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Folly of cutting science research funds as Olympic costs soar
From: RJ Barnard, Hornes Lane, Staincross, Barnsley. IT is said that the best way to hide something is out in the open surrounded by many similar objects. This is clearly the option favoured by Gordon Brown's government when burying bad news in the Comprehensive Spending Review 2008/11.
One consequence of the plans hidden in the CSR would be to decimate scientific research across a whole range of subjects now that the Government has effectively cut 80m from the budget of the Science and Technology Funding Council over the next three years.
Measures of this magnitude will result in up to 40 per cent reduction in grants to universities and will undermine the effectiveness of UK research for the foreseeable future. This could possibly lead to our being overtaken by institutions in emerging economies. For a country which led the world in science and engineering in the 19th and early 20th centuries, this would fatally undermine any hope the UK might have to remain a pre-eminent technological economy in the future.
If the UK fails to provide the facilities necessary for both study of and research into the sciences in general and physics in particular, we will see a steady decline in enrolment for these subjects and a consequent skill shortage for the future.
We know that Mr Brown has many black holes in his budget but we must question, in this case, the cost benefit of cutting 80m from scientific research when the budget for the London Olympic Games alone is now 9.3bn, four times the original estimate used to win the bid.
If wasting money were an Olympic sport, Mr Brown would easily win gold, but his appreciation of the importance of science would probably
be limited to trying to turn it into lead!
Sad farewell to Britain's Jaguar
From Terry Duncan, Greame Road, Bridlington.
IT appears we are about to say "Ta-ta" to our Jaguar cars just as we have also sold out to the Japanese, American, Russian, French, Indian and German manufacturers.
Will there be anything left which we once proudly stated as British owned, now that Gordon Brown is apparently selling off our heritage to the great Chinese nation?
Already the UK is facing an increasing immigrant population through the Government's weakness.
Do not be fooled. This is Gordon Brown's ploy to attract billions of pounds into the UK, to cover up his folly of selling our heritage, including gold bullion, to claim he has run a sound economic regime over the past decade.
From: Dr John P Whiteley, Stonedale Close, Pool-in-Wharfedale.
SO Gordon Brown is giving 850m to India in addition to his largesse in China.
Lets get this straight. It's not Gordon's money, it's the taxpayers' money.
It's money from the people with flooded properties who are told there is no money for flood defences.
It's money from communities where the post office closing is causing them considerable hardship, but there's no money to keep them open.
It's money from poor pensioners dying of cold, but there's no money for a decent pension.
I could go on and on.
Gordon, let's put our own house in order.
Promises of change
From: David Wright, Little Lane, Easingwold, North Yorkshire.
HAVING watched the reports on the TV from the United States on the opening rounds of the Presidential election, and listened to the now familiar and meaningless jargon of the countless "promises of change" from all of the candidates, they remind us of the same "change" promises made by our own politicians which are increasingly discredited and worthless.
Both sides of the Atlantic are becoming all too worryingly similar. Witness the hysteria accompanying the American election meetings with the constant razzmatazz and screaming by the supporters and public, and it makes me question the close relationship between our two countries.
On this side of the Atlantic, we are becoming so Americanised that, daily, we see the influence of dumbing-down, political correctness, mass hysteria, social engineering and the diminution of our once admired standards of behaviour and institutions.
It is right that we should stick by the Americans, warts and all, but one has to question our obsession with almost unquestionable support and following the American patterns as condoned and even prompted by even Margaret Thatcher in her day with the "special relationship" but more recently and sickeningly by Tony Blair.
On the one hand, we have the influence of the US and on the other we are now being submerged within the EU superstate, with the declining UK stuck in the middle and fast losing our identity and independence.
What a prospect for the future. But don't worry, our ambitious politicians will provide yet more promises for change, change, change – without specifying how they will implement these promises.
Information or propaganda?
From: Malcolm Barker, Slingsby Walk, Harrogate.
WHEN North Yorkshire County Council's NY Times for February arrived, I looked through it for some indication of the attitude of county councillors to the council's plans to spend 3.1m of our money on Harrogate library in a way that I find quite ridiculous.
I found nothing. In fact, in all 20 pages of the NY Times, only perhaps a couple of our elected members rated a mention.
This is surely quite extraordinary. Do the councillors contribute nothing? Are there no meetings to report, no debates on contentious issues, no committee meetings forwarding recommendations for consideration by the full council?
As it does not touch on such matters, and is a mere propaganda sheet, I should very much like to know how much NY Times costs the council taxpayer. An assurance that revenue from advertising helps to foot the bill might be more convincing if the North Yorkshire County Council itself, with one or perhaps two exceptions, was not the only advertiser.
