Hard economic times present us all in the holiday business with opportunities, too. If people no longer wish to go abroad, then that helps us. If they can't afford a fortnight in a cottage, then they can have a week. Our canal boat short breaks are very popular and we anticipate that this will continue throughout the summer alongside longer holidays.

Yorkshire has an enormous variety of scenery and places to visit and, luckily, there is a large population within two hours' drive. It's up
to us to tell these people that they're not
missing out if they can't afford the petrol to
drive to Cornwall.

We may have to work harder and adapt to earn our keep, but Yorkshire people know how to do that and how to provide all our customers, whether from Halifax just up the road or Texas USA (I had both last week), with a great holiday.

Folly of letting marketing men loose on NHS

From: Paul Rouse, Main Street, Sutton Upon Derwent, York.

THE Government is encouraging NHS trusts to compete with each other. To do that, trusts are recruiting marketing people, and, in a
bid to regulate their activities, the Government has issued a Code of Practice covering the "promotion" of NHS services.

The Chartered Institute of Marketing, of which I'm a Fellow, recently issued a white paper on marketing the NHS which states that to become patient-led, the NHS must first become marketing-led.
I disagree.

At a time when cancer patients are being refused expensive drugs, we should not be spending millions of pounds on marketing a non-competitive public service.

The thought of letting the marketing profession loose
on the NHS really concerns me. We expect our GP fund holders to refer us to the most appropriate consultant or hospital for our ailments, not the one with a special offer, or the one who puts on the best corporate entertainment.

We don't want hospitals competing with each other
for our business by using marketing techniques to
tell patients how wonderful they are, or using junkets to influence our GPs.

Despite what it says in the Code of Practice, ambitious marketing people will inevitably exaggerate their offering in order to make a point.

This will prompt complaints from both patients and "competing" hospitals. That will, in turn, lead to a need for customer service centres, complaints procedures, and lots of work for the Advertising Standards Authority, which has been named as the watchdog. All of
it will cost money that should be spent on healthcare.

I'm happy to pay the taxes intended to improve our NHS, but I want to see them being used efficiently on front-line services, not wasted on marketing expenditure and marketing staff – and I speak as a marketing man with 40 years' experience.

Decline of citizenship

From: RC Curry, Adel Grange Close, Leeds.

ONE of the most notable failures of the Government in recent times has been the way it has lost the hearts and minds of the people, especially in matters of good citizenship.

Almost every effort to improve some situation, ranging from anti-social behaviour to crime, and even disposal of rubbish, has been accompanied by a new law or directive and the threat of penalties, such as fines and prison.

As so many of the latter have proved to be worthless or impractical for various reasons, people have given up caring. In fact, many belligerently oppose these impositions.

As a result, social responsibility has declined and care for others seems to be restricted to emotional shows when some public tragedy strikes. Certainly the selfish "me first" attitude prevails in far too
many places.

Instead of all the bullying which seems to have become the norm from Ministers and others, it is time they used a more emollient way to
re-connect with the people.

If they can find the time between restricting historical freedoms, railroading European treaties through Parliament, losing data and
files, and drawing expenses, they might find it beneficial to work with citizens, instead of against them.

EU revealed

From: G Ambler-Shaw, Carleton Drive, Boston Spa, Wetherby.

BY its swift and divisive reaction to "David defeating Goliath" in little Ireland's heroic rejection of the Lisbon Treaty, the EU is clearly showing itself to be the stuff of dictatorship.

That New Labour is of the same ilk and artifice is demonstrated by its intention to proceed with Britain's ratification (in denial of a referendum) of the now technically defunct Lisbon Treaty, simply as if nothing had happened.

Gordon Brown has unmasked himself as the kind of man he really is.

Flying visit

From: Margaret Everatt, Carlton, Goole.

ON June 11, we travelled to Jersey with Flybe, a very enjoyable experience. We went straight to the check-in at Robin Hood Airport and we were in the departure lounge within 15 minutes of being dropped off.

Our return journey was just as efficient and we will certainly be flying again from Doncaster as we had a very stress-free journey.

After reading the letter on June 2, we were apprehensive, so perhaps the Sheffield reader should try again.

Sir Bernard's dogma and prejudice

From: Cliff Williams, Unison regional secretary.
BERNARD Ingham makes the absurd and preposterous contention that Unison represents "privilege rather than the underdog" (Yorkshire Post, June 18).

