New policies please, not 
new faces

to me the recent Cabinet reshuffle is somewhat irrelevant. For what we need aren’t different faces round the Cabinet table, but different policies that will actually help people who are somewhat less well off than those outside Downing Street.

In other words, we don’t want tax cuts for high earners, but jobs for those out of work and the living wage for those in employment.

We also require a fear deal for the North when it comes to investment. By that I mean of course northern England, rather than Scotland, which gets Government support to try and stop electors voting for independence.

Furthermore, it doesn’t matter what sex a person is if they are doing a good job. The late Margaret Thatcher proved that what’s in the interests of one woman isn’t necessarily in the interests of their poorer counterparts.

From: Peter Hyde, Driffield, East Yorkshire.

i DON’T understand why William Hague is standing down from Parliament (The Yorkshire Post, July 14).

I would have thought he was almost as indispensable to David Cameron as Willie Whitelaw was to Margaret Thatcher. He was a steady hand at the Tory ship’s tiller.

He will be a loss. Let’s hope his successor is as good in the field of diplomacy.

Some should have gone years ago, but not Mr Hague.

No consensus
on transport

From: Christopher Todd, Cumberland Road, Leeds.

Mr Anderton of Bridlington (The Yorkshire Post, July 11) lectured those of us who live in Leeds and see a trolleybus as quite unsuitable here.

He must be aware that the cities he quotes in both Switzerland and Austria all have long-established systems which take advantage of cheap hydro-electricity.

To counter what he says about Salzburg and its new mayor, one merely has to quote the example of the newly-elected mayor of Narbonne, which is not in the mountains.

He wanted to build an entirely new system, but after only three months in power was forced to admit that it was not feasible.

Horses for courses.

From: G Searstone, 
Moor Lane, York.

The M25, Channel Tunnel, Docklands Light Railway, the Millennium ‘Tent’, the Olympics and now the £15bn Crossrail project. What next for London and the South East?

Might I suggest that the world’s largest dirigible is permanently moored over the Houses of Parliament to symbolise the inflated sense of importance all southern softies are born with and also all the hot air that has been produced in Parliament regarding addressing the North/South divide?

Counter attack
on closed shops

From: LR Hirst, Northorpe, Mirfield.

With reference to the letter from Andrew Jeffrey (The Yorkshire Post, July 8) about shops being closed in Wetherby on the Sunday over the Tour de France weekend, for some people money is not the be all and end all.

It might be that the shopkeepers are Christians and believe in the teachings of the Bible: “and on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made and he rested, 
and God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it” (Book of Genesis).

Or the same shopkeepers might have wanted to visit that part of Yorkshire which is depicted on the same letters page by a photograph of Swaledale.

As far as the loss of a tourist sign is concerned, maybe Harrogate had it removed 
so everyone would shop 
there.

Mr Jeffrey, I don’t think the shopkeepers of Wetherby missed anything on that Sunday and hopefully enjoyed the day with their families.

Pay rises must be across board

From: Trev Bromby, Sculcoates Lane, Hull.

with reference to David Cameron’s plot to pass a law to prosecute union officials who have the audacity to call 
strikes for a fair living wage, an MP on £67,000 per annum 
plus expenses will, with an 11 per cent pay, rise reap £7,370 per annum towards living costs, even though most are claimed on expenses.

Examples of such items are pies, pencil sharpeners, dry rot treatment and so on.

No such luck for his constituent on £15,000 per annum (no expenses).

His one per cent will give him £150 per annum. Even if he received a rise of 11 per cent, he would only get £1,650 – less than 25 per cent of the MPs’ gravy train grab, and still have to pay for his pies.

This, once again, highlights the deceitfulness of the percentage pay rise.

The unions should be pushing for ‘across the board’ pay rises to equally combat inflation.

For Cameron to threaten unions with arrest and prosecution is a vile new 
chapter to the insightful Animal Farm.

“Our leader who art in Downing Street, give us this day our daily kick in the teeth, forgive us our trespasses toward a living wage, for we art all in this together. Amen”.