April 21: Food banks not fault of ‘nasty party’

FOOD bank usage rose 10-fold under Labour. Now they are considered to be an outrage, proof that the Conservatives do not care about those at the bottom of the pile.

The fact that they help people who are seriously affected by an unreliable welfare system in which there are often delays when claims are being processed is conveniently forgotten.

The food comes from voluntary donations, the work done by charities. These banks are growing all over the world, even in those countries such as Germany which have very generous welfare systems.

Increased prosperity will not make them disappear because they are a solution rather than a problem. Government must work with communities and volunteers to ensure that we have a just society; the state cannot do everything. The Conservatives are not the “nasty party” and it would be foolish to desert them now just when we can see a light at the end of the tunnel.

From: Ron Farley, Croftway, Camblesforth, Selby.

DR Glyn Powell writes about Trident being: “a missile system that will never be used” (The Yorkshire Post, April 14). But – it is being used. Now. It is being used for its original purpose – as a deterrent – a big stick to warn off would-be bullies.

Incidentally, many years ago, when I was in the RAF on a Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Warfare Instructor’s Course near Porton Down, CND and followers paraded around the area – some bearing their famous placards bearing the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament device – black background circle with a white central shaft with the downward sloping off-shoots, one either side, something like an arrowhead.

I had designed something very similar by adding two aircraft engine nacelles and a tail plane so that the device looked like a large four engine bomber – with the words “Carries Nuclear Deterrent”. But of course, I was not allowed to display it!

From: Arthur Quarmby, Underhill, Holme.

THE two main parties have succeeded in concentrating voters’ attention on their various promises as to how much money they are going to spend on us (although I have yet to find anyone who believes a word of it), and so keep out of sight the real issues of major concern. Here 
are three:

1. The threatened break-up of the UK.

2. The EU.

3. Mass immigration.

David Cameron and Ed Miliband have kept these matters off the screen so they do not stand in the way of the supreme matter of getting elected.

From: John Watson, Hutton Hill, Leyburn.

I WONDER how many there are who are totally sick of the political jargon emanating from most of our party leaders, which resembles getting a balloon from a Christmas cracker, you don’t know what is coming next.

Who are we to believe? We are being offered investment in services we rely on by making cuts elsewhere. How can these leaders and their spokesmen offer us complicated fiscal policy from one day to the next, and how do the media pundits keep coming up with forecasts for the next Government, and what store do they put on the results of opinion polls? If I was asked in a poll who would I be voting for, I would be inclined to tell them that it is none of their business.

Judging by all the gobbledegook we have heard over the last few weeks you would think that the NHS was the only subject, with the main parties arguing about its future.

There seems to be very little said about Europe which is probably going to affect our future lives more than anything else. We are slowly losing our sovereignty and our borders are not secure.

Having taken all the political garbage into account, I refuse to be bribed by meaningless promises and for the first time in my life I will not be voting Tory. Nigel Farage is the only man who makes any sense.

From: Mr RGN Webb, Illingworth, Halifax.

READERS may recall the children’s TV programme Crackerjack!. One of its challenges involved a quiz with contestants standing on podiums. According to whether their answers were correct or not, prizes or cabbages respectively were placed into their arms to hold.

I suggest a political leaders’ debate on similar lines – with cabbages awarded when questions are not answered. Afterwards the obviously large amount of vegetables accumulated could be recycled into bank notes by the Green Party to help fund their spending plans (their supporters are obviously very “green”).

From: Dr Glyn Powell, Kellington, Goole.

DAVID Cameron’s Tories yet again demonstrate how desperate they are, by unveiling a raft of unfunded commitments.

Why doesn’t he spell out the benefit cuts to the disabled, sick and unemployed to meet a £12bn black hole in a future Tory government’s spending commitments? Possibly, because the black hole may be even larger than currently admitted if all the Tory pie-in-the-sky election pledges are to be enacted.

From: Ken Holmes, Cliffe Common, Selby, York.

WE haven’t heard a pip squeak from any of the political party leaders telling us what they intend to help our struggling dairy and hill farmers. Par for 
the course.