Friday's Letters: New broom sweeps away 13 years of Labour rule

Invading Iraq and mass immigration are wrong now, so where was Ed the Red when it mattered – hiding under the table? Oh I guess he was only obeying orders.

Pulling out of Iraq will be far easier to resolve than the mass immigration problem we are left with.

What are the political parties going to do to reduce the effects of mass immigration that we have suffered?

From: Phil Hanson, Beechmount Close, Baildon.

From: P Rhodes, Leeds.

WILL Ed Miliband be the next Labour Prime Minister? Answer – no.

Labour has had 18 leaders and only four of them went on to win elections. Ed will not be their party leader before the next General Election. He will be replaced by a more popular MP/Shadow Cabinet member.

He is just a stand-in leader, as was Iain Duncan Smith, for the Conservatives. He lasted two years. It is Labour's error in choosing the wrong brother.

From: Roger M Dobson, Ash Street, Cross Hills, Keighley, West Yorkshire.

WE suffered and survived the devious lies of Tony Blair and the more obvious ones of Gordon Brown.

I wonder if it is now possible that the new leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband, can reverse the trend and tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth (Yorkshire Post, September 29).

For the poor demented people who voted for Labour in May, I certainly hope so, because this country has had enough political lies for many a decade.

From: Terry Barry, Arncliffe Gardens, Batley, West Yorkshire.

NOW the Labour Party has elected a new leader in Ed Miliband, if he ever becomes Prime Minister of this country, would he honour the last Labour Government's manifesto pledge to hold a referendum on our country's position in the EU?

AV system will give voters more freedom

From: Dr DR Cooper, Belmont Park Avenue, Maidenhead, Berkshire.

IN his article "The voters should reject this farce over electoral reform" (Yorkshire Post, September 14), Jim McConalogue attempted to turn the truth on its head by claiming that the proposed Alternative Vote (AV) system would reduce the freedom of choice available to voters.

Exactly the opposite is true. Under the version of AV we would have, which is already used for by-elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly and to the Parliament in the Irish Republic, an elector is still perfectly free to rank just one of the candidates, or he can exercise the additional freedom to rank two or more candidates, precisely as he pleases. His vote will not be reallocated except as he himself chooses to direct on his ballot paper.

It is a strange thing that during the election of a new party leader every Tory MP enjoys the freedom to say "I would prefer A to become our leader, but failing him I would prefer B", and yet most Tory MPs are determined that an ordinary voter shall not have the same freedom to say "I would prefer A to become our MP, but failing him I would prefer B".

Nail in the mail coffin

From: D Wood, Thorntree Lane, Goole, East Yorkshire.

WITH reference to the article "Pledge over postal deliveries in wake of sell-off" (Yorkshire Post, September 20), before our worthless government obeyed their EU masters and broke up the Royal Mail's monopoly, Britain's postal service was the envy of the world. With a universal pricing system, it delivered anything to anywhere in the UK and still produced a nice profit into the bargain.

The German postal service looked on with envy and greed and greatly coveted those profits. The outcome being the EU told our pathetic government it must break up the Royal Mail, thus allowing the likes of DHL and TNT to cherry pick the profitable parts of the business (which the Royal Mail had used to subsidise the less profitable parts) leaving the Royal Mail with all the less profitable components and yet still expected to provide the universal system, and still make a profit.

The obvious answer regarding capital investment is to remove DHL, TNT et al from the equation and reinstate the Royal Mail's monopoly.

Had the Royal Mail been a French or German company, it would never have been broken up in the first place as those countries just ignore EU directives which do not suit their national interest. Why do so many of our worthless MPs meekly surrender to the directives of this foreign entity which are always against Britain's national interests?

Religions under threat

From: Bob Watson, Springfield Road, Baildon, Shipley, West Yorkshire.

I WONDER if readers are aware that Pakistan and Egypt are promoting a resolution at the United Nations on behalf of the 57 countries belonging to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, and entitled The Defamation of Religious Resolution.

