Currency unsound as the pound

THAT I happen not to share Godfrey Bloom’s view on Europe in no way inhibits me from supporting his calls for the return of sound money (Yorkshire Post, February 21).

Although Mr Bloom’s assertion that the pound has lost 99 per cent of its value in 100 years may sound extreme, it is most probably correct. When I first started reading The Economist magazine in the 1960s, I thought it slightly overpriced at half a crown. The current price, at a fiver, is forty times as much. So, the pound certainly fails one important test of a currency, that of being a reliable store of value.

A second traditional test is that a currency should be suitable for use as a unit of account. This requires stability, something that no currency has enjoyed since the USA “suspended” gold payments in 1971. How can a company properly compare profits in 2014 with those in 2013, unless the 2014 pound is the same as the 2013 pound?

Royal lives 
of luxury

From: Aled Jones, Mount Crescent, Bridlington. East Yorkshire.

Britain today is a nation in social crisis. More than one in three children – four million young people – are surviving in relative poverty which is one of the highest figures in the advanced world.

And yet there is one extended family that lives in absolute luxury at the expense of everyone, spending tens of thousands of pounds of public money on personal holidays alone.

That elite family is the House of Windsor, who are estimated by Republic to cost the British taxpayer over £200m a year, the equivalent to 9,560 nurses, 8,200 police officers and more than the total annual Ministry of Defence spending on food.

Theirs is a contrived and unnatural elitism that explains our disastrous decline over the last 100 years.

Sick and tired of Scots vote

From: Jack Coley, Leadwell Lane, Robin Hood, Wakefield.

I WAS beginning to wonder if I was the only person who is totally sick and tired of the whole boring business of whether the people of Scotland will vote for their independence from the Union or not.

It seems though I have found an ally in Mr T Anson (Yorkshire Post, February 21) who expresses my views entirely. Unfortunately there are several more months to come of the wearying views from all corners of the media. If only these people were refrained from mentioning the event until just one week, at the most, before the vote takes place, what bliss.

As an alternative, I have a notion worth considering (Yorkshire Post, February 25). Why can’t the people of England be asked instead to vote whether Scotland should remain in the Union or leave it? This, I am sure, would make the whole business more interesting and the result even more so.

A rich man’s train set

From: Robert Reynolds, West Bank, Batley, West Yorkshire.

WHEN I went to university, I was taught to question and challenge. Unfortunately, I found in my life experience that people loathe it. Especially politicians or those touting a particular interest needing public money. Indeed, criticise a “pet project” and you must be a “raving leftie”.

HS2 is going to cost an easy £50bn. Is this money well spent?

To answer, we must ask why the need for the extra rail capacity? What report can be produced showing why people need daily travel to London? I’m guessing reports will show rising demand but not reasons why.

The answer is that London’s booming. So then we must ask, why is London booming? Housing.

Eighty one per cent of new investment goes into housing. The financial services sector and housing services are booming. The money is in London. People need money to live. Go to London.

In previous correspondence, I have highlighted how our infrastructure has been neglected over decades. Instead of private housing, we could easily be investing around the whole of the country.

So now I will ask HS2 supporters a question. Is it fair to feed London with a rich man’s train set, and starve the rest of the nation of investment?

From: Mr I Morris, Caroline Street, Shipley.

SIR David Higgins (Yorkshire Post, February 20) says “Leeds, Bradford and Wakefield 
act as totally different cities 
with little in common” which is just what they are. The West Yorkshire conurbation, which also includes Huddersfield and Halifax (Kirklees and Calderdale), is nothing like Greater Manchester which, take it 
from me, bugs Leeds and 
no one else.

Here in Bradford two-thirds of the Metropolitan District is rural and aren’t we so lucky?

I am a former Leeds, Hull and Manchester student and Bradfordian by adoption since 1954, aged seven.

Menace still on the roads

From: Malcolm Wright, Grove Road, Harrogate.

EAST Riding councillor Bradley Birmingham overtook a queue 
of traffic and then went through 
a red light (Yorkshire Post, February 19). Despite this and already having three “mobile phone” points on his licence, he is still on the road – chilling!

His petulant response is “We are only human” – the royal “we” it seems. Indeed we are, Mr Bradley 
and therefore very vulnerable when forced to share the road with arrogant and boorish drivers.

The vehicle in question was a Range Rover owned by the councillor’s father.

To compensate for the judge’s woefully inadequate response, is there any hope that dad might impose a ban?