided, would be of enormous help.

Council newspaper 'prints propaganda to boost Labour'
From: Malcolm Naylor, Grange View, Otley, Nr Leeds.
The "free" council-produced Leeds Newspaper, which actually costs the taxpayer £164,000 per year, has been indulging in the most cynical propaganda to promote the political interests of the Labour Party in the June elections.
Its latest issue has banner headlines proclaiming "Caring Services Wins Praise" and "Council Tax cash to aid the Elderly." This is presumably to soften-up the electorate and justify the above-inflation increases in council tax. To give the impression the tax increase is lower than it actually is, it says "4.5 per cent council tax increase to pay for better help for the elderly." Actually, the council tax increase is 5.6 per cent, not 4.5 per cent, but to make it look better they have removed from the headline figure, that part of the tax that pays for the police and fire services.
Leeds is in the process of introducing "Fairer Access to Care" in which the priority is to reduce the numbers of those receiving help by 7,000. And this will cost the council tax payer £500,000 per year for its associated administrative bureaucracy.
Furthermore, as a result of Labour's policy of means-tested Fairer Charges, the cost of its administration has increased social services expenditure by £1.5m more this year than last. Could these be the real reasons for the tax increases? To be sure, if a Labour Council is elected in June, we will get fewer social services at a higher cost.
Although, as a taxpayer, I have to pay for the Leeds Newspaper, whether I want to or not, they have refused to publish my letter presenting a balanced argument. Coming from a publicly-funded paper, whose duty is to give accurate information and balanced views of the taxpayer, is this not an abuse of democracy, and are there not better ways of spending £164,000 of our money, ie, some new toilets for Otley, perhaps?

Margaret Thatcher's most telling legacy

From: Henry Maude, Linton Road, Wetherby.
I found your articles celebrating the 25th anniversary of Margaret Thatcher's election to power (Yorkshire Post, May 3) fascinating and revealing.
Bernard Dineen catalogues accurately all her achievements as Prime Minister, and all of them entirely for the good, and then asks why the chorus of abuse?
Your contributor Jayne Dowle then devotes 80 per cent of her article admitting all the virtues of her radical revolution and the other 20 per cent to her inexplicable (to her as well as me) hatred of Margaret Thatcher. The fault did not lay with the Prime Minister, but with the wilful distortion of the facts, the parrot denunciation by people who simply were too young to remember pre-Thatcher Britain, and all the plummeting standards of taste and behaviour all too apparent today.
The decline of our manufacturing industries, steel, textiles, ship building, coal mining was well under way before Margaret Thatcher's time. What she did was to point out that if people did not want to buy what you were making, then you modernise or die.
It is not true that she "took on" coal miners, steel workers and the power industry. Rather it was these workers' leaders who were determined to "take on" the Conservative government, rather than look after their members' interests.
Jayne Dowle's allegation that Margaret Thatcher taught selfishness and ruthlessness is simply idiotic. No one gets to the top of their particular tree without determination and a little of the other two qualities. But the most telling and indispensable legacy of her period as Prime Minister was this present Government absurdly re-naming itself 'New Labour' and then pursuing her policies to the letter.
Points

A place for
speed cameras
From: Eamonn Mullins, Darning Lane, Thorpe Audlin, Pontefract.
According to the West Yorkshire Casualty Reduction Partnership, fixed speed cameras are only located at the "worst casualty hotspots, where fatalities have occurred through speeding". This is an excellent policy until you see how it is carried out.
How do they explain the latest positioning of five Gatsos within a one-mile section of the A65 near Horsforth? I can accept the positioning of one or two within this distance but five seems rather excessive, particularly when a leafy tree conveniently screens one of them.
Please repeat after me: "The purpose of fixed cameras is safety, not income generation."

Waiting time
for dentists
Name and address submitted.
I would just like to bring to the taxpayers' attention the fact that waiting lists for a NHS dentist in Leeds are ridiculous.
For two days I have been ringing around and was shocked to find that every single dentist I found has a four-to-eight week waiting time before I can be seen. However, say you will pay private consultancy fees and miraculously they can see you within days, if not on that day.

Dangers of
self service
From: Max Nottingham,
St Faith's Street, Lincoln.
I recently walked out of a store carrying several unpaid-for items. My concentration lapsed. I wasn't stopped but it was a heart-stopping moment, leading to a quick about-turn and a return to pay. Women do most of the shopping, so thousands of them must have been in my position since self-service was introduced 30 years ago.
Every successful venture seems to have a downside. Self service in large stores is no exception.

History of hospital hygiene
From: MS McArdle, Merlin Court, Keighley.
Mike Waites, Health Correspondent, reports (May 7) that the
standard of hygiene in hospital bathrooms is as bad as it was 40 years ago: 40 years ago bathrooms might be austere and not very warm but they were clean and
certainly not smelly, at least in
the hospitals where I worked in Yorkshire.


Sceptical of evil
From: Jeanette Jenkinson, Kingston Road, Willerby, Nr Hull.
Please realise what eurosceptics are actually saying. We are emphatically not anti foreigners. We see evil and don't particularly like it.