Addressing the issue of boundaries

From: Ray Hoppkrofft, Todmorden, West Yorkshire.

WITH regard to the letter from Paul Bates (Yorkshire Post, September 23) on the subject of the Royal Mail and county boundaries (a subject relevant to those in Todmorden, West Yorkshire – to which Royal Mail gave a Lancashire postcode), Mr Bates says the heritage of Yorkshire is not a matter for Royal Mail, and that “postal addresses should contain the minimum amount of information required to achieve undelayed delivery”.

Can we assume, therefore, that Mr Bates is going to remove Bowden Wood Crescent, Sheffield from his address, and put just his name, house number and postcode? And that consequently, his future letters in the Yorkshire Post will be addressed simply as Paul Bates, S9 4EE?

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Incidentally, I refuse to use a foreign postcode in my address.

Difference of principle

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

RICHARD Heller (Yorkshire Post, September 23) is surely wrong to argue that Tony Blair had a lot in common with Tony Benn.

I would utterly reject Mr Benn’s hard-Left philosophy but I have no reason to suppose he was less than sincere in his advocacy of extremist policies. He has been consistent in this over many years, but has changed his stance over Europe.

Mr Blair is a very different breed of politician. A man of no discernible principle himself he pioneered the use of focus groups and sofa government with policy determined by unelected apparatchiks like Alastair Campbell and Philip Gould.

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Mr Heller believes that if Tony Benn had beaten Denis Healey, the SDP Alliance would have become the main opposition. All I can say is that might not have been such a bad thing for the country.

The unions have a lot to answer for in our present plight. Neither Mr Benn nor Mr Blair have done this country much good but the former was a misguided extremist whereas Mr Blair was an unprincipled opportunist. They were as different as chalk from cheese.

Nurses need to stick to job

From: Mrs V. J .Double, Carlinghow Hill, Upper Batley.

IN response to Dr Peter Carter RCN (Yorkshire Post. September 26), I have been a member of the RCN since I qualified in 1964. I have never been bullied by patients.

If nurses stopped wanting to be “mini doctors” and stuck to nursing, then I am sure that the bullying and harassment that he speaks of would cease. It seems to me that a prime cause of this is “non-caring” by nurses.

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Patients are sometimes not washed or fed and even healthcare assistants seem too superior to carry out these basics aspects of nursing care. Nurses should stand up and be counted and demand less paperwork, relinquish especially non- nursing/medical duties and get back to proper nursing.

However, I suspect that many nurses and the RCN enjoy being “mini” or second rate doctors and not first-class nurses.

The great betrayal

From: George Senior, West Cowick, Goole.

NICK Martinek’s letter (Yorkshire Post, September 19) confirms what a German prisoner said to a friend of mine at the end of World War Two: “Well, Mr Farmer, we have lost two wars but we will win the third without having to fire a shot.”

These last 40 years will go down in history, when most of Great Britain’s leaders and senior politicians completely lost all their marbles and could not give away the complete custody of this country fast enough to the EU.

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This gross act of treason may in time be remembered every November 5. Never before in the history of our country has so much been given away in such a short space of time.

BBC bias

From: M K O’Sullivan, Victoria Street, Allerton Bywater, Castleford.

IN his item on BBC liberal-left bias (Yorkshire Post, September 23) Bill Carmichael did not mention the anti-Israeli slant.

A few years ago when Yasser Arafat was being airlifted to France, a BBC correspondent said that she “wept for Yasser Arafat”. So much for unbiased journalism.

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Mr Carmichael makes a very cogent point in his attack on BBC pro-euro bias.

Capital gains?

From: R Cartlidge, Storth Lane, Wales, Sheffield.

What a fun letter from Mr Edward White (Yorkshire Post, September 21). First of all, why write about something one knows nothing about? We don’t survive because of democracy, but because we have capital wealth from our empire days.

You choose two countries, especially Cuba, cut off from normal trade with capitalist giant America. But, look at the misery of unemployment here and in America, to say nothing at all of the riots in Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal etc. Oh, and how about poor old Palestine, oppressed by capitalist Israel for half a century?

So, it’s unfair picking on two well-meaning, but poor, socialist countries, with full employment and no riots. Incidentally, they do have pure democracy instead of a divisive party.

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On equality, are you thinking in monetary terms or of social of each according to their needs? Isn’t rationing governed by whether you can afford it? Capitalism has fallen headlong into the mire of its own making.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to go to Cuba.