February 25 Letters: Blair had no right to do deal with IRA

I SEE that Tony Blair got away with it again. Dragged before the Northern Ireland committee to explain the decision to free suspected murderers from prosecution, he used the “for the greater good” argument to justify his government’s actions in dealing with the IRA and Sinn Fein.

Throughout the Troubles, the murderers and thugs on both sides craved the status of 
soldiers or freedom fighters, because this would have given them equality with the 
soldiers and police trying to stop them slaughtering their neighbours and anybody they didn’t like.

The Heath government refused to “declare war” on 
them, because this would have given them part of this recognition.

For Blair to say that Sinn Fein would have left the peace process without this concession is, in my opinion, purely to get the questioners off his back.

If Sinn Fein politicians wanted to be taken seriously, they should have been forced to show that they were serious about peace.

We all knew they wanted power and the right to strut around at a posh garden party.

Blair had no right to give murderers a letter of “no intention to prosecute” and to pass brown envelopes under the table.

If IRA/Sinn Fein were/are serious about peace, they should have been told to offer up their own “soldiers” to stand trial; no different from what the Parachute Regiment had to do after Bloody Sunday.

From: Iain Morris, Caroline Street, Saltaire, Bradford.

I WOULD like to back the comments made by Stephen A Woad of Doncaster (The Yorkshire Post, February 17) with regard to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s apology for the bombing raids on Dresden.

One of my Scottish uncles was a navigator on bombers during the Second World War trained by Pan-Am at Florida University and as a result had a lot of time for the Americans.

He once told me that “there was nothing more guaranteed to make the bowels move than flying over Germany at night”.

So precarious was his life in the RAF that nobody who knew him expected him to see out the war. Perhaps I should not say this as a confirmed Anglican, but I think we are a bit luckier to have our Archbishop of York, and yes, war is never good.

The silent majority

From: Gordon Lawrence, Stumperlowe View, Sheffield.

RAY Riley (The Yorkshire Post, February 14) rails against Nigel Farage and Ukip. He attempts to demonise them by evoking Nazi genocide memories and the recent 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and Birkenau. His own visit to Poland this year was clearly a catalyst in prompting his accusations against Ukip.

Of course there may be some unsavoury covert extremists in Ukip (the Labour Party is not short of them either) but they will never get a hold on Farage’s party, otherwise its popular appeal would quickly diminish. Far-Right parties have failed, since the war, to take any meaningful foothold in British politics.

I have no connection with Farage or Ukip but I can see an injustice when it hits you in the face. The Left and its activists always exploit the means to advance their agenda.

The favoured route today is the creation of an intricate web of political correctness that embodies their ideology and subsequently restricts our freedoms. Nigel Farage, for all his faults, is one politician to make a continued and resolute attack on these establishment orthodoxies.

Before his advent, there existed no convincing voice for the so-called silent majority to show their disillusion with the political hierarchy and its automatic obeisance to the current convention in fashionable, liberal morality.

From: Terry Palmer, South Lea Avenue, Hoyland, Barnsley.

IS ED Miliband totally and utterly devoid of any feelings whatsoever towards what were his potential Labour allies? Has he buried his head so deep in the political sand that he doesn’t now realise that working class voters are leaving him in their thousands simply because he will not commit to a in/out referendum on the corrupt EU?

Even one of the biggest donors to the Labour party, John Mills, is calling for a referendum. He also suggests that a majority of the Shadow Cabinet want one too. However, Mr Miliband knows best by not trusting the electorate to come up with the right answer. When challenged on immigration he says that he will curb immigration, which is impossible because of existing treaties.

It must be a wonderfully deep trough they have in this corrupt EU for politicians to be willing to lose their own votes and a chance of entering Downing Street just to continue supping at the rotten-to-the-core EU table.

From: Lewis Proll, Leeds.

DOES Mr Dove (The Yorkshire Post, February 20) really consider there to be “not a shred of evidence” of racists, sexists and homophobes amongst the Ukip membership? A simple internet search would no doubt be of some assistance. The problem with his party is that they are highly selective in whom they consider to be immigrants.

The same internet reveals just how many Australians, New Zealanders, Americans and Irish live in the UK. All of whom require jobs, housing, health care and education for their children, just as do Romanians, Nigerians and Bangladeshis. Yet I have not heard them included in anti-immigrant opprobrium. I wonder why?