Highly skilled tanker drivers get £12 an hour for ‘bomb run’

WITH reference to R Dobson’s letter (Yorkshire Post, March 31), the tanker drivers dare to strike because they are highly skilled, highly trained drivers who receive £12 an hour to drive what is effectively a bomb, just to ensure that Mr Dobson and his like can conveniently fill their cars close to home whenever they feel like it.

I’m sorry he would like to see these drivers on the dole and if I didn’t suspect that the most dangerous object he handled during his working life was a sharp pencil I’d challenge him to step into the breach to do this “unskilled” job and ensure that our petrol supplies were not interrupted.

From: Raymond Curry, Adel Grange Close, Leeds.

IN this modern world politicians in office get called upon to make statements for almost anything.

If they refuse they are damned, and if they say anything they are damned as well, if not by the opposition certainly by the visual media who will manage to sow seeds to create news for others to feed upon.

No one can doubt that the jerry can statement was naive and stupid, but had the Minister said nothing there would have been all sorts of comment of supposition. Likewise for the Prime Minister who then appeared to modify that statement but got castigated by an opposition with no sensible suggestions.

Those of us with any form of memory will recall previous fuel supply issues when drivers queued at the pumps until they went dry, pushed and shoved, got bad tempered with each other and could be seen on any forecourt filling cans of all shapes and sizes with highly inflammable liquid. They needed no encouragement to behave badly.

The public these days seem intent on blaming others for their own misbehaviour, so don’t just blame the Government for this non-crisis.

However, rather less of the puerile antics in the Commons, for which we pay millions of pounds, would be beneficial. For slapstick comedy there is theatre. The Commons should be a place for serious work, not time and tax wasting.

It might also be a good idea to get rid of the permanent soap box outside 10 Downing Street as it encourages off-the-cuff statements which usually create trouble.

From: BJ Cussons, Curly Hill, Ilkley.

IT is unbelievable that there are trade unionists willing to follow the dangerous advice of their leaders when our country is up to its ears in debt due to the unsustainable way of life practised by most of us over the last two decades.

We know the overpaid trade union leaders have to do something to justify their existence but please don’t be like sheep and follow them. Who do prospective strikers think will be left to pay their own benefits when they are out of work themselves?

As for Labour’s political handling of Francis Maude, it is right to remind the public of the necessity to make provision in the event of a strike.

From: Dennis Whitaker, The Grove, Baildon, Shipley.

I HAVE a great deal of sympathy for the York woman who became immersed in flames as a result of decanting petrol in her kitchen.

Clearly, she had no idea of the way in which petrol fumes spread in a confined space. Hopefully, she will make a full recovery and others may learn a lesson (Yorkshire Post, March 31).

There is no point in blaming Francis Maude for this accident but he should be made aware that many garages have central heating boilers in and the pilot light will cause an explosion in similar circumstances. If you do store petrol, it must be in a well ventilated place and far from any naked flame.

Storing petrol inside a house should be avoided at all costs. If this brief note causes just one person to think, it could be the difference between life and death.

From: Ron Parker, Goxhill, North Lincolnshire.

REGARDING Francis Maude’s clanger, is it politically correct to use the phrase jerry can today? Should we say German can?