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Two-faced approach to excellence in schools
From: Edward Liddell, Swanland Road, Hessle, Hull. YOUR article about the Government's intention to drop positive advice to children to take A-levels (Yorkshire Post, January 14) is symptomatic of this Government's two-faced approach to excellence in education.
On the one hand they talk about achieving excellence, and on the other they are conducting by stealth an attack on many of the excellent schools that we do have.
First is their desire to abolish grammar schools, which has so far been frustrated but is always there, and the Conservative Party is hardly supportive of them.
Secondly, there is an underlying attack on faith schools which many of the Government's supporters say are divisive. This is a lie. All of my children went to a Catholic secondary school in Hull and in no way do I, or they, feel divided from those who went to other schools except that they are better educated than most in the public sector in Hull.
Faith schools are recognised as giving an above average education to children and are generally found in the top half of league tables. Yet some local authorities are putting pressure on the churches to close schools under the Building Schools for the Future programme.
Thirdly, the new Charities Act is causing the Charities Commission to see if they can withdraw charitable status from private schools thus making it even more difficult for parents to afford the good education that they will get from these schools.
Fourthly, it is being put about that "middle-class" children have an
advantage and that unless this is eliminated other children will be permanently disadvantaged. How is this going to happen? Are middle- class parents to be forbidden to discuss school work with their children? Are we going to have "bussing" of children to get the right mix in schools? All that will happen is that the resulting schools will be dumbed down rather than improved.
This country needs well- educated young people and they need the support of their parents to encourage and assist them. It is where that support is lacking or inadequate that poor educational results are most serious.
If we weaken or remove the centres of educational excellence we have, where are we going to find the future high fliers to lead the country, the professions and business?
Scargill – the foolish general – and Thatcher's crusade
From: Tony Buglass, Superintendent Minister, Upper Calder Methodist Circuit, Caldene Avenue, Mytholmroyd.
DAVID Downs may be right to agree with Bernard Dineen about Arthur Scargill (Letters, Yorkshire Post, January 17). He may even be right to remind everyone of what he considers "Tony Benn's eloquent rubbish". If that's all he remembers, he will be missing some of the most important parts of the story, namely that the strike was triggered by an alleged Tory hit list of mines which were to be closed. Of course, Tory ministers all paraded before the cameras to call Scargill a liar, but when the strike was finally over, all those pits were, in fact, closed. Coincidence?
Scargill was a foolish general who gave his enemies their best weapon by breaking the law and thus allowing Mrs Thatcher to sequester the union assets and starve the miners into submission.
If he had made the strike legal and official, it might have been a different story. The tragedy of the miners' strike is that Scargill and Thatcher both had prior agendas, and the coal industry and mining communities were the collateral damage in their personal and political face-off. They deserved each other – it's a pity they couldn't have been sent to some desert island to continue handbagging each other to their hearts' content.
The fact of the matter is that Mrs Thatcher was pursuing a personal crusade against the unions, so her Government picked a fight with the miners. Scargill was clumsy enough to take the bait and fight on her terms, and between them they crucified thousands of families and destroyed their livelihoods.
There are some communities which will never recover from what was done to them in 1984. The blame for that cannot be laid at the door of one man alone.
'Santa' lollipop man deserves praise, not a reprimand
From: J Robson, Crosby Lodge, South Otterington, Northallerton.
I WAS at first amused, then annoyed, and then in a state of disbelief, at the article about a school crossing patroller with 15 years' service who had been reprimanded for wearing a Santa outfit (Yorkshire Post, January 16).
This man had also been suspended on a previous occasion for allowing the children to "deface council property" by applying stickers to his lollipop. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
What is the reasoning behind this council's action? Oh yes, adhering to the letter of the law, it appears that drivers are not supposed to stop for anyone not dressed as a lollipop man. I should tell them that all drivers would stop for Santa.
He is a star worker in my opinion, some other local authority should appoint him.
He is raising the profile of safe road crossing a lot better than tortoises, hedgehogs, and green monsters, all of which have been used in road safety campaigns. I imagine that no child in his area will cross the road at any other point than with this truly imaginative and star quality employee.
Foxes kill for food
From: W Snowden, Butterbowl Gardens, Farnley, Leeds.
JOHN Redhead (Yorkshire Post, January 16), is mistaken: foxes kill hens for food, not pleasure.