However, we do get to know where some of our money is going. I see North Yorkshire Sport has a director, a "delivery manager", and five other officials who are engaged (to quote the NY Times's extraordinary jargon) in providing "a strategic approach to the delivery of and the investment in structures and programmes across North Yorkshire".
I just hope our county councillors have satisfied themselves that this is a worthwhile endeavour.
Pensions rise needed
From: J Chantry, Travis Gardens, Doncaster.
YET again pensioners have been ignored and let down by the Government. We now have dramatically escalating food prices together with big increases in train fares and petrol prices. We will almost certainly be faced in April with yet another rise in the council tax, this on top of all the iniquitous rises of this tax over the last 10 years.
The attack on our living standards has been the huge increases in power and fuel charges.
This latter means many pensioners will be very cold this winter and some will even be in risk of their lives.
What is urgently needed is a campaign to get Gordon Brown to substantially raise pensions to enable pensioners to live in the dignity which they deserve.
Lessons to be learned from China's laws?
From: DLR Hirst, Willow Avenue, Idle Moor, Bradford.
GORDON Brown's trade mission to China has prompted media commentators to highlight that country's record on human rights.
I had the privilege, in the latter part of 2006, of making a three-week extensive tour holiday of China, and it is a wonderful place to visit with lots of wow factor sights such as the Great
Wall, the Terracotta Warriors and Tiananmen Square.
The China tour group were accompanied by an experienced tour manager, and on our coach trips out we had an English speaking Chinese guide, who was brilliant. I learned a great deal about the country from this woman, and two points in particular she described, came as a complete surprise to me.
Firstly, gambling is illegal throughout China, but not as yet in Hong Kong. I had always been under the impression that the Chinese loved gambling whether at home or abroad. Secondly, guns are also illegal. Obviously, the law does
not apply to the military, police and licensed farmers, etc.
Our guide told us that the Chinese people believe that guns are made for one real purpose, to kill. Any citizen caught with a weapon is therefore presumed to be a potential killer. Why else would he/she be carrying an instrument of death?
I have never been a supporter of state legalised gambling or the death penalty in the UK, but with ever increasing numbers of gun killings – 27 in London in 2007 – have we here in the UK something to learn from the zero tolerance methods used in China?
Disillusioned voter will probably stay at home
From: Paul S Clark, Aberford Road, Garforth, Leeds.
I ENJOY Tom Richmond's column and respond to the item on the Pudsey Conservatives and the late distribution of election literature (Yorkshire Post, January 19).
Some time before the 2007 council elections I received a missive from that same office, printed in the Roseville Road area, and similarly past its sell by date.
It appears to be a central publishing office for other candidates who may or may not be capable of producing their own literature.
I have long held the opinion that much local Conservative literature left much to be desired in identifying concerns and targeting the audience, and wrote to the candidate at the Pudsey office to that effect. I also expressed the view that in this technological age, it was polite and desirable to address envelopes to Mr PS Clark. The candidate at the time replied, but my offer to meet and help passed by.
When the election literature arrived, that also was addressed to Mr Clark and the leaflet production I felt was not very effective. Because it is assumed my daughter sings from the same hymn sheet, she is not on the mailing list.
My support for the party goes from 1950, but I think that future literature will be returned to sender. And I will probably find it difficult to bother to go to place my cross in the Conservative, or any other box, my impression
being nowadays that most candidates are hell bent on getting on to the gravy train.
Referendum damage
From: Nick Martinek, Briarlyn Road, Huddersfield.
WITH every week that goes by, Gordon Brown becomes more despised for his refusal to hold the EU referendum that Labour promised.
This is not because everyone is animated by the EU – far from it. It is more because Mr Brown's lack of candour about the EU treaties, and his unwillingness to trust the electorate taint his every other action. And the damage spreads.
Labour is in trouble. But the extent to which Labour spokesmen humiliate themselves as they try to carry Mr Brown's absurd pretence that the EU Lisbon Treaty is magically different from the EU Constitution, is becoming a self- inflicted wound too far.
How much more damage will Labour allow Mr Brown to do before a policy reversal becomes necessary, or even Mr Brown's departure?
Misleading
From: Tim Mickleburgh, Littlefield Lane, Grimsby.
YOUR correspondent M Milne (Yorkshire Post, January 19) doesn't believe the Government when they talk of inflation being just 2.1 per cent.
In fact, the real increase in the annual cost of living, as measured by the Retail Price Index, is about four per cent. Just as politicians like to use the claimant count to give the impression unemployment is lower than it is, this other figure for inflation is similarly misleading, excluding housing costs for one.
Fox target
From: Phyllis Capstick, Hellifield, Skipton, North Yorkshire.
REGARDING the letter "Foxes kill for food" (Yorkshire Post, January 19), no country person wants to "eradicate" the fox population. They merely want to confine the harm they are capable of to an absolute minimum.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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