YP Letters: A coalition without the chaos needed

THE natural coalition partner for the largest single party would be the second largest party, forming a National Government. This would avoid having policy driven by the eccentric demands of minor parties or groups.

Potentially there could be a choice of two alternative Con-Lab coalitions. One would be dedicated to delivering so called hard Brexit and the other intent upon limiting us to a soft (i.e. pointless) Brexit.

Surprisingly, it is far from obvious which of these would command greater support in the House of Commons. Our sadly- inadequate electoral system, to which MPs are nonetheless wedded, has never allowed us a choice between a Europhile and a Eurosceptic Conservative candidate or the same for shades of opinion within Labour.

Even party members who choose their Parliamentary candidates may well have little indication which way prospective candidates are really inclined on major issues over which they may some day hold sway.

This can leave outcomes subject to something of a lottery. That, in part, is why saving our sovereign Westminster ‘democracy’ from the machinations of Brussels comes some way down my priority list, below the preservation of Morris Dancing.

For me the importance of Brexit concerns immigration, demography and very little else.

This is about the composition of the future inhabitants of our islands. Will they see us as the main component of their ancestry, or some trace element in their genetic make-up, much as we now view Neanderthals?

With regard to the demise of Neanderthals, it is still far from clear which features conferred ascendancy on one group over another. For those now set to eclipse ourselves, these ‘progressive’ winning traits are liable to include the capacity to wreck their own country.

From: Gordon Lawrence, Sheffield.

IS John Cole (The Yorkshire Post, June 13) so infatuated with the EU that he is blind to the faults that are intrinsically ingrained in its fundamental conception? Does he relish the unitary state?

We should give up on Brexit, he asserts, because of the division it has created. I would like to remind him that the EU has created division ever since it progressed from being the useful trading bloc which so many British people voted for in 1973 to the irreversible ratchet of a political machine that has continually operated to emasculate our own Parliamentary constitution.

I must agree, for once, with Mr Cole when, in a previous letter, he emphasised our longstanding reticence to embrace the EU. The sclerotic organisation has always stuck in our gullet and with good reason. Look at the immense problem of withdrawal: an elephant striving to tunnel itself out of Alcatraz could hardly present a greater challenge – years of wearisome detail, with negotiators out to punish us for insulting their hallowed institution and their determination to extract as much funding from us as possible to cover the shortfall when our payments end.

I believe it was that weak, Europhile PM, Gordon Brown, who signed the Lisbon Treaty that enshrined the current withdrawal morass. It was meticulously planned to create the chaos that now bedevils us and ensure that once a member of this “club” you stay a member. What a club!

From: Don Burslam, Elm Road, Dewsbury Moor, Dewsbury.

HOW ironic that the Tories are now lamenting that although their aggregate vote rose substantially, their seats do not measure up to their votes.

Talk about poetic justice! They have supported a first past the post electoral system through thick and thin and now they have been bitten by the very same system.

The case for PR becomes more compelling with every successive election. First past the post is just a mockery of democracy.

From: David West, Bay Crescent, Filey.

THE fallout from the election results has got me confused.

Commentators are articulating the view that Theresa May did really badly. Sure it was a bad campaign, yet she apparently got the Conservatives’ biggest share of the vote since Margaret Thatcher.

Now the DUP is being described as against women rights. Yet it has a woman leader (Arlene Foster). Please explain.

From: Hugh Rogers, Messingham Road, Ashby.

ALLEGEDLY intelligent university students, some of whom know all there is to know about economics, still don’t seem to grasp the essential truth, namely that everything “free” 
has to be paid for.

Even tuition fees. Which would you rather have, guys – a loan which you may never have to repay, or paying for your higher education through income tax which you will have to pay even though you only stack shelves in a supermarket?

Go on, you’re clever, you work it out. Whoever thought that giving the vote to wet-behind-the-ears 18-year-olds was a good idea?

From: Peter Hyde, Driffield.

IN my humble opinion, the media exert far too much influence on politics.

Currently they seem to have got their knives into Theresa May. No matter what she does, it fails to suit them.

She was not the leader of the Government when Grenfell Tower was coated with inflammable panels, nor had she any control over the outcome, and yet it seems she is having to take the flack for it.

The focus should be on those who made the decision to use the cladding which seems to have been the cause of so many deaths.

From: Anne Medd, Allerton Drive, Nether Poppleton, York.

I ENTIRELY agree with Charles Rushton’s letter (The Yorkshire Post, June 17) – the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg has on more than 
one occasion been very aggressive and rude to politicians after the recent election.