YP Letters: Hands off Laura Kuessenberg, a well-informed interviewer

I WISH to add my support to the letter from Dave Roberts (The Yorkshire Post, February 28). Dave’s letter refers to the personal attacks on Laura Kuenssberg in letters printed in your newspaper.

Laura is a brilliant and extremely well-informed journalist who describes some of the most complicated issues facing our country today in way that helps the “non-expert” – which is most of us – to better understand the issues.

She has quite a combative style, which, I would have thought would suit most straight-speaking Yorkshire people down to the ground. She asks the Prime Minister the kind of questions that many people would like to ask. The Prime Minister will not have been pre-briefed on many of these questions, unlike the setpiece efforts at Prime Minister’s Questions. Well done Dave. As your headline read “Lay off insightful Laura”.

From: Brian Sheridan, Lodge Moor, Sheffield.

I AM baffled by Dave Roberts’s suggestion that readers who have made personal attacks on Laura Kuenssberg should watch the BBC from time to time (The Yorkshire Post, February 28). I was under the impression that it was Kuenssberg’s work for the BBC that had caused such offence.

However, the letter draws attention to a reality that is all too rarely discussed: people do choose to buy newspapers which reinforce their own prejudices, eschewing others that might challenge them.

With regard to radio and TV, Auntie Beeb is pretty well inescapable: moreover, in the absence of a broadcaster such as America’s Fox News there is no right-wing alternative which might echo the views of some of your readers. For the record, broadly speaking, I find your Editorial significantly to left of the letters page.

I take papers from the Guardian and Telegraph groups, both of which infuriate me because they are so predictable. Yet I take them because they are so disparate and, like The Yorkshire Post, they have a higher opinion of their readership than the so-called popular press.

Brexit woes and empire

From: John Cole, Oakroyd Terrace, Baildon, Shipley.

THE attempt to get a favourable Brexit deal goes from bad to worse. The process is hitting a whole series of intractable problems such as the border in Ireland and aviation rules and permissions across Europe, to name but two. Solving these is an impossible nightmare and it should be obvious now to any clear-thinking person that the game is not worth the candle.

Occasionally both sides are implored to get together for the good of the country. Personally I am more intransigently opposed to Brexit than I was 18 months ago – having been influenced by the emerging evidence.

June 23, 2016, narrowly produced the wrong decision in a deeply flawed referendum. We have no obligation to honour it. Theresa May made a fundamental error of judgement in picking up the “Leave” ball and running with it.

In the last 18 months, the electoral demographic has changed. A number of older voters who voted Leave have died and a number of young people have joined the electoral roll. The latter are overwhelmingly pro-Remain. In consequence opinion polls are now recording a majority in favour of Remain. We should not be prisoners of a referendum vote that has exceeded its shelf life.

From: Derek Hutchinson, Kirbymoorside.

BRAVO Sir Bernard Ingham (“If thriftiness and pride in empire are sins, I confess”, The Yorkshire Post, February 28).

At last someone has had the backbone to come out and say what he thinks of the deterioration of many aspects of life in our country and I concur with every word.

I also suspect that most of the silent majority (over 30) will also agree with most if not all of this article. I say over 30 because for at least that period the increasingly “left-wing” teaching profession have not only been promoting their political leanings but also a totally negative, biased and often inaccurate view of the British Empire. Our empire was not blemish-free, nor would you expect something on that scale to be, but there is not a single country now in the Commonwealth that did not benefit greatly from the experience and many still do through our foreign aid.

Just what is in our beer?

From: Hannah Lucas, Barnsley.

RE ‘No more crying over spilt beer, drinkers urged’ (The Yorkshire Post, February 28) and the points relating to the revitalisation of the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra).

I am a Camra member and real ale enthusiast but not dogmatic and opposed to change. Neither do I need a kick up the backside. There is still a need for a campaign to promote real ale and CAMRA should continue this fight. The campaigning issue is about quality beer and drinkers being able to make an informed choice about the beer that they are buying. Real ale includes live yeast at the point of consumption. This matters because yeast is lost by pasturisation and filtering which damages the quality and flavour of the beer. Real ale may be more expensive to produce and so carry a slightly higher price.

Some craft beers, draft and bottled, are real and some are not. The term is therefore misleading and so consumers may be making ill-informed choices and paying too much

As a consumer, I want craft beer that is real and labelled as such. I want to know what I am drinking and how it was made. The real ale battle is not yet won. Camra needs to continue to fight for the consumer and their ability to make that informed choice.