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Stand together
From: Pauline Sharp, Haigh, near Barnsley. MARK MADELEY (December 27) is not alone in wanting to play a part in laying to rest the so-called Ghost of the Church.
As he says, other faiths stand up for their beliefs, as we saw recently when strong protests by the Sikh community brought about the closure of a play because they considered the production offensive to their faith.
When Christians protest about things they find offensive, they do so as a lone voice in the wilderness, as we experienced recently when we had cause to complain to the BBC about offensive language on a programme.
All too often, Christians are complacent and prepared to compromise. We need to stand together in order to effect a change of attitude within the Church so that we will be strong and bold enough to bring the message of the God's love to a needy world.
Absent leader
From: Mrs Jane Birkby, North Somercotes, Louth, Lincolnshire.
I AM very angry that Tony Blair was absent during the recent tsunami disaster, preferring to continue with his holiday until after the New Year. His place was back in this country, making decisions, stopping his own Government departments from squabbling over who pays, and getting the services mobilised and sent to the worst-hit areas. Leaders lead and organise; they don't stay home and make sympathetic noises. Mr Blair is a disgrace and I am ashamed he heads this country.
Reduce MPs and increase efficiency
From: Harold Laycock, Sunnybank Avenue, Mirfield, West Yorkshire.
THERE are 659 MPs in the House of Commons. This does not compare favourably with the 435 members of the House of
Representatives serving the whole of the United States of America.
Michael Howard has put forward plans to reduce the number of MPs to between 525 and 532. Ministerial posts and the number of special advisers, like the former media chief Alastair Campbell, would be cut by
20 per cent. According to Mr Howard, the cuts would save 30m a year.
MPs claimed a total of 78.05m in expenses last year, on top of the standard back-bench salary of 58,485. MPs will also accrue
a risk-free, index-linked pension of 28,000 a year for life. In addition, MPs have many other opportunities to enhance their income.
Lord Butler, in his recent report, was highly critical of the Blair style of government, which marginalised some Ministers and MPs, removing them from the decision-making process and effectively making them redundant. The number of MPs could be reduced by discontinuing the representation of MPs from Scottish constituencies at Westminster, particularly when much of the legislation has no effect over the border.
However, I find it hard to believe that our MPs would vote for such a reduction. Would turkeys vote for Christmas?
Vital battle
to save our sovereignty
From: Nick Martinek, Briarlyn Road, Huddersfield.
I HAVE to agree with S Franks that Europhiles engage in hyperbole (Letters, December 15).
Who can forget the wild claims made by the Europhiles, Sir Edward Heath and Richard Corbett among them, that we have not lost sovereignty to the EU?
To their everlasting shame, they have subsequently had to admit that the United Kingdom has, in practice, lost its law-making independence and that we are now subservient to Brussels.
Nor can we overlook the absurd view of Europhiles as diverse as James Bovington and the Europe Minister Denis MacShane, that the EU is as democratic as the United Kingdom.
On the other hand, S Frank's inability to find a parallel in history for a statement made by a Eurosceptic is no excuse to label Eurosceptics in general with the same epithet. The statement that the EU "represents a shift backwards through the centuries to a mindless, atheistic, corrupt regime" finds a near parallel in the years of the late 18th century French Revolution before the dictator, Napoleon, took over.
Now, no-one is saying the EU has itself instituted a reign of terror, though we have already lost civil liberties because of terrorism, but the other parallels are uncanny. The European Union has indeed mindlessly destroyed viable British fishing and farming industries.
Many other British industries have similarly been mindlessly damaged by EU bureaucracy. Or does S Franks think this has been done deliberately?
In addition, the imposition of compulsory metrication in the UK has undermined the fabric of our society and our industries.
Rejecting an Italian as a Commissioner because he holds standard Catholic beliefs is an example of the secular atheism that holds sway in the EU.
The sacking of the EU's auditor, Marta Andreason who highlighted the fraud rife in the EU shows the depths of the EU's corruption.
Despite the EU Council, 90 per cent of whom we don't elect, and the derisory powers of the EU Parliament, it is the unelected EU Commission which now effectively rules the people of Britain.
This parallels the various undemocratic State Committees and Conventions of the French revolution.
I urge S Franks, and others sitting on the fence, to join the resistance to the EU rather than become a Quisling by default – time is running out.
Put prosperity before the past
From: Valerie Wood-Robinson, Horsforth, Leeds.
INHERENT in letters from Eurosceptics is a reluctance to see that large regional power blocs are developing. India and China, of course, have large enough populations to go it alone, as does the USA at present.
Little coverage was given here to the establishment of the South American Community of Nations last month in Peru as all the governments of Latin America pursue a regional identity other than as America's backyard.
Peru's President Toledo welcomed the new organisation as helping "to confront the challenges of globalisation, to make it more fair and equitable". It will also "allow us to work together to conquer markets in the United States, Europe and Asia, providing South American nations with added weight when negotiating in a global context". He envisages a common market, a regional constitution and Parliament. Sound familiar?
Europe must acknowledge continent-sized Brazil, with South America's largest economy, as the awakening giant it is. In addition to championing the new South American community, President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva of Brazil has won praise across the developing world for fighting US cotton subsidies, which the World Trade Organisation ruled illegal. The US and the EU should welcome South America as a strategic partner.
Of course, Eurosceptics will scoff at supra-national initiatives. However, Ireland was once an economic failure, now the Celtic Tiger's EU membership has helped it overtake the UK in terms of GDP, creating an enhanced market for British exports. Those who oppose Britain's need to work interdependently with other European nations should ponder developments in South America and not put nostalgia before future prosperity. Eurosceptics, take note!
