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You can't learn languages without an oral test
From: Christian Vassie, City of York Council, Blake Court, Wheldrake, York. THE announcement that GCSE pupils learning foreign languages should not be required to sit oral exams, because they are stressful, is as ridiculous as it is predictable (Yorkshire Post, February 15).
Foreign language skills are already lamentably low in this country compared with the rest of Europe. The idea that you can be proficient in a modern language without being able to actually speak it in front of an examiner is a further sign of the Labour Government's detachment from reality.
What will our new language "specialists" do in the real world after their exams? Go into a patisserie and wave a GCSE certificate about, instead of speaking? Ask for a discreet curtain to be drawn across the counter to allow them to speak "foreign" without feeling embarrassed, perhaps?
The first time you try to order a meal in Italian, German or Japanese, it is stressful. The second time is less stressful. Pretty soon it becomes enjoyable. The learning is in the doing.
If the Government is serious about removing stress from schools, how about removing the SATS exams little children are obliged to sit in primary school?
How about looking at the way reading and writing is taught across Europe, where literacy rates are often higher than in this country, instead of obliging nurseries to force feed alphabets to three-year-olds?
Being able to speak more than one language is a huge advantage in life. It transforms the way you think and the way you see the world.
If more of our MPs spoke foreign languages, they would be more engaged with the world around them.
A modern language qualification without an oral is like music without sound – pointless.
Ridiculous red tape over youth band
From: Gareth Owens, Church Lane, Kirby Hill, Boroughbridge.
AS a responsible parent, I agree with the present Government that I have a role to play in tackling juvenile crime, drugs and under-age drinking, by ensuring that my teenage children don't roam the streets with nothing to do.
Every week, I take my three children to Tewit Youth Band in Harrogate. Now North Yorkshire County Council is smothering the band with red tape ("Brassed off by red tape over our Royal date", Yorkshire Post, February 4).
The barmy bureaucrats at County Hall are insisting that every time the band performs, I must obtain a "licence" for my children, as they are deemed to be employed in the entertainment industry!
If this is what North Yorkshire County Council's child employment project amounts to, it is clearly a complete waste of taxpayers' money. The project funding should be withdrawn immediately and applied to something more useful.
Wouldn't it be marvellous if NYCC pursued enforcement action against the teenage hoodies who vandalise our rural towns and villages with even half the vigour being expended on the children of responsible parents who attend Tewit Youth Band?
Disturbing attitude
From: CJ Ball, Finkil Street, Hove Edge, Brighouse.
I REFER to your report (Yorkshire Post, February 14) concerning the error in paying a grant handout to Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council instead of to Newcastle upon Tyne.
Am I alone in being a disturbed by the reported comment of Simon Taggart, leader of Newcastle Borough Council: "We accepted this money in good faith... we have no intention of giving it back at this stage." This money was not intended for Newcastle-under-Lyme and never was. However incompetent the initial errors may have been, his comment seems to condone a similar response by anyone who is overpaid in error, for example by a cash machine.
All they have to say in mitigation is that they accepted it in good faith.
Yet the self-same individuals, who would walk away with money they know not to be theirs, would undoubtedly screech the loudest if the error was made the other way round ie money was taken away from them wrongly.
Nuclear is no solution
From: Simon Bowens, Regional campaigner, Friends of the Earth.
BERNARD Ingham asserts that objection to nuclear power is irrational (Yorkshire Post, February 13).
However, the way forward in UK energy policy need not include nuclear power. Renewable energy technology, including onshore and offshore wind, hydroelectric and tidal power coupled with a vast increase in energy efficiency, will deliver the reductions in greenhouse gases and increase energy security.
Nuclear power, on the other hand, will be expensive (73bn for waste management and still rising). It will leave dangerous radioactive pollution for thousands of years to come and will still only be tinkering at the edges of energy policy.
Doubling the number of nuclear power stations will at best deliver a mere eight per cent of the UK's energy requirement and will not be delivered for many years to come despite the need for action on climate change being urgent.
Gordon Brown and Bernard Ingham's belief in nuclear power is irrational and, in the light of the devastating effects climate change will bring, dangerous.
Speaking roles
From: Norman Armistead, Green Park Avenue, Cayton, Scarborough.
LIKE BT Ford (Yorkshire Post, February 14), I too read the piece about Denis Healey by Eileen Metcalfe with delight. I am currently reading his autobiography The Time of my Life, full of wit and wisdom, books, culture, people and politics, a book to be read for pleasure and profit.
He recalls brilliant speakers such as Bob Boothby (I enjoyed his remarks on the BBC's Any Questions), Dick Crossman and Enoch Powell. Enoch Powell gave the greatest parliamentary speech he ever heard.
In 1959, he castigated the Macmillan Government over the murder of African prisoners at Hola Camp in Kenya. It had, he said, all the moral passion and rhetorical force of Demosthenes.
Winston Churchill was Prime Minister during his first three years in the House, his sense of humour still unimpaired. A friend was present when Churchill met the Papal Nuncio at the European Congress of the Hague. They shook hands. Churchill had forgotten that his cigar was still alight and the Nuncio was badly stung.
As he rubbed his hand, Winston looked at him and growled: "I imagine this is the first time in European history that a Protestant has burnt a Catholic in the Low Countries."
