January 29 Letters: Powerhouse or just a sweatshop?

From: Philip Hutchinson, Sheffield.

voting for anyone who is going to further implement “cost saving measures” on Sheffield’s services and infrastructure doesn’t make sense, unless it’s taken that those wishing to become councillors or MPs are agents of corporate financiers and their political representatives in the highest seats of power.

The Chancellor George Osborne’s macho words about a Northern Powerhouse – city sweatshops to serve London and other capitals of the global elite who hold most of the world’s capital wealth – fit with his and his cohorts’ drive to make the UK a low wage economy, a process which includes the vilification of benefit claimants and driving them off benefits and into poverty.

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To see the living conditions of the people who will fulfil Osborne’s vision of the UK becoming Europe’s strongest economy, go to Spital Hill, Pitsmoor, Burngreave, Fir Vale, Wincobank, with their corresponding areas of Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool.

For that matter you can pick any major city outside the capital.

The council system is as good as bust. Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs can retain their right to vote in a UK-wide Parliament and we want them in, but alongside devolution of powers to the major conurbations.

This would be a step towards sustainable regeneration from the stagnation and deterioration caused by the greed of the financial class and their politicians.

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Do not be fooled by any Tory rhetoric about deficits and “what people want”. The Tories and their allies are removed from the effects and consequences of their actions which are visited on the rest of us.

Stronger together

From: Pamela Z Frankland, Dunnington, York.

with reference to the article “Yorkshire Separation” (The Yorkshire Post, January 24) we have Scotland and Wales dependent on this country, relying on us for money despite their desire for independence.

The SNP, despite the oil situation which they thought would be their salvation, are still wanting independence. Don’t they ever learn?

Yorkshire would be in the same boat. We must stay together, not become an impoverished state which would surely happen.

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We must not let these self-imposed fanatics ruin our Great Britain by division. Their egos know no bounds. Together we stand, divided we fall.

Writer caught nation’s mood

From: RB Holroyd, Liversedge, West Yorkshire.

the 50th anniversary of Sir Winston Churchill’s death brings to mind one of the pieces written at the time by that great Yorkshire journalist, the late Vincent Mulchrone.

He begins: “Two rivers run silently through London tonight, and one is made of people. Dark and quiet as the night time Thames itself, it flows through Westminster Hall, eddying about the foot of the rock called Churchill.”

And ends: “But for everyone who cried there were a hundred who straightened their shoulders.

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“It wasn’t grief which invested Westminster Hall tonight, it was pride.”

He so encapsulated the nation’s mood.

Pennine divide

From: Jeff Thomas, Huby

with reference to Bernard Ingham’s article (The Yorkshire Post, January 14) he’s hit the nail on the head.

The so-called “northern hub” is nothing of the sort in reality.

It is actually the North West hub or perhaps more accurately should be named the “Manchester hub”.

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As far as I can see, this side of the Pennines doesn’t currently enter into the equation.

So, what is to be done? We need a leader for the whole of Yorkshire, not just parts of it.

Electrification of the rail network is accelerating at pace in the North West, together with several new tram routes in Greater Manchester.

Nothing is happening this 
side of the Pennines, so perhaps local authority leaders and politicians alike select a new transportation leader for the county of Yorkshire now.

You never know, we might then get a true northern hub.

The farce of foreign aid

From: Barry Foster, High Stakesby, Whitby.

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if anyone wants to see an example of the disgusting 
waste of overseas and foreign 
aid doled out by this country 
they have only to look at the picture of President Obama and the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (The Yorkshire Post, January 26) enjoying 
tea in some exotic garden in New Delhi.

How long are we to continue this practice of sending money to other countries seemingly much better off than we are?

In the area where I live the county council are hell-bent on closing most of the public libraries and various other essential services.

Perhaps they ought to dip into the foreign aid budget.