March 26 Letters: Childish stance on TV debates

TRY as I might Mr Birch (The Yorkshire Post, March 23), I cannot recall the Prime Minister either kicking or screaming about appearing on TV.

I expect he had better things to do – like running the country. If anyone acted like a spoiled child, it was Ed Miliband who couldn’t understand why David Cameron didn’t want to join in the TV pundits’ jolly japes.

When he gets a bit older, the Opposition leader will perhaps come to realise that TV is all about entertainment and shouldn’t be taken particularly seriously. Broadcasters like to give themselves airs anyway so it never hurts for them to be taken down a peg or two. I’m sure Ed will find another use for his Kiss Me Quick hat.

From: Terry Duncan, Greame Road, Bridlington.

i HAVE just marked my calendar to ignore the TV election debates in which the present incumbent of Number 10 appears, because, recently, he has appeared as an uncouth, childish person during PMQs and constantly fails to answer questions. Instead, he attacks the regime prior to his, instead of informing us what he can truthfully offer us for the UK future. Surely the latter is what elections are all about?

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

AT last! A union leader with fire in his belly, albeit just a flicker, and not before time. The head of the Unite union, Len McCluskey, has said he will not “respect” any law passed by a future Tory (“nasty party”) government tightening the rules on strike ballots and rightly so.

Everything fought for and won in the 1950s, 60s and 70s has been handed back on a plate without a whimper and the time is surely coming where the gauntlet handed down by this “nasty party” will be taken up, not just by the Unite union but by every union in the UK.

From: Gerald Bower, Loxley Road, Sheffield.

I GET utterly fed up of listening to people complaining about the Tories and Labour – (the Lib Dems seem to be dropping out of people’s thinking altogether).

Ukip deserve a chance. If you complain and then do not vote for the first realistic alternative we have had in generations, then don’t bother griping to me after the General Election.

From: June Warner, Kirk Deighton, Leeds.

IN the last month, I have come across Ukip being attacked on TV, radio, online forums, by politicians and in newspapers. There have been lots of attacks but they had many things in common. Some were rants; mounting personal attacks on individuals; they contained factual inaccuracies and were based on uncontrolled hatred; they spewed bile and they dismissed Ukip politicians and supporters without bothering 
to state logically what may possibly have been incorrect in the offer on the table.

Factual rebuttals appear to be absent. It is indeed a sad world when political debate is abolished in favour of slagging off your opponents.

A fitting funeral

From: Jean Lorriman, Waterloo, Huddersfield.

I MUST say that the people of Leicester have done the Yorkist King Richard III proud! I watched the whole process on Channel 4 and thought the procession, Jon Snow’s commentary and all the work put in by Leicester’s university and city council was brilliant. From the unbelievable discovery of the King’s body in the city’s car park to the reciting of the Middleham Prayer by Cardinal Vincent Nichols, it was riveting television.

Of course many in Yorkshire would have preferred him to be brought back to this county.

He is remembered in Yorkshire because he ruled the North well and was starting to put in reforming laws when after fighting bravely at Bosworth – even Shakespeare acknowledges this in his black comedy of the king – he was paraded in ignominy through the city.

I think the throwing of white roses on the coffin was a nice gesture and will have been appreciated by his Yorkshire friends.

To return to black comedy, however, whatever possessed that old buffer David Starkey after pronouncing that it was 99 per cent certain that Richard killed the two little Princes in the Tower, to compare Richard’s reign to Gordon Brown’s Premiership. Is this a credible historian? Off with his head!

From: John Fisher, Menwith Hill, Harrogate.

LISTENING to the BBC Today programme interviewing some of the citizens of Leicester over the reburial of the remains of Richard III left me doubting the BBC interviewer’s grasp of English history. The interviewer repeatedly referred to Richard as a cruel murderer and questioned why the public supported such a nasty character.

I would like to remind the BBC that our past has included public execution by hanging, drawing and quartering, an accepted punishment by our royalty and government of the period. As was the use of horrific torture and the burning in public of witches and others who had offended.

I can only assume that Richard III was no different to many of our monarchs who lived in violent periods of our history when many citizens were armed, and accepted horrific public punishments as a warning to possible transgressors.