Disbelief at claims for NHS savings

I READ the article by Ruth Porter, communications director of the Institute of Economic Affairs (Yorkshire Post, July 29), and have just about recovered enough of my composure, to write to you, putting into words my feelings, without being too rude, to allow you to print my efforts.

The first words which come to mind are ‘socio/economic mumbo jumbo’. Marie Antoinette said it first, ‘let them eat cake’, which is the tenor of the whole article.

How I ask, can she, or at least the Institute, suggest that there could be a ‘£44bn saving from health reforms’?

She also mentions that ‘another £40bn per annum will also be raised from asset sales’. Now I am by no means an economist, just a simple retired engineer, but selling off the country’s assets is surely a ‘one off’? Once they have gone, they can’t be sold again, or am I missing a trick?

Now I come to Professor Phillip Booth, of the IEA? What planet does he exist on?

He says do away with the only perk that we pensioners have, free bus passes.

For goodness sake ‘watch my lips’, we are pensioners, our economic plight is quite well documented, those on state pensions have to decide on eating or heating, even those fortunate enough to have private pensions, are feeling the pinch.

Come on Institute of Economic Affairs, out into the real world, leave your air conditioned offices, have a trip into the highways and byways of Britain and see how real people face economic uncertainty!

From; Barry Bevitt, Halfpenny Lane, Pontefract.

TO suggest that pensioners start riding bicycles is stupid. Some pensioners do walk to their local towns and supermarkets, but need a free bus ride to get them home with expensive necessary shopping.

I would like to remind Professor Booth that the majority of the pensioners he is trying to rob of free bus passes will have worked for over 50 years to enable people like him to be educated.

What world do MPs live in?

From: Barry Foster, High Stakesby, Whitby.

I READ with great interest your column of expenses claimed by our local MPs It was no great shock to read the amounts claimed.

Frankly, I do not know what worlds these people live in. I would never object to paying anyone a decent wage for a decent job done, but they really take the biscuit.

Similarly local councillors seem to be following the same path. At the May election in my town, I never saw one councillor or even had the luxury of a face to face interview or visit from any of those seeking election.

I have long been of the opinion we have far too many MPs and local councillors putting their snouts in the trough. Is it too much to hope to find someone somewhere capable of getting rid of half of them?

Murdoch let off the hook

From: George Appleby, Clifton, York.

RUPERT Murdoch and his management group might just as well have been sitting between David Cameron and George Osborne at the Cabinet table and accompanying the PM to report to the Queen.

Top people in the establishment, banking, business, politics and the media are masters of our past, present and future and determine who actually sits round the Cabinet table, irrespective of how the majority, who actually make everything that produces our economy work, can do little about it.

Elections are necessary, only to rearrange the faces at the top, from a tiny predetermined list of possible winners, so that proper people can feel they have actually chosen the next government. Less and less are believing that to be true, and the same small group are working out between themselves who will take their turn at the trough and stuff their pockets for life.

The whole system needs to be sorted out root and branch, and the sooner the better.

Let’s hope the penny drops

From: DF Metcalfe, Annes Court, Southowram, Halifax.

I DO not use the bus station at Brighouse so I have only had a passing interest on the subject of the provision of toilets.

The other day, I read that a councillor who does not even live in Brighouse has decided there is no need.

Well, I hope that as his age advances and he finds himself in Brighouse bus station he does not have the great urge to use a toilet.

Then I read that the cost of refurbishment of the existing toilets is estimated at £132,000.

How can an existing building with existing services cost so much to refurbish? The phrase “rip-off” comes to mind.

I am also then lead to wonder if there is another bus station in the land that has not got a toilet.

The idea of using local pubs and cafes is preposterous, but I give credit to the person who thought of that idea. I certainly could not.