Monday's Letters: Coalition has diminished the region's voice

It is extraordinary for Greg Mulholland to claim that the new Conservative/Liberal Democrat Government will give a stronger voice to Yorkshire than did the previous Labour Government (Yorkshire Post, May 21).

The coalition Government has scrapped the Regional Minister role, whose portfolio was to provide a voice for their region at the heart of government. Worryingly for Yorkshire, our regional development agency, Yorkshire Forward, still faces much reduced powers. This is despite its excellent record of bringing in investment, in boosting jobs as well as the strategic advice and support it gave to businesses during the downturn.

The cuts to Yorkshire Forward are rooted in ideology and they are nave. To take away this support would threaten key industries such as Yorkshire's wind turbine manufacturing and investment in Sheffield Forgemasters, sacrificing thousands of potential jobs and apprenticeships for the region.

All parties recognised the need for a deficit reduction plan but taking 6bn out of the economy this year is in danger of damaging the regional economy. This was a fundamental principle on which Labour and the

Liberal Democrats agreed during the election campaign, but which has been given up by the latter in exchange for power.

Similarly, the announcement last week to review Labour's spending commitments since January is also going to threaten key transport and infrastructure projects in the region. Projects such as the Leeds Arena were lobbied hard for by the Conservative/Lib Dem Council in Leeds, which said it was essential for the city's future. Is the new coalition Government seriously suggesting that this investment was frivolous? If so, the Conservative/Liberal Democrat Government has placed a question mark over the very investment Greg Mulholland was pushing for.

In the wake of election defeat it is important to show humility and I recognise where Labour made mistakes. However I simply do not

accept that there was a bias against Yorkshire and the Humber from the Labour government.

Far from Yorkshire's voice being enhanced by the new Government, it has been diminished – demonstrated most obviously by the fact

that there are only two members of the Government from among the Yorkshire and Humber MPs – a disappointing start for our region.

Remember the reality of Tory legacy

From: Howard A Knight, Lyons Street, Sheffield.

IT is little surprise that Ruth Lea ("Battered economy leaves new team at the top holding a poisoned chalice", Yorkshire Post, May 19) tries to re-write economic history when she describes Gordon Brown as inheriting "a golden legacy" in 1997.

The economic facts are that the 1997 inheritance included interest rates hitting 15 per cent, and were more than 10 per cent for four years; inflation hitting 10 per cent; unemployment doubling between 1979 and 1997; between 1992 and 1997, over 1,000 businesses went bust every week; record homes repossessions; the doubling of the national debt and chronic under-investment in infrastructure renewal – from railways to schools, from hospitals to housing – and in manufacturing industries.

This "golden legacy" also included crime rising rapidly as police numbers were being cut; waiting-times and waiting-lists for hospital treatment rising inexorably; one in five families had no-one in work and one in three children were growing up in poverty and significant growth in the numbers of pensioners in poverty.

We are now seeing George Osborne and David Laws implement the standard policy followed by all incoming company chairmen and chief executives – maximise first-year write-offs and emphasise all the weaknesses of the inheritance, in order to enhance the scale of any future achievement. Of course, in companies, this is normally linked to financial bonuses. Osborne and Laws are planning for a political bonus.

No one should under-estimate the scale of the financial challenge arising from the global economic and banking crisis. However, it was remiss of Ruth Lea to forget to mention her role as a leading-cheerleader of light-touch banking regulation, which played a major part in creating the problems in the first place.

Wheels of misfortune

From: E Evans, Barleyview, Wigginton, York.

THE two letters (Yorkshire Post, May 19) on the subject of cyclists are very close to my heart! Not very long ago, I was "run over" by a cyclist on the pavement as I stepped out of my front door, fortunately I sustained only minor injuries and so did he. He just rode away without any apology.

Almost every day of the week, as I walk on the pavements in the town where I now live, I am subjected to cyclists on pavements. There needs to be a campaign to stop this.

A very close encounter

From: M Dale, Hill Street, Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire.

REGARDING the railway photographer (Yorkshire Post, May 15, as a lifelong railway enthusiast (please, not train spotter), this comes as an accident waiting to happen.

If you go to see or photograph a special charter train, especially if steam hauled, you will find some clown who insists on standing on the platform edge, invariably in front of anyone else wanting to see or photograph the train.

I have never seen two trams pass at a station as in the incident but this person's action only gives a bad impression of the other

people there and over-zealous platform staff already take anyone with a camera to be a terrorist suspect.

