Naive Nick Clegg shows why politicians are out of touch

HAVING read the opinion column by Nick Clegg (Yorkshire Post, October 9) and his support for the UK’s continued membership of the EU, I am amazed at his naivety and even more amazed of his belief that if the UK left the EU it would be economic suicide.

Where have he and his fellow Lib Dems and other EU fanatics been living and working? As MPs, they certainly do not qualify as workers – and one must label them as living in cloud-cuckoo land.

It is a very worrying situation for the future of the UK when we read and hear constantly of the out-of-touch views of our politicians which reinforces the view that potential politicians should have had real first-hand experience of industry and commerce before they are even considered or adopted as potential candidates. The remedy lies in the electorate who should get involved in local and national politics even it is only becoming members locally to inject some sense into the current morbid situation

From: Brian H Sheridan, Redmires Road, Sheffield.

I HOLD no brief for Ed Miliband but his anger with the contemptible Daily Mail is entirely justified.

As a newspaper buff I am I very much in favour of a free press as long as It abides by the traditional rules regarding libel, slander and obscenity. However, I have never understood the familiar equivocation about the limits of reasonable media activity. All right-thinking people know instinctively when the limits of human decency have been crossed.

The Mail was entitled to cite Ralph Miiband’s Marxist background as the Labour leader had made public the fact that he had been influenced by his father. But to construe the 17-year-old Ralph’s less positive remarks on arriving in Britain as a hatred of England is mendacious: the man served his country in the Royal Navy, for heaven’s sake.

We shouldn’t be too surprised at the Mail’s intractability on the subject, which was summed up on TV by their veteran journalist Dame Ann Leslie.

Asked to comment on a reporter’s gate-crashing the memorial service of an uncle of Ed Miliband she smugly opined that the newspaper’s critics should “grow-up”. I have never heard a more succinct or eloquent exposition of what the Daily Mail stands for.

From: Keith Sturdy, Grimbald Road, Knaresborough.

OUR power supplies seem to have been in jeopardy over the last few years due to the dithering of both the last two governments, on renewable energy, climate control, and of making promises and projections that could never be kept.

We are all well aware that we have been ripped off by the big power giants. We are also aware that that there is no easy fix to this situation, or if there is why hasn’t the Labour Party during 13 years of power, or the present government done something about it?

We have been warned that if we get another hard winter that power cuts could occur, and we have seen some of the greedy power giants cut back some of their projects already. So why has the leader of the Labour Party decided to inflame the situation even further by stating that he will freeze energy prices ‘if’ they get into power, a promise I doubt he cannot keep?

This is putting us all at risk of being in the cold and darkness over the forthcoming winters. Pardon the pun, but talk about dim wits in power!

From: Terry Duncan, Greame Road, Bridlington.

Well done to Eamonn Holmes, the presenter on Sky’s early morning news programme, persisting with his questioning 
of the Energy Minister and forcing Michael Fallon to admit he was deceiving the public, by initially stating power providers were paying an eco tax of only four per cent when in fact it is a total of nearly 10 per cent, which is then passed on to the consumers.