YP Letters: Public spending '“ don't pit the pensioners against the young

THE tenor of the media today is suggesting that the pensioners are to blame for the plight of the young unemployed.

Pensioners do not get ‘free’ bus passes or ‘free’ winter fuel allowances.

Over their working years they have earned these so-called perks through taxation (The Yorkshire Post, November 29).

Britain is the most highly taxed country in Europe.

Even to suggest an end to the ‘triple lock’ on state pensions in 2020 is an insult to a large majority of people who have paid their taxes during their long working lives, not to have them stolen by Government to plug a hole in the meagre earnings of the young. This could cost the Conservatives an election victory in 2020. More pensioners tend to vote, apparently, than the young.

You cannot “rob Peter to pay Paul”. The Government has a legal obligation to respect the contribution pensioners have made during their working lives. They have paid their taxes and now expect their just deserts.

It would be flagrant robbery. I suggest it would be illegal. I could well imagine a case being brought against the Government by such bodies as Age Concern to defeat any planned raid on pensions or pensioner benefits.

Even former Prime Minister, David Cameron, said: “If you’ve worked hard during your life, saved, paid your taxes, done the right thing, you deserve dignity when you retire.” He promised to protect pensioner benefits.

What this Government wants to do is an old trick... make the poor look after the poor. That won’t do in today’s world. Those with the most should contribute the most. Setting the youth against the pensioners is a nasty political device. Pay young people proper wages in the first place and end student loans. There is a way forward, and there is light at the end of the tunnel, but the rich one per cent are getting away with it scot-free and they should be made to pay more towards the running of the country.

People like Sir Philip Green and others are living the good life while the rest of us suffer. It isn’t right and it isn’t fair. And nor is it just.

From: Alan Chapman, Beck Lane, Bingley.

IT amazes me how often the teachings of The Yorkshire Post’s columnist Bill Carmichael coincides with my own thinking.

His latest Friday epistle (The Yorkshire Post, November 25) was a prime example when he told us how appalled he was with the dreary pessimistic Autumn Statement delivered by Chancellor Philip Hammond, who recommended a £58bn injection of borrowed capital, supposedly necessary to remedy to as yet undetected Brexit symptoms.

Hammond based his forecasts on the failed establishment experts who batted daily for David Cameron on the losing side in the EU referendum. Within an hour of Mr Hammond vacating the Despatch Box, an array of Eurosceptic luminaries had taken the opportunity to point out the errors in the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) economic forecasts – which promoted the Government’s policy to increase borrowing – while the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) had further darkened the mood by unleashing yet more pessimistic (and flawed) predictions.

Additionally a constellation of influential political actors disguised as impartial “experts” imposing their pro-EU agenda made contributions. At the CBI conference, the PM disgracefully hinted at an interim deal with the EU, a disastrous position that will give the EU’s negotiators licence to stall during the Article 50 talks, thereby giving them the upper hand.

The real enemy of Brexit is the establishment within the Conservative Party at Central Office, the Commons and especially the Lords – that gang fixed the coronation of remainer Theresa May for Tory party Leader, conning paid-up Tory Party members out of a run-off vote.

They might well have opted for newcomer Andrea Leadsom, the Brexit Queen, who promised to invoke Article 50 by this autumn if she became Prime Minister, to beat any court action from the Remain campaign.

Tensions at Trump Tower

From: Hilary Andrews, Nursery Lane, Leeds.

ON a recent visit to New York, we tried to walk down 5th Avenue past Tiffany’s which is situated in Trump Tower to look at the Christmas windows.

Police had erected barriers around the whole block and were searching any bags carried by persons wanting to enter the zone.

There were police and bomb disposal vans everywhere in the district and protesters still saying “Not our President”. It was quite intimidating.

Hopefully it will settle down after January 2017 and tourists can once again the thrill of New York’ s most famous shopping street.

Getting cross at Maltese

From: Paul Rouse, 


Main Street, Sutton upon Derwent, York.

WHEN threatening the British economy, the Prime Minister of Malta should remember that his country hosts thousands of British tourists every year, and that we are the largest source of his country’s tourism income by a long way.

If the Maltese premier, who is about to take over the EU presidency next year, wants 
to play hardball, he should expect a backlash from the British public, and could lose the good will that many in this country have felt towards Malta for many years.

Threats, as President Obama discovered, merely harden our resolve.

From: Peter Bye, 


Park Crescent, Addingham, West Yorkshire.

A MESSAGE to Remoaners. It is far easier to bleat about potential failure than to contemplate future success.