Friday's Letters: Politicians only talk about social care when elections loom

Care is wheeled out at elections and then shelved and forgotten. We are already told it will be at least four years before anything is done. Compare that with the overnight multi-billion payout to errant bankers. It's all a question of priorities and care isn't profitable.

Care is never seriously on the agenda except as an electioneering

gambit.

This time a National Care Service is promised whilst politicians flounder as to how it will be funded. Already we have seen several attempts. Labour's 10,000 death tax was dumped in favour of "free" care for those who survive two years in a care home. This will actually cost 50,000 before "free" care comes into effect and few will live to enjoy it. The residents of the best care home in the country, Buckingham Palace, already have "free" social care. No one says that's "unaffordable".

Labour is cutting Attendance Allowance by 100m, and transferring 1.8bn from the NHS, something it concealed in the budget. So this cunning plan is designed to squeeze every penny from the proletariat before they die.

There is already a 2bn under funding for care, whilst greater sums are wasted on bureaucracy, war, military hardware and computers that don't work, Trident missiles, identity cards, the Olympic games and astronomical sums on bankers. In the meantime the elderly and disabled are in a desperate situation. England has one of the worst care systems in Europe and we swallow Establishment lies that it is "unaffordable".

Many years ago, I proposed the concept of a National Care Service which readers may remember and more recently that it should be integrated as

the National Health and Care Service. Health and care are inseparable and need a common approach.

From: Malcolm Naylor, Grange View, Otley.

From: Richard D Gledhill, Woodhall Park Drive, Stanningley, Pudsey.

AS a brief and rapidly spoken sentence in last week's Budget, I doubt if many people have given due thought to the announcement of freezing inheritance tax thresholds for the next four years. To those who work and save and are thrifty, this is your reward. This is, in effect, the death tax you will pay for old age care.

If inflation of three per cent may be assumed for the next four years and this figure had also been applied to the inheritance tax threshold, the amount at which 40 per cent tax would have been applied would have been any excess over 366,000.

Effectively, freezing the threshold means estates that fall into this category will be paying an extra 16,316 by 2014.

In addition, our personal allowances are frozen meaning we pay tax earlier and increases in National Insurance from next year mean even less take home pay. In the meantime we hear the wonderful headline of efficiency savings in the Public Sector and yet for 13 years all we have seen is waste and inefficiency.

Sorry Gordon, you've wrecked private pensions, more than doubled council tax, increased the size of the public sector by four times the rate of growth in the private sector, opened the doors to uncontrolled immigration and underfunded the military when it has been fighting two wars.

In addition, your useless ministers preside over disgraceful school standards and crime and drug levels we should all be ashamed of. Do I really want more of the same?

From: Jennifer Jezewska, Beacon Brow, Bradford, West Yorkshire.

TONY Blair and an unelected Gordon Brown have all but brought this country to its knees in any way you can think of.

They have loved only the position and the power and have had no idea what was best for us.

Peter Mandelson now appears to be calling the shots. I do not like or trust the man and I certainly would not want him to be the next Prime Minister. I would ask people not to vote for a small party, that could give Labour an advantage – we want rid!

The Conservatives have a good, capable team, who could bring us out of the mess we are in.

From: Ruthven Urquhart, High Hunsley, Cottingham, East Yorkshire.

SO, the political parties "ping-pong" election contest has started in earnest, and each team, as usual, is displaying its own self-centred interests and stubborn beliefs, thereby refusing to lend an ear to accept, or even consider any opinion or viewpoint expressed by their opposing numbers.

The sadness is that all "the players" involved are solely and simply interested in themselves and the next election, thus sparing little thought for the overall welfare of us, the great British voting public – and even less, and more importantly, for the next generation.

Signals that show chaos on railways

From: Neil West, Otley Road, Menston.

I READ your leader about the persistent delays on Northern Rail services after yet another morning of cancellations (Yorkshire Post, April 1). This time, "signalling problems" were to blame, we were told.

The precise nature of the problems was kept from us, so the best we could do was speculate. Did the signalman not know which buttons to press? Or was the "problem" that he hadn't dragged himself out of bed and into work? We will never know. If this is the best they can do when they're working "normally", God help us if they go on strike next week.

From: Andrew Mercer, Oxford Road, Guiseley.

THE only regular occurrence about Northern Rail's services in this region are the cancelled trains – because the rolling stock is too old – and a failure to accept that the company has not invested sufficiently in new rolling stock.

I did use the Wharfedale Line to travel into Leeds, but it is now easier to drive – despite the tailbacks on the Kirkstall Road. People will never get out of their cars when public transport, and firms like Northern Rail, are so unreliable, cancel trains at a moment's notice and offer no adequate explanation or compensation.

Still, as long as its former boss gets to Buckingham Palace on time to collect her undeserved honour....

From: Mrs FEG Lemmon, Clifton, Maltby, Rotherham.

I WRITE in response to the article "Campaigners plan station bridge demo" (Yorkshire Post, March 18) wherein it is reported that at Sheffield station "owner East Midlands Trains wants to introduce barriers to stop people without tickets from accessing the platforms and therefore stop fare dodgers".

