April 10: General Election letters and more power to readers of The Yorkshire Post

WHAT a change to hear of the country’s woes and their remedies from a down-to-earth Yorkshireman who gets to the point in the political mish-mash in which we have landed ourselves. I am so in total agreement with Barrie Frost (The Yorkshire Post, April 6) I could have written the piece myself.

I cannot see the sense in our policy on foreign aid. It would have been understandable several years ago, but now some of the nations to which we are sending donations are catching us up in the money stakes.

Europe could take me all day with the loss of fishing grounds and no control of our borders. We are forbidden to govern our own country.

We are sat on millions of tons of coal and we are forbidden to use it because of the Kyoto agreement which means that rich people are getting richer due to subsidies being paid to erect windmills which we hope will keep our lights on for years to come.

The world seems to be getting more and more secular and yet we are making the animals in our abattoirs undergo methods of slaughter which should have gone out with the Ark.

From: Arthur Quarmby, Underhill, Holme.

WHAT a wonderful article by Barrie Frost; he may be a retired milkman from Filey but he would have my vote any day as Prime Minister (The Yorkshire Post, April 6). I could place a tick against every one of his 31 points.

From: Terry Duncan, Greame Road, Bridlington.

HAS David Cameron got a political death wish?

For two weeks now, we have seen daily, in our newspapers, magazines and on TV, posing with his family in luxury furnishings and in his expensive kitchen... All way beyond the means of the majority of the UK electorate. So does he expect to get the vote of the low paid, unemployed, pensioners and the working classes?

From: Jeffrey Shaw, Pinner Road Sheffield.

THE Labour Party record in its care of the NHS is dreadful (see Wales), yet it has falsely claimed that Ukip wants to abolish or privatise it. One Labour MP has recently had the gall to have this untruth painted onto the sides of a campaign van; how shameful. But NHS privatisation began with Labour itself and its PFIs. Ukip itself, meanwhile, is committed to removing PFIs if that is lawful.

From: Dr DW Nash, Morris Lane, Leeds.

SOME Christians may be offended in portraying David Cameron as the Good Shepherd but, I think it is a brilliant, if belated, April Fools Day joke. Think of the vast publicity machine behind the tableau and, dear me, of what will happen to the poor lamb in a few months’ time!

From: June Warner, Kirk Deighton.

THE three main parties (if indeed we can still include Lib Dems) have all failed economically. Labour overspent and let the ravening bankers off the leash.

The Tories and Liberal Democrats in coalition have only given the appearance of an economic upturn Currently, UK debt is running at £1.4 trillion. We are adopting policies which Keynes had always seen as being ‘“short term pump-priming”.

Regrettably, these are being used as sticking plaster solutions as our politicians continue to borrow at a rate approaching £100bn annually. With that much money to play with it would be astonishing if there were not some indicators being disingenuously pointed out as “improvements”.

Only Ukip is untainted. Their economic policies are neither “simple solutions to complex problems” as recently stated, nor are they pie-in-the-sky. They have been fully costed and make a lot of sense to me!

From: Alan Chapman, Beck Lane, Bingley.

WITH reference to your article about Hilary Benn meeting constituents in Garforth (The Yorkshire Post, March 31), his claim that a future Labour government would keep a cap on councils sounds rather flimsy when we consider that party’s record on public sector spending.

The Labour Party desiring financial responsibility? Gosh, Hell must be freezing over!

He also stated that the “bedroom tax”, a slang term for the under-occupancy charge, was fundamentally unfair and Labour would abolish it.

If it is fundamentally unfair for public sector rented housing, was it unfair when the last Labour government applied the same to tenants of the private sector? Remember Hilary Benn was a Minister.

Will a future Labour administration also repeal that which they imposed on privately rented homes? Thus treating all rented domestic accommodation the same. Is this yet another case of Socialist hypocrisy?

From: James Bovington, Church Grove, Horsforth.

HOW is it that I can go by train to shop at Meadowhall or the Gateshead Metro Centre but I can’t go to our own White Rose centre in Leeds by train, despite the adjacent rail line?

The same is true for air – direct train services to Manchester and Newcastle, Southend or Southampton airports but a direct rail link 
to Leeds/Bradford recently ruled out.

Which local politician will lead the campaign for a transport system fit for a city in the European top league membership of which Leeds rightly covets?