When a fox raids a hen house, he sees a glut of food; some he takes to eat, and the rest to store in his "larder". Many animals, from squirrels to magpies, store or bury food in times of plenty, to return to when food is scarce.
Such instinctive behaviour is not so dissimilar to that of bargain hunters, let loose in high street stores during the January sales: or, indeed, that of supermarket shoppers, stocking up for Christmas.
Animals compete for territory, food and mates. Man is no different. But whenever animals encroach on "man's territory" they are characterised as "pests" or "vermin," and ruthlessly eradicated. Man, of course, constantly encroaches on the wild.
It is a sad reflection on man's insatiable greed, that he has driven so many species of fauna and flora to the brink of extinction.
Roads like rutted tracks
From: Matthew Shaw, Golcar, Huddersfield.
THE A640 Rochdale Road (known locally as Trinity Street or New Hey Road) is one of the busiest routes to and from Huddersfield and junction 23 of the M62 at Outlane.
I rode my bicycle up this road, along one of the town's little used cycle lanes and was shocked at the dreadful state of the road surface.
Barely a year ago, a multi-million pound improvement scheme was finished which involved throttling the flow of traffic down to single file by adding all the usual obstructions that local authorities get excited about.
The new road surface is losing its top layer of chippings which are piling up in the cycle lane. The exposed patchwork of "bald" road surface is now being set upon by rain, frost and general wear and tear.
In many places, the beginnings of potholes are appearing. Whoever was responsible for this job needs bringing back to do the whole thing again. Huddersfield risks becoming an economic backwater because of its poor access to motorways which is not helped when the town's busiest roads are like rutted cart tracks.
Churchill saved this country from its enemies
From: DF Daniells, Walmgate, York.
YOUR correspondent Colin Jordan (Yorkshire Post, January 12) does not appear to know that Winston Churchill saved this country and the free world from the ambitions of Nazi Germany and the Japanese.
It is true that we would likely have been defeated without the Americans, but had Hitler been victorious against Great Britain before that country became directly involved, when this country stood alone, giving Hitler free rein against the Russians, then a very different world order would now prevail.
He was able to do this by putting steel and an appetite for war in the shattered minds and bodies of the British people when disaster seemed certain, by being able to communicate his extraordinary vision, by inspiring hope and courage where there was none and his own personal grit and determination.
To him, and the people of this country at that time, the world owes a great debt.
It is in these terms that I would define Britishness – that which was fought for and such a bitter price paid.
It can hardly be the fault of Churchill that this generation finds itself betrayed 50 years later, and its true heirs defrauded of their birthright by the gutless and self-serving political establishment now holding sway as personified by the unmitigated disaster that is New Labour.
As long as its pernicious and poisonous values hold sway, then Britain will continue its descent into fragmentation and inconsequence.
Transplant needs
From: Jim Beck, Lindrick Grove, Tickhill, Doncaster.
THE views of those who oppose organ transplants on religious, ethical or other grounds must, of course, be respected and not overridden; the element of choice is paramount.
On the other hand, there is a pressing need for more organs to be donated on humanitarian grounds and for the preservation of precious lives.
However, Gordon Brown's tentative proposal of presumed consent does not exclude the element of choice because every individual would have the right to opt out of the scheme before a crisis arises, and at a time when he or she is in a rational frame of mind and able to make a reasoned choice untroubled by fears of what the future may hold.
Bad language on TV
From: Mrs M Parker, Newsham Way, Romanby, Northallerton.
I would like to say how I very much agree with John K Rogers (Yorkshire Post, January 11) and his comments about the bad language we now hear on television and how it can spoil the viewing.
We can look forward to a programme only to be put off by the expletives, so off it goes.
No wonder children are now using such words in their normal vocabulary. Very sad.
Questions on inflation
From: M Milne, Pocklington, York.
WHERE do Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling get their inflation rate of 2.1 per cent from?
My petrol has gone up 10 per cent, my water seven per cent and my council tax four per cent.
Looking at the rise in gas, electricity and food makes me wonder if my arithmetic is up to scratch.
Flooding time
From: John Parker, Station Road, Baildon, Shipley.
WINTER weather and the threat of more flooding seems an appropriate time for Gordon Brown and his gang of inefficient and incompetent Ministers to advocate building more houses on the flood
plains of our rivers.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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