The other afternoon, I travelled by train from Conisbrough to Sheffield. A guard inspected passengers' tickets. The evening train destined for Hull on which I returned to Conisbrough was so full that several passengers had to stand. During my 35 minute journey, nobody came to check or sell tickets. It is, therefore, possible that not a single ticket was sold for that journey. It seems to me that fare dodging is a human resources issue. In the current climate of serious unemployment, any opportunity to create additional jobs should surely be welcomed.

Cheers for our beers

From: Rebekah Wadham, Shire Oak Road, Leeds.

I APPRECIATED the article about beer expert Alex Barlow (Yorkshire Post, March, 29). It's great to see someone with such a passion for beer, and all the more relevant as this week we celebrate national cask ale week as the industry aims to get people to celebrate the great British tradition of cask ale.

Cask ale is a natural fresh product full of character and flavour, the cask ale sector is the only sector within the UK beer market in growth and has been experiencing growth for the last 12 months. With almost six pubs closing every day in the UK, this shows its success!

Gone are the days of cask ale being attributed to beardy blokes in socks and sandals, last year alone the number of female drinkers doubled whilst also attracting a younger market. Not only this but

cask ale is full of B vitamins and iron, has no added chemicals and half a pint contains less calories than a small glass of wine, so its good for the waistline too!

Here in West Yorkshire the beer industry is thriving, we have at least 34 breweries, the most of any region in the UK (so you're likely to get a lovely fresh local pint!) and some truly great pubs. Leeds alone has some fantastic boozers in which to order a pint of the good stuff.

Opportunity to create an iconic landmark for city

From: Dan Laythorpe, Kendal Bank, Little Woodhouse, Leeds.

D YATES of Doncaster (Yorkshire Post, March 23) has it absolutely right when he puts forward the view that a way to resurrecting Bradford's devastated city centre (and the fortunes of the city as a whole) is to join up the two stub-end railway lines with their desolate stations at opposite margins of the centre, and to create a new Central Transport Interchange.

Of course, there are major obstacles to such a project, many of them physical, such as the Crown Court building, the Inland Revenue office and some ugly retail sheds, all built on old trackbed or on parts of the sites of the old ornate Victorian Exchange and Forster Square stations. Also, not least is the financial impediment – a cost in the region of 1bn – probably considerably more than that if it were to go underground.

Admittedly, the difference in levels between the present Interchange and Forster Square stations would present severe engineering challenges and require imaginative and sensitive planning and design, most

probably involving a viaduct through the demolished Forster Square site, much in the fashion of lines and bahnhof across Alexanderplatz in Berlin. In the absence of an imminent development on Forster Square, surely it would be an ideal location for the Central Transport Interchange that Mr Yates proposes?

However, for such a structure to be built across that space, it would have to be of the highest architectural and design standards, capable of being in harmony with the nearby Cathedral and former General Post Office and those other imposing Victorian buildings in Little Germany, for instance, that survived the 1960s demolition mayhem.

It should be a new emblematic Bradford landmark, recognisable as such throughout the UK and beyond. A new Forster Square should be recreated either side (or even both) as an accessible public space fringed by a

careful blend of both existing and new retail, cultural and hospitality amenities. The viaduct should be designed in a way that it does not act as a barrier but as a feature, perhaps as a series of sweeping,

graceful arches comprising pedestrian thoroughfares, airy arcades with shops, cafes, restaurants and so forth.

Re-opening and electrification of the Spen Valley line with stations at Cleckheaton, Liversedge and Heckmondwike (possibly using tram-trains to serve these) would create new, more direct connections between Bradford and Dewsbury, Wakefield, Doncaster and London and enabling through routes northwards to the Dales, the north-west coast, the Lakes, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Scotland.

Damaging development

From: Stephen R Glover, Burnleys Drive, Barnsdale Meadows, Methley, Leeds.

I AM writing to express my objections to the proposed development of 250 acres of green belt land at Newmarket Lane, Methley.

The impact it will have on the local area and surrounding villages is immense and I am appalled at the lack of consultation/notice that has been given to residents on this matter. The following issues should be taken into account:

n Increase in traffic at both motorway junctions, along Watergate and the A642.

n Potential for flooding in the Methley and Castleford areas from additional surface water and sewage drainage.

n The destruction of 250 acres of "green belt" land and the impact on local wildlife, loss of footpaths and cycle pathways (I regularly take my two children cycling along these pathways).

n I understand Wakefield Unitary Development Plan actually would state this an unfit use of "green belt" land.

Truth about politicians

From: Ken Holmes, Cliffe Common, Selby, York.

SIXTY-five years ago, my wise old owl head lad, said to me: "Son, there are three things in life you'll never see, a fat jockey, a bookie

wearing bicycle clips and a dead donkey."

I have seen none of these. When I catch up with him at that Royal Ascot in the sky, I will tell him that I have added another to his list: a politician that tells the truth.