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Saturday's Letters: Greedy bankers show that nothing has changed
WE are told daily that the majority of us are appalled at the bare-faced cheek of the bank directors who are insisting that bonuses should still be paid to their staff.
I disagree with this statement. The British public, once again, have demonstrated their abject apathy over this matter. Taxpayers have bailed the banks out to the tune of 850bn completely due to their incompetence and greed.
Apart from a few demonstrators who smashed a few bank windows, the opposition to these parasites has been non-existent. The directors of RBS are threatening to resign. Vince Cable says: "Let them." I say: "Sack them!"
I also ask them to try to live on the minimum wage. Of course, supporters of the disgraced capitalist system will say that institutions that generate profit will lead to a greater and fairer distribution of wealth. Absolute poppycock.
The same British public who probably think the bankers deserve these outrageous payments will, quite willingly, castigate striking workers who are being told that they must forgo any pay rise and, in some cases, take pay cuts and work longer hours. Why, because the financial institutions have gambled with our money?
I would like to see a breakdown of salaries paid to these so-called wealth creators. I'm pretty certain they could live in luxury without the need for bonuses.
The irony of all this is that when this Government came to power it promised a fairer society by narrowing the gap between the wealthy and the poor. They should hang their heads in shame as the gap has actually widened.
No doubt the bonuses will be paid and life will go on as before.
Nothing changes in this country.
From: Andrew Cooper, Ascot Avenue, Kimberley, Nottinghamshire.
From: W. Rachfal, London.
MARGARET Thatcher was not averse from imposing a windfall tax on banks and it would be most appropriate now to impose another one.
Since banks are the main cause of the credit crunch and the national debt, the tax should last until the debt is reduced to pre-crash level. The most appropriate level of the windfall tax could be a quarter of a bank's profits? Then there would be no problem with banks paying remunerations of their choice.
Reality check for UKIP's supporters
From: Frank Pedley, Gisburn Road, Hellifield, Skipton.
SOME people never learn – especially if they are supporters of the UK Independence Party who have kept their heads in the sand during the election of the two principal posts within the EU.
Their elegant leader must have been devastated when the people elected were not the colourful leaders he could fulminate against, but the
quiet ones who will fulfil their roles without fuss. He has to be
content to call them pygmies.
Surely it is time for UKIP voters to recognise that this country is in a desperate state which will need all the help we can get to prevent it having a serious effect on our grandchildren.
To waste a vote, especially when a hung Parliament is likely, is the height of irresponsibility. You have had your fun – now grow up.
From: Craig Harrison, Tadcaster Road, York.
AFTER the election of the non-entity Lord Pearson as their leader, UKIP can have no moral authority to argue the EU lacks a democratic mandate.
After all, UKIP's new leader has never been elected to any parliament and barely one in three UKIP members endorsed him. Some democracy that.
Chairman on the ball
From: AP Roddis, Great Longstone, Bakewell, Derbyshire.
I WAS interested to read in last Saturday's Magazine (Yorkshire Post, November 28) the article about Lee Strafford, chairman of Sheffield Wednesday Football Club and his successful business career from humble beginnings. No doubt, many football-loving traditional socialists (Lord Hattersley included) will be going up to shake his hand and hope for better fortunes for the club.
I wonder if it will occur to any of them that, if the punitive rates of income tax introduced by previous Labour administrations which did so much to damage entrepreneurship and wealth creation were still in force today, Mr Strafford would not be in the fortunate position he is in now.
I have no interest in football, but wish Mr Stafford well in his endeavours. He may have heard of a village called Wentworth, not so many miles from Hillsborough. Perhaps its most famous son was Thomas Wentworth, who was given the title of Earl of Strafford by Charles I and eventually became Chief Minister. Unfortunately, he incurred the king's displeasure and was executed in 1641.
Given that football seems to be more important than politics today, Mr Strafford may rest assured that the penalty for failure will not be as severe as for his namesake many years ago.
Train travel is just the ticket
From: David Reed, Long Tongue Scrog Lane, Houses Hill, Huddersfield.
PAUL Brown longs for the time when you could book a train trip from the booking office to anywhere in Britain. The problem with his nostalgia is that nothing has changed – you can do exactly the same today (Yorkshire Post, November 28).
