March 7: Action not words on child abuse

THE ongoing disclosures of child sexual exploitation is a national disgrace and there are a number of issues that need to be addressed, along with convicting those who committed these shameful acts (The Yorkshire Post, March 4).

Firstly those who are charged with protecting our children, such as social workers and police, must be dealt with and pay a price. There should be sackings and disciplinary actions as well as pensions reduced for those in charge who sat back and failed to act correctly.

Secondly the families and religious leaders of the criminals must also stand up and take responsibility for these recurring crimes. We are often being told how religion provides moral codes, now is the time for actions to support these words with actions to prevent recurrences.

Rotherham and Oxford are the tip of the iceberg, it is high time that the Asian community got a grip of these louts.

From: Robert Reynolds, West Bank, Batley, West Yorkshire.

WHEN we heard of the murder of Victoria Climbie in 2000, our shocked nation was told that this would never happen again. The Blair government introduced reforms which impacted at a local level.

As a councillor at that time, I recall scrutinising this legislation and concluded it was nonsense.

This mish-mash of pen pusher legislation, forcing bureaucracies to share information, has failed. All too often we have seen highly paid public officials say ‘yes, there is a problem, but it’s not my responsibility’.

Now, we have a new Prime Minister, equally clueless as Tony Blair. David Cameron calls for anyone ignoring child abuse to be prosecuted. Then we saw pictures of the bureaucrats, sitting around the Cabinet table, vigorously nodding their heads in agreement. I almost threw up. When will our politicians learn?

The answer is simple, which is to stop everyone passing the parcel of responsibility. We need someone with the balls to stand up and start prosecuting, with a few nice long jail sentences that wreck careers. That especially includes the apologetic bankers (apologetic because they got caught).

The laws are there, when will someone just get on with the job?

Frack threat to rural life

From: BJ Hopkins, Malton.

“I’M a country man, I love our countryside,” says David Cameron to back up his pledge to limit new house building to non green belt areas (The Yorkshire Post, March 3).

So is this why he’s determined to turn rural Ryedale in North Yorkshire into a brown field site with fracking for shale gas, so that when the all the shale gas has been extracted the area can be used for housing development?

Well it’s either that or he can happily forget what is really happening on our agricultural land, or maybe he’s just a stranger to the truth.

From: Isobella Demartino, Stanningley, Pudsey.

HIGH energy bills are a big problem for many people locally, especially at this time of year. Some 1.6 million children in the UK live in fuel poverty, and this winter one older person will die of cold every seven minutes

Meanwhile the Big Six energy companies are making billions in profits and have failed to pass on recent cost-savings.

It’s clear that privatisation has been a disaster – yet our government is using our aid budget to promote this failed approach in countries like Nigeria, where the result has been higher prices, blackouts and job losses.

We can and should use aid money to improve people’s lives. But this will only happen if it’s used in the right way. For example, in Bolivia and Costa Rica, energy co-operatives have provided electricity in rural areas. It’s high time our politicians realised that the power of the Big Six is failing consumers in the UK – and stopped supporting the same failed model abroad.

From: Terence Nundy, Church Lane, Elvington, York.

ENERGY costs continue to be in the news. I had a delivery of domestic heating oil last week from a national supplier and I compared the price with my previous delivery four months ago. In that time the cost of Brent Crude (ex VAT) fell by 33 per cent per cent, but the retail cost to me fell by only 10.6 per cent. No doubt the supplier will have an explanation for this discrepancy but will it be a valid one?

Labour not ready for job

From: Mrs W Abbott, Hull.

LIKE Sarah Freeman “sometimes I have voted Labour and sometimes I haven’t” – (The Yorkshire Post, March 2). Unfortunately, in our household, political opinion was divided. My father supported the Labour Party while my mother always voted Conservative.

Although the Labour Party are currently in opposition, there is already evidence to suggest that they are not to be trusted with the purse strings right now.

They have already spent party proceeds on the acquisition of a pink battle bus which Harriet Harman hopes will woo female voters. I am also puzzled by Ed Miliband’s latest proposal that if elected “he will slash tuition fees”. But wasn’t it the Labour Party who introduced tuition fees back in 1998 when Tony Blair was Prime Minister?