This person's image is quite clear so someone must know who he is. I would like to see him banned from railway property unless he is in possession of a ticket to travel for that very time. This person owes an apology to the other railway enthusiasts who will be "tarred with the same brush", but more importantly, to the driver of that passing train.

Positive view of future city

From: Dr Kevin Grady, director, Leeds Civic Trust, Wharf Street, Leeds.

WHAT a pleasure it was to open the newspaper (Yorkshire Post, May 20) and read the positive stories about Leeds.

If everything comes to fruition, a visitor coming out of city station will soon have the opportunity to see a film in an imaginatively renovated Majestic Cinema, pop across the road to the attractive new Trinity Quarter, and jump on the sightseeing bus or waterbus to enjoy the Leeds Waterfront and great family-friendly attractions such as the City Museum or the Royal Armouries.

Having ridden on the top of the sightseeing bus yesterday, I can vouch for just how good the city's architecture looks from that vantage point.

With a family ticket, including the bus and the boat, at 17 and all the free attractions to visit, this is a great day's outing which

Leeds residents and tourists will really enjoy. But what we need to cap it all is a large sign greeting people coming through the ticket barriers of City Station saying "Welcome to Leeds" and highlighting the attractions on offer.

How to help working class applicants to universities

From: Rachel Maister, Priest Lane, Ripon, North Yorkshire

RECENTLY, there have been a lot of statements about the failure of universities to recruit enough working class students (Yorkshire Post, May 19).

However, nobody seems to be able to grasp the nettle and say, that since intelligence is hereditary, the children of successful, middle class parents are much more likely to have the intellectual attributes necessary to obtain a place at a good university than working class children.

The average IQ of children is usually near the average IQ of their parents, but one child might thus have a much higher IQ than the rest of the family and consequently benefit from a university place, but there would obviously be far more middle and upper class children of the necessary ability to go to university.

What the bright working class child needs is the provision of a mentor to help them choose the right course and university and to provide some support.

It must also be more clearly recognised that there are two kinds of skills, verbal and spatial.

Unfortunately, spatial ability often results in reading, spelling and number difficulties due to confusion in the orientation of letters and numbers so that the budding engineer may seem to be an educational failure from the start.

The fact is that high achievers in the arts would be unlikely to succeed in the building trade and its associated skills and such skills are grossly undervalued.

When allocating university places, universities must select the most able and not be pressurised into having to have a quota of a certain class. On the other hand, to judge a candidate's ability accurately, universities would want to take into account their background difficulties.

The welfare of ordinary people

From: N Bywater, Airedale Terrace, Morley, Leeds.

WE must all surely realise that our new coalition Government has a fear of controversy when a supermarket cares more about the best interests of the nation than our leaders do.

Tesco says polling has found excessive drinking and the anti-social behaviour it causes is one of the public's most serious concerns. Tesco, the UK's biggest retailer, says it would back the introducing of a minimum price.

Perhaps our new coalition leaders should start to follow some of the better policies that they have in Scotland; like free prescriptions and

free university funding. It's about time at least some of our MPs thought about us ordinary folk.

Rights and wrongs

From: Ken Hartford, Durham Mews, Butt Lane, Beverley.

NO other creature, apart from humans, thinks it has a "right" to live. Provided it isn't a "runt" of any kind, it is likely to survive until it gets killed by a human or another of its kind.

For some years now, I have been trying to get a sensible reply to my constant questioning of the term "human rights". Nobody seems prepared to offer me one.

It is quite clear to me, and has been for most of my 84 years, that no other creature or "living" thing has any "right" to live; to be born or

even planted as a seed or to re-evolve from a state of death.

We humans, on the other hand, are like the animals, determined to compete to the death of everything – all life, including our own species in order to die ourselves as "the winners!"

A future free from Europe

From: JR Lindley, Altofts, Normanton.

AT last we are seeing the demise of that mickey mouse currency, the euro, and with it will follow the imminent collapse of the European superstate as surely as night follows day.

At last we can forsee a time in the not too distant future when we, the British, will be freed from this vale of tears and be able, once more, to rule our nation through the good offices of our own duly-elected House of Commons. Instead, we are at the whim of unelected and unelectable foreign bureaucrats whose only purpose is the destruction of our once great nation.

Happy days are coming folks, independence is just around the corner.