MP is taking a gamble by ignoring facts

PHILIP Davies, Conservative MP for Shipley, had a speech published entitled “Dispelling the myths about gambling” (Yorkshire Post, January 11). He attempted to defend fixed odds betting terminals (FOBTs) – the roulette machines in betting shops – based upon industry manipulated facts and opinions. However, there are some big picture facts about FOBTs that Mr Davies ignores.

Researchers have found that FOBTs have a stronger relationship with problem gambling when compared to any other gambling activity available in Britain. Also, researchers have estimated that FOBT problem gamblers’ losses are more than the combined losses of problem gamblers on casino table games, arcade slots, horse racing, dog racing, bingo and football pools combined.

The national gambling helpline, Gamcare, last year reported 40 per cent of calls naming FOBT gambling as a problem. Gamcare has recorded a consistent year on year rise in FOBT gambling in particular among the 16 to 25 age group.

Mr Davies’s article ignores that even his own Government has acknowledged there is a problem with FOBTs. In a recent review the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) said: “We recognise that the operating parameters of the B2 machine are such that the potential for harm, even among players who are not problem gamblers, is high. Second, we recognise that some problem gambling charities have indicated that a significant proportion of those presenting have experienced problems with B2 machines.”

Some profits from FOBTs are illegally generated from money launderers and under-age gamblers using the machines. Criminal damage to FOBTs is often not reported to police and it is estimated that 100 machines a week are attacked in betting shops, meaning that councils are unaware of all criminal activity taking place on premises under their licensing responsibility.

Two licensing objectives of the law of the land, the 2005 Gambling Act, are the prevention of harm to young and vulnerable persons and the prevention of the association between gambling and crime. Mr Davies takes off his law and order hat on the FOBT issue and puts on a pro-bookie hat instead.

In an era when politicians’ salaries and expenses and political lobbying by commercial interests are becoming matters for public discourse, Mr Davies is becoming a liability to the Conservative Party. Will the constituents of Shipley see him for what he is in 2015?

Germany was the aggressor

From: Ross Taggart, The Avenue, Eaglescliffe, Stockton-on-Tees.

WITH reference to the letter from Don Burslam (Yorkshire Post, January 15) entitled “Don’t blame the Germans for the First World War”, one cannot help but reflect on the unfortunate, but seemingly irresistible temptation to interpret and re-write history to accord with the present political inclinations of the re-writer.

Naked German aggression began that world war. The Kaiser wanted an Empire and if that meant smashing France and Russia using the vast military and industrial might of Germany, then so be it. France and Russia kept great armies precisely because they were afraid of German ambitions; they were right in that assumption. Using events in the Balkans as an excuse, an all-out attack was launched simultaneously on both France and Russia following a plan that had been initially drawn up a decade before by Count von Schlieffen and subsequently perfected in every detail.

The war could well have been very short if it had not been for the unexpected resistance and acceptance of staggering casualties by the Russians, which caused the Kaiser to lose his nerve and demand the needless transfer of two crack army corps from West to East at a critical moment. That probably saved Paris, but led to stalemate and a dreadful war of attrition.

The British Army in August 1914 was small and under-equipped. A continental land war was far from welcome, but we did what had to be done at the time, at an eventual cost greater than ever could have been imagined.

Please, more objectivity and less political correctness, especially in this centenary year of the “war to end all wars”.

A debt of gratitude

From: J Brian Harrison-Jennings, Fulstone Road, Stocksmoor, Huddersfield.

SO Mr Ellwood is happy that his wealthy neighbours pay something towards the education of his own child(ren) at their local (state) comprehensive school, (Yorkshire Post, January 17). So am I. But are his rich neighbours so happy doing it? And would they continue to do it if they had the choice? And if some, or all, of them chose not to do it, what would be the effect on the 
quality of the education currently being received by his own child(ren)?

However, even as a childless pensioner, I am happy to contribute my fair share to the education of Mr Ellwood’s child(ren) –and the many millions more children now in full-time, state-provided education that I have never met.

I consider this element of my taxation to be my debt of gratitude for the lifetime of free state education, at all ages and stages – primary, secondary, further, higher and adult – that I have benefited from.

However, I am not at all happy having some of my taxes going towards the further benefiting of the already privileged.

All that I was arguing for 
was that economic principle 
of the free market which says 
that the beneficiary of goods 
and/or services should pay 
the full market price of that benefit.

Why should education be exempt from this principle? If they can’t afford it, at the full market price, they can’t have 
it. Just like a bedroom tax in reverse.

Bring back 
the birch

From: Steven Dickinson, Beeston Road, Leeds.

YOUR report about the firemen being attacked (Yorkshire Post, January 8) makes sombre reading. The answer is the birch! Let the country decide with a referendum.

Man’s world doesn’t work

From: Iain Morris, Caroline Street, Bradford.

I THINK it is about time 
women were given the chance to rule the world because looking around the world after all these centuries it is obvious men are still failing.