A threat to democracy
From: Steve Wallis, Church Lane, Sigglestone, East Riding, Yorkshire.
RICHARD Corbett, MEP, pleads ignorance (December 17) of my statement that the European Parliament can be overruled by fewer than 50 people, over half of whom are unelected.
Prior to enlargement, the powerhouse of the EU (Council of Ministers and unelected Commissioners) totalled fewer than 50 people.
If the European Parliament has the audacity to thrown out any item they don't like, the Council of Ministers and unelected Commissioners can overrule them.
I find it unbelievable that Mr Corbett can deny all knowledge of this undemocratic practice.
Some months ago, I came face to face with Timothy Kirkhope MEP. I asked one question: can the unelected Commissioners, when working with the Council of Ministers, overrule the European Parliament?
Much to my surprise, I received a straightforward, uncomplicated answer – yes.
I repeat myself: anyone supporting the European Union is a traitor to democracy.
Rotten to
the core
From: David Quarrie, Lynden Way, Acomb, York.
Douglas Dale of the European Movement (Letters, December 27) has a cheek to say that Mr D Neil's letter (December 10) gave distorted views on Europe.
Mr Dale claims there have been no wars in Europe during the last 60 years. Has he never heard of Cyprus, Yugoslavia, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Albania and Kosovo? The reason countries like Malta, Turkey, the Ukraine, Bulgaria and Romania are so keen to join the European Union is simply to get their hands on the vast sums of money put in by the big three of Britain, Germany and France. The European Union is rotten to the core and will eventually collapse as all corrupt organisations do. The sooner Britain leaves, the better.
Walking on wrong path
From: Dr Paul Charlson, Westfield Park, Brough, East Yorkshire.
AT the risk of being labelled a grumpy old man, I think the plan by the Lake District National Park to axe guided walks is a wrong one.
The authorities say that the walks carried out by volunteer rangers only attract "middle- aged, middle-class white people". This move is part of a three-year plan to bring more ethnic minorities, inner city children and disabled to the area.
Of course, the reason for this is yet another Government target where money will follow a quota of certain groups.
This is an example of the ridiculous way New Labour tries to engineer situations which defy common sense. The pattern is repeated across all public services. I doubt any scheme will attract a significant number of the "disadvantaged groups" mentioned. All that will happen is large sums of money will be expended for a small return, at the same time alienating the large numbers of "middle-aged and middle-class" volunteers and visitors who enjoy the park, and contribute by spending their heavily taxed earnings in local businesses.
Rather than increasing the numbers and revenue to the park, the net result may well result in the opposite happening.
Recycling is not the complete answer to waste disposal
From: Coun Elizabeth Nash, Morris Lane, Leeds,
WHILE I agree with Barry Robinson (December 30) that there is too much packaging around commodities, recycling is not the whole answer and never can be.
The problem with recycled materials is finding a market for them, and the main impediment to this is the cost to manufacturers.
Plastic bottles can be made into fencing and seating, but new steel fencing and traditional park benches are cheaper, and far more plastic bottles are collected than can be used.
There is a market for recycled newspapers and cardboard – some of the time. But, every
so often, there is a glut of
cheap Canadian wood pulp,
making recycled paper uneconomic.
Most of the green glass bottles are from imported wine. The UK has comparatively little use for it in its bottle manufacture. It may be used for road surfacing, but the process is far more costly than gravel or stone chippings.
The only way to solve this problem, in my view, would be for goods made from recycled materials to be exempt from VAT, thus making recycled materials a viable commodity.
The Government's target is for 24 per cent of our refuse to be recycled. Even if this were achieved, there is not enough landfill sites for the other 76 per cent of refuse. I know that my own city of Leeds has only five or six years' landfill capacity left.
I have visited a modern waste incineration plant on Teesside and was impressed how clean it was. Fine cloth filters reduce pollution to a minimum, and the energy which it creates is recycled.
I am not arguing for incineration to be in place of recycling – there should be both. It would be a shame if recyclable materials ended up in flames because
no market can be found for
them. And this is especially true of garden and kitchen waste.
I urge all people who have a garden, no matter how small, to purchase a subsidised compost bin (made from recycled plastic) from their local council. But we do need an alternative to landfill which itself is not environmentally friendly.
Don't forget the French who fought for freedom
From: John Jones, Nunburnholme Avenue,
North Ferriby.
THE desperate weekly scramblings for relevancy by your columnist Bill Carmichael are normally good for a few laughs.
Indeed, as long as one remembers not to dignify his increasingly Stalinesque attempts at rewriting history with any degree of credibility, he is generally a pretty harmless soul.
The final paragraph of his December 31 offering is, however, in an altogether different category.
To state that the French
"did very little to secure the
liberation of France 60 years ago" is an insulting misrepresentation.
Several years ago, I had the honour of meeting a party of old soldiers, in a small East Yorkshire village. There was nothing remarkable about them, beyond their air of dignity. But in their youth all had travelled, at great risk to themselves, from occupied France to lend their arms to the struggle to free Europe from Nazi oppression.
Many, leaving loved-ones
in occupied areas, had had
to fight under assumed names. All had been members of
the Free French forces under General de Gaulle who trained
in Yorkshire in advance of
D-Day.
On holiday in Britanny a year or two later, I was forced to draw on the fullest extent of dimly remembered schoolboy French to translate the inscription on a memorial stone honouring members of the Resistance forces who had been shot there by occupying Nazis.
Perhaps Mr Carmichael would like to explain to the relatives
of these brave men, or to the dozens of families whose Resistance-fighter loved ones were murdered by the Germans in Caen on D-Day, or to the many thousands of other French citizens who fought, or lost loved-ones fighting in the Resistance, how he equates their sacrifice to doing "little" to secure the liberation of France.
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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