Diversity quotas a bad idea for police - Yorkshire Post Letters

I was surprised to read the following quote by the Deputy Chief Constable of North Yorkshire Police: “We will also be doing everything we can to encourage people from black and minority communities and LGBT+ communities to join our ranks.”

Presumably this means they won’t be doing anything to encourage over 90 per cent of the population to apply, those that are white and heterosexual. If the majority of people are made to feel like they aren’t suitable how can they hope to achieve this?

I don’t care whether police officers meet fashionable diversity quotas, I just want the most suitable people doing this most critical of roles.

From: Peter Hyde, Driffield.

Watching the TV programme Police Interceptors recently, I do not wonder that the officers featured become demoralised.

The programme showed police officers finding a man with wraps of heroin and a number of bank cards which were not in his name.

The result from the Crown Prosecution Service was no further action. One does have to ask why.

As a retired custody officer, I was the one making the decision whether to send the case to court.

It must be soul-destroying for the police to work at arresting a criminal only to have the case cancelled by the CPS.

Ukraine knows how to clean up

From: Hilary Andrews, Nursery Lane, Leeds.

Like many people I’m sure, I thought the world had gone mad when a TV comic was elected in Ukraine by a landslide majority.

But then I read that Volodymyr Zelensky had, as one of his first acts as president, dissolved Parliament as he found it full of corrupt politicians only interested in their own self enrichment (The Yorkshire Post, May 21).

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our dear Queen had the same power to rid us of all the self-serving politicians in the whole of the United Kingdom?

Grayling’s road to redemption

From: Iain Morris, Caroline Street, Saltaire.

He may not be the most popular man with The Yorkshire Post in Leeds or even in the south of England but he may be elsewhere as Transport Secretary Chris Grayling has called for more government money to be spent on Bradford.

Mr Grayling has said: “Cash from the transforming Cities Fund should be funnelled away from Leeds into other areas including Bradford”.

He is backing the proposal for a Shipley Eastern bypass, but if it is built is something else.

From: John Brooke, Lightcliffe, Halifax.

Whilst I do not disagree with some of the sentiments expressed by Andrew Vine in relation to HS2 and rail services in the North (The Yorkshire Post, May 21), he really should stop exaggerating to make his point.

The train service from Leeds to Manchester is timetabled, in almost every case, to take around 50-55 minutes. That is some 30 minutes quicker than the time he refers to.

Make voting compulsory

From: Will Roebuck, director and co-founder of Local Youth Pound, Huddersfield.

Why don’t our politicians make voting compulsory? Instead, they are misleading the British public by suggesting a Second EU Referendum will deliver a meaningful vote.

There will be no meaningful vote with a second referendum unless Parliament first introduces legislation which requires voting to be made compulsory. Otherwise, the votes (and absence of votes) will distort the results. Those who don’t agree with another ‘People’s Vote’ or who voted for Brexit may choose not to vote. We already know that 28 per cent of eligible voters didn’t vote in the 2016 EU Referendum.

We should introduce compulsory voting in all elections and referendums from now on. Allowing the British people (not Parliament) to take responsibility for our democracy – a democracy that we’ve developed over 1,000 years, the principles of which many nations around the world now follow.

We fought two world wars to defend our democracy and plenty of Suffragettes sacrificed their freedom to be part of it. Like jury service, compulsory voting should become part of our citizenship agenda. There’s no getting out of paying our taxes to fund public services. But, if a person doesn’t vote they cannot really have an opinion about how our public services are run.

There is no point complaining if you are not prepared to influence decision-making through the ballot box. It’s also in the interests of children and young people that we vote in order to secure a better future for them.

Compulsory voting will also help ensure local people are properly represented on local parish councils. Turnout in these elections often struggle to achieve 30 per cent of eligible voters. I also suspect the current stalemate in Parliament is partly caused by voter apathy.

The British people need to take responsibility for our democracy rather than using the crisis in politics as an excuse not to vote. We reap what we sow.