THE claim made by the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Trevor Phillips, in an article entitled "Race equality chief warns of ethnic cold war" due to uncontrolled immigration (Yorkshire Post, April 21) introduces incendiary terminology into the discourse around race relations on the 40th anniversary of Enoch Powell's notorious "rivers of blood" speech.

It ill becomes his position
as the appointed "guardian"
of communities reeling from the effects of the war on
terror, draconian terror legislation and a climate in which visible minorities feel under siege, because it only serves to legitimise the far Right agenda.

As a beneficiary of an immigration policy which afforded him a place in British society, his comments reek of double standards which create an us and them divide, rather than bridge racial, religious and cultural schisms.

His introduction of damaging terminology into the lexicon of race relations – sleepwalking into segregation, fully-fledged ghettos and now cold war – has effectively killed off the institutional racism agenda and let local councils, the police and health services off the hook.

Instead, it has ushered in the community cohesion agenda which has placed a disproportionate burden for good race relations on visible minorities.

Implicit in the concept of equalities and human rights which Trevor Phillips has proudly claimed as a badge of identity for his Commission, is the notion of shared rights and responsibilities between citizens. The state and its instruments in this respect are the arbiters in creating the foundations of a just and fair society. The newly created Commission appears to have abdicated its responsibilities at the starter's gun.

His concern about the experience of "settled communities" speaks of a shameless attempt at populism. If he had expressed the same outrage at the travesty of a generation of black young people brought up under the shadow of stop and search, a migrant workforce working for paltry wages, an entire community criminalised under the Government's war on terror and the attrition of our basic civil and human rights – perhaps then we may give his analysis some credence.

Until then, his equation of immigration with the resurgence of the far Right and the attribution of blame for our overcrowded railways on immigrants rather than the failure of the Government and railway companies to invest in an adequate transport infrastructure speaks to
the moral and leadership bankruptcy at the heart
of the Commission, which we have come to expect from him.


Stamford Bridge takes pride of place

From: Mrs Hilary Holt, Executive Committee, Yorkshire Ridings Society.

THE Reverend PN Hayward's "geography lesson about Stamford Bridge" (Yorkshire Post, April 14) is very entertaining! His schoolboy confusion is understandable.

True Yorkshire folk know that Stamford Bridge is in Yorkshire's East Riding. Clearly visible in the background of your photo is the bridge, a modern replacement for the wooden one which was so important in the famous battle. And invisible on the roadside on the bridge is the East Riding of Yorkshire boundary sign.

Yorkshire's three ridings already existed by the year 876 – so the river at Stamford Bridge had been marking the boundary between the East and North Ridings for 200 years by the time of the battle.

Stamford Bridge has never been in North Yorkshire, as stated in the caption beneath your photograph, neither geographically nor administratively. Humberside council did administer the area for a while – but it was abolished 12 years ago. Could you be confused by North Humberside – the "imaginary location" invented by the Royal Mail? – now discontinued but still causing confusion.

For clarification you can consult the comprehensive gazetteer compiled by the Association of British Counties. It gives accurate information about geographical locations, administrative councils and postal addressing – and is available on their website.


We must not mess about with nature in farming

From: David Scholey, Belgrave Street, Skipton, North Yorkshire.

SOME bright spark in the EU (our bosses) has decided that farming has to go green by 20 per cent and they propose that all dairy cattle should be housed indoors and fed a special diet, to cut down on the production of methane gas which is inflammable, according to the dictionary (Yorkshire Post, May 3).

In the late 1950s, my father, brother and myself worked on a dairy farm in Upper Wharfedale milking 60-plus cows a day and looking after their followers. My father was a smoker, and when the cows were housed in the cow shed in the winter, it was a 5.30am start. We would go into the cow shed to start milking the herd.

If you believe the EU directive about methane gas from the cows, when my father lit up his cigarette we should, cows included, have been blown
up from the build-up of the
so-called methane gas produced by them.

We are messing with nature again, cows are ruminants (ie grass eating). The EU wants to keep them indoors, fill them up with chemicals which, through their milk, will enter the food chain. One of the pleasures of dairy farming come springtime, when we let the cattle out to grass, is that even the oldest cows would prance and chase about until they tired out and settled down. Obviously that would be no more.

I well remember the foot-and-mouth outbreak in 2001 – leading up to the general election, Tony Blair stated that the foot-and-mouth epidemic was over. That was until after the voting and then the contractors cleared the dales out and what a grim place it was, no animals in the fields, everything very quiet.

Is this what the future holds?
I remember Tony Blair and the Government actively and financially encouraging farmers not to go back into dairy farming. So a lot of the farm buildings are now holiday cottages, industrial starter units, shops and cafés and the EU directive is going to encourage more of the same.

From: Meryll Green, Eldwick.

"COWS cause as much greenhouse gas in a day as
Land Rovers." Solution – lock
all cows in sheds, do not feed grass, stop all grazing.
How about locking all Land Rovers in sheds? End of problem. Result – cows have some quality of life, or is that not in the equation?