Our members, many of whom struggle to make ends meet on low wages, provide services essential to the health and well-being of every man, woman and child in this country.

Sir Bernard also claims that apart from the police and security forces, the public sector does not perform well. Now drawing his index-linked civil service pension, he still appears to be wedded to his old Thatcherite dogma of private good, public bad.

The truth is that our 1.3 million members work extremely hard in often pressurised and under-resourced conditions to serve the public. Their pay is often much lower than in the private sector and their efforts are the subject of constant efficiency reviews and monitoring.

As one of the champions of wholesale privatisation under his old boss, Sir Bernard chooses not to mention the devastating effects on ordinary families of spiralling fuel, gas and electricity prices which are bloating the coffers of private companies.

That is where "fat, sclerotic" privilege flourishes, not among the dedicated and often low waged public sector workers Unison represents.

But your columnist will not be swayed by mere facts when he once again turns his guns on public sector workers. That's
the thing about prejudice – it
is irrational.

Soft touch
on terror

From: David Quarrie, Lynden Way, Acomb, York.

AT the same time as four more British military personnel, including a woman soldier, were being blown to pieces in another roadside bomb attack, a British judge allows a known terrorist Abu Qatada to be released from a UK prison, but will not allow him to be deported to Jordan.

I believe that no other country in the world would act as Britain does in similar circumstances. We must be the most stupid and by far the softest nation on earth.

Abu Qatada is wanted in Jordan where he has been found guilty of terrorist activities and inciting hatred. He comes in to our country
on a false passport and is then allowed to stay, to preach hate, claim huge amounts of social benefits not only for himself but for all his large family, and as our soldiers get their heads blown off, he laughs his head off at our rank stupidity.

How can anyone have any respect for our Government, our politicians and our judiciary when this type of nonsense takes place almost every week of every month of every year in today's Britain?

From: Roger M Dobson, Ash Street, Cross Hills.

HOW many more servicemen are we going to lose in Iraq and Afghanistan before "Butcher Brown" has the guts to pull all our troops out of both areas?

It could be understood if either of the conflicts was anything to do with Great Britain.

Only this week we lost four paratroopers on the same day – what a waste and unnecessary carnage upsetting four lovely proud families.

Just because Tony Blair was a lap dog to George W Bush does not mean that Gordon Brown has to continue the farce.

From: R Leakey, Giggleswick, Skipton.

FURTHER to Bernard Dineen's article (Yorkshire Post, June 16), the public must be told that like war, terrorism is just another lucrative industry which the security industry depends upon for its existence.

From a 94-year-old war veteran and student of human behaviour, the beneficiaries of terrorism are using huge sums of money for remarkably few deaths, deaths of non-beneficiaries.

Compared with the war industry as its counterpart, the security industry is doing very well as a money mover.

If money did not exist, which is quite possible, neither would war or terrorism.

Old fashioned learning

From: Jill Steel, Riversdale Road, Hull.

GOOD for you, SB Oliver (Yorkshire Post, June 12). Poor students must never be forced into correct spelling – it's just too much for brains untrained in memorising facts. What
need when they can waste time looking up what should
already be implanted? What's wrong with a bit of rote learning, especially in the early years?

Do six-year-olds really need to know about verbs and nouns when many cannot remember the basic letter sounds? That's something demanded by
the National Curriculum. There is far too little time and emphasis given to these skills which, like exercises in any sphere, have to be repeated until they become strong and automatic. As for overloading the mind, current textbooks remove that fear by their format – coloured pages and large print more in keeping with story books hardly make a student see them as serious and important. They seem to encourage a lightweight approach – no effort required.

I agree with your correspondent that the old-fashioned methods resulted in better spelling and correct use of English. A recent publication marking the centenary of my old school illustrates this. The last few pieces are poorly expressed when compared with those written by the "oldies". My heart sinks. Just don't start me off on handwriting.

Founder of superstores

From: DSR Watson, Ford Ridgeway, near Sheffield.

WITH respect, Peter Asquith's obituary (Yorkshire Post, June 14) does not emphasise the fact that Peter was the founding father of the British superstore movement which we know today and which touches the lives of nearly everyone in the country. He was before his time.

He committed Asda to sites and stores by instinct and gut feeling. He was decisive. I had the privilege of identifying a substantial number of sites for him in his early days at Asda.

When Wal-Mart acquired Asda, I understand Wal-Mart adopted many of Asda's methods to improve their trading worldwide.

Peter will be missed.