Advance bookings online and collection of the tickets from the station ticket machine are just an added convenience for people who want them and do not replace the booking office at all. The reason he got nine tickets for a return journey for two passengers has nothing to do with separate train companies. There are separate single tickets for each direction for each person, and separate tickets for seat reservations as distinct from travel. The ninth ticket is his credit card receipt for him to keep. It seems somewhat excessive to claim that a machine issuing nine tickets is "causing party politics to be held in low regard".
He suggests that division of the fare revenue between the rail
companies should be an internal transaction invisible to the customer. So here is some good news: this is exactly what happens.
Not so positive discrimination
From: Tim Mickleburgh, Littlefield Lane, Grimsby.
I REMEMBER attending an American politics seminar as a student and being accused of being both a communist and a fascist. Why? Because I opposed what the US call affirmative action, and we call positive discrimination. I felt, and still feel, that it helps to bring about animosity between races, especially arousing hostility of the poorest indigenous classes.
Really, if you want people of different races to live in harmony (Yorkshire Post, November 21) you have to treat them all the same. It is as simple as that.
Mayor shows common sense on important issues
From: John Richmond, Harrogate Road, Ripon, North Yorkshire.
CAN I offer my congratulations to you, your Political Editor and Peter Davies, Mayor of Doncaster, on the excellent article that you published (Yorkshire Post, December 1)?
Hopefully, some of the major newspapers will wish to reproduce the article on their pages.
Peter Davies is so right on important issues, from liberalised education and the troubles it has brought to climate change and the "twaddle" that is being put out by all three main political parties.
David Cameron would do well to read your article and begin to realise that out here there are ordinary folk, especially in Yorkshire, who relate to words and actions of common sense.
Mayor Davies has the right view on "political correctness" and jobs that someone has to find a name for in order to justify either themselves or someone else with a clipboard.
More strength to your elbow.
From: John Watson, Hutton Hill, Leyburn.
I HAVE just read the article on the Doncaster mayor Peter Davies and I have never ever read so much common sense coming from a politician.
We could do with him as Prime Minister. I agree with just about everything he says, especially his attitude to political correctness, unelected quangos, obscene salaries in the public sector, and, of course, his contempt for the commissars of the Green lobby who, as I have said before, would have us back in the Stone Age.
Also this week, we have another good column by Sir Bernard Ingham writing about the up and coming Copenhagen summit (Yorkshire Post, December 2).
I read somewhere where there are 14,000 people attending and it will be a miracle if there is any agreement reached. What is the carbon
footprint of that outfit going to be?
Keep up the good work, Yorkshire Post. I like people who call "a spade a spade". It makes a change from verbose MPs who tend to talk a lot and say nothing, and never answer a straight question.
Quaint designs on wind power
From: Colin Foster, Scalby Beck Road, Scalby, Scarborough.
IT IS interesting to see the support shown by local residents for the restoration of an 18th century windmill in a suburban street in York (Yorkshire Post, November 30). Is it a nostalgia for the picturesque that fires their enthusiasm?
Perhaps there is a lesson here for the promoters of present day wind farms that attract so much opposition as being unsightly.
Instead of modern steel propellers, they could design them with slatted wooden sails to generate power, and jolly little fantails, to aid direction in the wind. Such quaint appearance might be more appealing to public taste and punctuate our landscape with reminders of a rustic past. I'm sure the nimbys could have no objections to that.
ID card lunacy
From: Barry Tighe, Hermon Hill, London.
THE Government claims that the national identity cards now on special offer in Manchester will cost 30 each.
They do not tell us how much they are costing the taxpayer. Nor do they mention that signing on the dotted line will put applicants on to the Government's national identity register for life.
Once you are on the register, you will have to renew your ID card whenever the Government so ordains and at whatever price it cares to charge, or pay a 1,000 fine. And then keep paying the fine until you buy a new card. It is about time the Government came clean about the true cost of this ID card lunacy, before the next government scraps it.
Troops wasted
From: Gerald Hodgson, Leyburn, North Yorkshire.
SETTING aside the question of whether we should be in Afghanistan at all, it seems rather pathetic that we can only find 500 more troops to support the US's 30,000 additional forces just announced. Contrast the 500 with the 20,000-plus troops we still have stationed in Germany 65 years after the end of the Second World War, and 20 years after the end of the Cold War. What on earth are they doing there? Why can we not at least bring them back to UK and stop this huge drain?
Political theory
From: JF Taylor, Butterwick on the Wolds, Malton.
READING a book of quotations the other day, I came across the following from RL Stevenson: "Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary." How right he was.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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