Vital role of our village's respected postman
From: Douglas Hartley, Irving Terrace, Clayton, Bradford.
WR Mitchell's "Postman's image stamped on memory" (Yorkshire Post, February 9) took me back to my boyhood, around 1930.
The postman who served our part of this hillside village was a respected figure, wearing his navy-blue uniform piped in red, and his peaked hat with its badge. Villagers knew him by name. He was a friend of children, apart, perhaps, from those few who took occasional days off school. For he was also the "boardman" for the local Board School!
Letters were delivered twice a day, with an extra round for bulky parcels.
The village post office was not a general store, for we had a locally managed Co-op and a range of small shops, but a post office counter offered a variety of goods. I once bought a battery for my bicycle headlamp. I remember shelves of books – a subscription lending library. The postmaster, standing behind his screen was an esteemed person, trusted with the secrets of villagers' Post Office Savings Bank Books! He and his family lived behind and above the shop.
Letters from pillar boxes went to the cellar behind the shop, where they were sorted by hand. Some, addressed to other villagers, if marked "local" would be delivered within half an hour.
I saw this process operating at Christmas-time in 1948, when, after war service, and on vacation from college, I was given a job as temporary postman.
In those days the Post Office was a valued national institution, celebrated even in verse: WH Auden's Night Mail.
What a pity that two EU directives, our obedient government complying, have brought it low, subjecting it to foreign competition, while leaving it with the expensive obligation to deliver throughout the entire kingdom, at uniform prices.
False arguments restrict pay rises in public sector
From: Liam McParland, William Street, Crosland Moor, Huddersfield.
I WOULD like to comment on pronouncements made by Gordon Brown regarding proposed public sector pay settlements and their stated justification for these.
The Government claims these settlements have to be set at two per cent as this reflects the cost of living. Any higher settlement risks stoking inflation. These arguments
are totally false and don't bear any scrutiny.
Firstly, independent income experts have pointed out that public sector pay is not included in the inflation index and any settlements do not affect inflation at all. Inflation is more to do with the cost of what people buy, not what public service providers earn.
The Institute of Fiscal Studies is unhappy with the Government staging public sector pay awards, stating this would only make modest one- off savings and make little contribution to fighting inflation.
The Government craftily uses the Consumer Price Index to calculate the cost of living. This excludes housing costs, which clearly undermines its credibility.
The Retail Price Index is the more accurate and honest as it factors in housing costs. This is currently running at over four per cent. The last three years have seen public sector pay deals that are below the cost of living. Currently in the private sector, pay deals are in the region of between three and a half and four per cent. With utility bills going up in the region of about 15 per cent, above-inflation council tax rises, water bills going up by seven per cent and food inflation at 6.1 per cent, how exactly does the Government think we are going to find the extra money with what in effect is a year on year pay cut?
The truth is the Government is running out of money due to profligacy, incompetence, economic short sightedness and lack of planning. We know they have a penchant for indirect taxation. There is, however, increasing pressure on them to raise direct taxes. If this happens, their twisted morality will ensure that those least able to shoulder the burden will suffer the most.
From: CHD Duffett, Rosedale Avenue, Hartshead.
LIKE many others, my wife received notification of an increase in her basic state pension – in her case, it is 6p per week on a pension of 54.35 per week, an increase of 1.1 per cent!
Public sector police constables received an average increase of 10 per week for doing no more than they did last year. Parliamentary pay for bog standard MPs is expected to be increased by an extra 24 per week (plus expenses) for doing the same job.
A well known politician states "a society can be judged by the way it treats its elderly". What does the pension increase say about this Government?
Law allows this slaughter
From: C Horsman, Nafferton, East Yorkshire.
THE furore about the Archbishop of Canterbury is understandable and he should go. One thing, however, has not been mentioned and that is that Islam already has its own law in this land with regard to animal slaughter. In the eyes of Christians, it is appalling. We do not eat human flesh or drink blood at Holy Communion. Bread and wine are symbolic.
Muslims could do something similar. If a white Anglo Saxon farmer killed an animal by the Halal method, he would probably go to prison.
When in Rome, do as the Romans do!
Words and deeds
From: Michael Booth, The Birches, Bramhope, Leeds.
I READ with interest Jim Pike's letter about buzzwords (Yorkshire Post, February 15).
There is another such phrase which is often used by the respective head of social services after an internal inquiry which may have been conducted following the discovery of a case of cruelty, molestation or even death of a child under their supervision. That phrase is: "Lessons have been learned."
Judging by the number of such cases we read about, it seems apparent that they do not act on what they have learned.
Parking toll
From: Paul Smith, Pudsey, Leeds.
I READ with dismay the letter "Car park takes advantage of visitors" about the car park in Haworth (Yorkshire Post, February 16). We had a similar thing happen to us four years ago and have not returned to the village ever since, and are unlikely to do so until the council do something about it. I would also add I too was dismayed at the lack of help that was offered by the police.
It's such a shame that a lovely village like Haworth has been hi-jacked by such people.
US relations
From: Margaret Claxton, Arden Court, Northallerton.
IF Duncan Campbell (Yorkshire Post, February 16) is so sure the special relationship between Britain and the US is recent, perhaps he can explain why so many American towns and cities, in particular on the east coast (New England), are called after British towns?
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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