If passed at the end of the year, this resolution would allow

governments the power to determine which religious views could be expressed in their country. It also would give each state the right to punish those who express "unacceptable" religious views as they see fit. In effect, it would make persecution legal.

We have already seen the persecution of Christians in certain parts of the world, so one can imagine what the situation would be should this resolution be passed.

Let us hope that the United Nations refuse to sanction such a resolution which should surely have no place in a civilised society? That it is even being proposed in the first place by the above organisation has to be something of a concern.

A pilot's admiration for our wartime airmen

From: Timothy Kirkhope, MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber, Main Street, Scotton, North Yorkshire.

AT this time of year, I always remember military pilots who fought for our freedom in the Second World War.

I am also full of admiration, of course, for more modern RAF personnel but the circumstances and conditions under which our fliers fought between 1939 and 1945 seem to me to be quite exceptional.

One of my passions outside my political service as MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber is to fly aircraft. I obtained my private pilot's

licence about 27 years ago and I have flown fairly regularly ever

since. Most of my flying has been for pleasure and mostly in good conditions and I have amassed a few hundred hours on my "log".

Although my total experience is small compared with many commercial pilots, I have flown considerably more hours than most of those 18 and 19 year-olds who took to the skies to save our country. And I have the use of modern navigation aids in my plane. They had paper maps and no certainty that when they returned to their airfield they could get much help in finding it, especially if dusk was falling.

I do not expect to bring my plane back with damage caused by enemy fighters and my landings are normally with a healthy engine and

complete lowered undercarriage.

And then there were the bomber pilots. I only appreciated recently on a

visit to the wonderful Air Museum at Elvington that many of our Second World War bombers only had one pilot. If he was shot or put out of

action, his whole crew might be lost.

Handling a Halifax bomber requires a lot of physical effort. So imagine one of those, heavily laden with bombs, on a turbulent and windy night with little ability to climb quickly or manoeuvre to avoid fighters and ground gunfire, with no heater to speak of, and a grim purpose assigned to it and its crew, flying over enemy territory on missions lasting 10 or 12 hours covering hundreds of miles with the demands of complete accuracy as part of the orders.

We expected so much of these young people and many, on missions from our numerous Yorkshire airfields, failed to come back.

That is why, at this time in particular, I reflect on how fortunate I am and how much we still owe to those wartime pilots 70 years ago.

Country with wrong priorities

From: Peter R Hyde, Kendale View, Driffield, East Yorkshire.

THIS country seems to have somewhat perverse priorities, in that we are spending billions to host the Olympic Games, we are bidding for the World Cup at football and yet organisations such as the Yorkshire Air Ambulance, Macmillan Nurses and numerous hospices who care for

terminally ill people are starved of funds.

Footballers and television presenters are paid ridiculous amounts to entertain people, while we are desperately short of funds for police officers and nurses.

Lord Coe and David Beckham should return to the real world and help to tackle deficiencies in providing the essentials to improve the quality of life and not entertainment.

Divisive issue for the church

From: Alexander Ogilvy, East Parade, Heworth, York, North Yorkshire.

REGARDING "gay" bishops, I think a number of people have problems accepting "gay" priests. If they knew their local priest was homosexual or lesbian, they may not wish to attend their services.

To some, homosexuality and lesbianism are still wrong. They may question how "gay" or lesbian priests are accepted into the priesthood in the first place.

It is an issue which might sadly divide Christian groups for some time to come. It may even account for the dwindling attendance in some churches.

Bring our troops home

From: Arthur Quarmby, Holme, Holmfirth.

SUCH heart-searchings over defence cuts – but the last time I counted, Britain had troops in 20 countries around the world.

Twenty thousand of these were in Germany – for what purpose, one wonders? Bring the lot home.

Views and grammar

From: Canon Michael Storey, Healey Wood Road, Brighouse.

I SMILED and agreed with most of what Catherine Scott wrote in "My View" in Life & Style (Yorkshire Post, September 29).

Sadly, I suggest that she committed two grammatical errors herself, errors very often committed by others.

She used the words "differs to"; I was always taught that "from" follows "differs". Furthermore "speak with" should be "speak to", I suggest.