From: Peter Asquith-Cowen, First Lane, Anlaby, near Beverley.
REGARDING your report "Fury over £326,000 for defiant B&B boss" (Yorkshire Post, November 19), I find it amazing that the British public doesn't protest more, like the French do.
We have a crazy scenario where publicans are still
having to pay t
he same taxes despite loss of income; one
is even prepared to go to jail
as she sees this as a gross example of injustice (Radio 4, November 20). We have certain BBC presenters paid obscene salaries for using lewd language.
We have – the most iniquitous of all – the failed chief executive of Bradford & Bingley receiving a huge annual salary that
most of us can only dream of, while thousands face an uncertain, bleak future, and yet he is set to receive a massive £326,000 bonus for achieving nothing.
Pensioners live in fear of rocketing fuel prices, and may receive a small, gratuitous £10 Christmas bonus.
One-third of houses face repossession and yet there
is a woefully inadequate supply of council/rented accommodation.
Rachman-like companies have used tactics to persuade gullible and misinformed people how to cope with this and the banks in the first
place encouraged people to get into debt.
There is no wonder the high street is witnessing little in
the way of pre-Christmas shopping.
The home-owning paradise as conceived by Margaret Thatcher is falling into tatters and the privatised utilities have caused more misery through greed and avarice.
Is there any wonder that people are looking to the past, to a so-called golden age, when people were happy with a little.
Perhaps the building societies that have remained mutual may fare better during these hard times, but the lot of Joe Public is grim.
The Government seems to have no real solid plans to get out of this mess.
I wonder what Christmas will be like next year?
Why Charles is a picture of contentment
From: Phyllis Capstick, Hellifield, Skipton.
EVERY picture tells a story and the pictures in the press of Prince Charles on his 60th birthday show, beyond any doubt, how happy and contented he has become since his marriage to Camilla (Yorkshire Post, November 15).
The difference in his demeanour, between now and how he used to be, is
truly amazing.
Diana didn't think he would make a good king; and the way he was, maybe not. Time and Camilla have changed all that ,and I hope they can have many more happy years together.
Carers want action and a real improvement in services
From: Malcolm Naylor, Grange View,
Otley.
I HAVE just returned from
a meeting launching the Health Authority/Leeds Council Carers' Charter and saddened that this was just another public relations exercise full of esoteric promises they can easily wriggle out of.
This was reinforced when the executive member for social care, Peter Harrand, posed for his photo opportunity while angry carers were squashed into an overcrowded room.
Carers don't want a charter. They want real improvements, like home care services without means testing, respite care on a regular basis and more than the measly £48 per week carers' allowance paid whether they are pensioners or not. A charter is only words. We want action.
The Government will do anything but spend money. Instead of setting up a National Care Service funded from income tax, the cost is put on means tested charges and council tax.
Why should carers trust a Conservative/Liberal Council that broke its promise to abolish the means tested charges for home care it inherited from Labour?
Carers are right to be cynical. Care is only provided if "affordable" while billions are thrown to bail out bankers' greed. The problem is that care doesn't show a profit and that is an anathema to capitalists.
Care in this country is ranked poorer than in the former Soviet state of Estonia but health executives are rewarded with 38 per cent pay increases while children, the disabled and elderly die of neglect and carers suffer nervous breakdowns.
Please give carers your support and ask councillors and MPs to help.
On returning home after this meeting, there was a letter addressed to my wife, who died two months ago. And, yes. It was from our "caring" NHS.
