Call to arms for a nation
of aspiration

WHILE I applaud the sentiment of David Cameron’s “aspiration nation” (Yorkshire Post, October 11), it is far from the reality of a box ticking, bureaucratic, political system that has scant regard for the creative expression of the individual.

Instead we have an education system and workplace environment, that seemingly discourages free expression and has no place assessing the merits of such thought, since it sits outside the parameters of the administrative stranglehold that blights our society.

We hear “computer say no” all too often. How refreshing it would be to see a new generation of enterprising enthusiastic free-thinking people, who could help to shape and nurture a balanced society, where equality is welcomed and class is abandoned. Is this too much of a dream?

I sense there are many, many people who agree with these sentiments, but sadly because of the recession and repression of the bureaucrat, their voices are held within. To truly achieve a positive, forward-looking culture, we need to acknowledge that aspiration only arises when free, creative expression is allowed to flourish.

We need a society of innovators and thinkers, not a society frightened by stepping outside the box for fear of being ostracised. Only then, will we move forward as a society working together for the 
common good and free from prejudice. Agree? Then do something about it. Write to your MP, make a fuss in your workplace, plead for a change of direction in your educational establishment. Perhaps then we might see some aspiration breaking free from the stranglehold of red tape.

It’s worth a try surely?

From: Jack Brown, Lamb Lane, Monk Bretton, Barnsley.

WILLIAM Hague’s support of David Cameron’s “hour of reckoning” claim was as depressing as it was preposterous. Both chose to link economic and social liberalism.

Both claim that there is no alternative to the market economy which has been, since Labour’s change of constitution, cross-party consensual.

Mr Hague claims that he has been converted to homosexual marriage because it is a “generational” change and irrevocable.

One would have expected more of an historian.

Their economic verity began with Margaret Thatcher’s commitment to Hayek’s belief that economics began with medieval fairs; millions of years after economics and politics began around the body of the kill.

Its Achilles heel – which has led to the banking and financial crisis – is the conversion of money from a means of exchange to a trading commodity.

This intensification (perversion?) of capitalism dictates oppression of the poor and politicians bred in “yoof” culture seem to believe that the poor will bear meekly what Wat Tyler and his successors would not. With a bit of luck, I will not be around when they discover otherwise.

Puzzled by school system

From: Mrs Susan Abbott, Melbourne Road, Wakefield.

IN response to the Government’s new proposals about future education and various letters in your newspaper relating to these; I would like to add my own observations.

I have just returned from a short holiday visiting family 
and friends in Germany. As 
one of our party was my 11-year-old granddaughter, I was asked what school she was now attending.

I told my friend that in England most children attend the local comprehensive school and this is where she had just started. She couldn’t believe that all children, regardless of ability, attend the same school. “How can that work?” she asked.

It is very different in her part 
of the world where children attend a school best suited to their ability and interests. Food for thought.

She was also disappointed that German is not being taught as it used to be. Indeed, my granddaughter will have the opportunity to study French, Spanish and perhaps Mandarin but not German, which is a particular disappointment to me, being of dual nationality.

I try to teach my grandchildren German at home but it’s not always easy, especially when they’re learning another language at school.

Finally, with regard to RM Hall’s letter (Yorkshire Post, September 26) – I too was given a sound grounding in the English language and it never fails to amaze me that the misuse of the word “amount” instead of “number” as in “number of people” is constantly used.

Has education declined over 
the past few decades? I rest 
my case.

Coy about bin collections

From: Gillian Paddock, Park Avenue, Hull.

I WONDER why Hull Council are being so coy about the results of the questionnaire on bin collections distributed to residents last year?

They claim that 57 per cent of people are in favour of switching to fortnightly collections for the black bins (ie rubbish which can’t be recycled) and I am sure this is correct.

However, what is glaringly conspicuous by its absence is the percentage of people who were also in favour of the blue (recyclable rubbish) bin collections being changed to weekly ones.

Now that most rubbish can be placed in the blue bin to be recycled, a weekly collection for this is essential.

Coun Steve Brady says he only puts his black bin out every three weeks but I wonder how often his blue bin gets full.

We need weekly blue bin collections and I would bet that the survey results would show the desire for this.