No democracy while we have monarchy

BRITONS reject true democracy for the sake of having a monarchical head of state – even though their cousins across the Atlantic have the kind of democratic rights all rational people crave for.

But because George Osborne is giving the royals a whopping £6m pay increase, amounting to a taxpayer-funded rise of almost 20 per cent, the future of the British Monarchy is now looking increasingly untenable.

Indeed, as ordinary Britons face more cuts and years of economic uncertainty, the legions of state-sponsored cronies and devoted royalists are finding it hard to placate public hostility and thus ensure the Windsors’ survival.

It means that a colossal haemorrhage of support for the Queen and her kept family is a most serious possibility in the coming months.

Some commentators have even said that the monarchy is on the brink of disaster. When all the hidden costs are calculated the royal family sets us back over £200m every year. It is, quite simply, an extravagance Britain can ill afford for much longer.

Still Rolling
over the rest

From: Ms M Hall, Victoria Road, Barnsley.

HAVING watched the Rolling Stones on BBC4, oh, what a relief to be convinced that they were excellent....

After seeing the Rolling Stones in 1962-63, first in London then Brighton, in scruffy pubs (always the best for cheap drink and brilliant groups), I took a photograph I will cherish for ever. Next time I saw them they were singing Come On and we were right – these boys were good. A whole 50 years later they are still good.

Any band who declares that they would never still be singing at the age of 70 is right. Who is going to watch One Direction, Girls Aloud and people like Will-i-am in 50 years time?

Thank God for the Rolling Stones. No face lifts. No false hair. No suntans. No false lashes, lips etc! Just the Rolling Stones with their wrinkled faces and brilliant charisma.

And here come their fans – grandmas, dads, sons, daughters, grandchildren and great-great grandchildren! I rest my case.

The real thing will never be diminished. My mum said that Mick Jagger was ugly – that was until she saw my first serious boyfriend!

Merits of the
free bus pass

From: David Tankard, Birkdale Avenue, Knaresborough, North Yorkshire.

THE Conservative Party, or at least one of their senior Ministers supposedly representing the views of the party, suggests that the more wealthy holders of concessionary bus passes shouldn’t use them. I now regularly use mine to travel from Knaresborough to Harrogate.

That reduces congestion, reduces pollution and releases a parking space for those with no alternative. If however I did not get subsidised transport, I would not use the bus, but simply get in my car. I have many friends who would do the same. The buses would be less used and services reduced or even withdrawn, to the detriment of those who do pay. That would lead to even more car use.

Thus, at a stroke, the Conservatives would seriously damage our environment.

Do these Ministers ever think about the repercussions of their ideology?

Pay tarnishes local politics

From: Alan Chapman, Beck Lane, Bingley.

FORTY years ago on the first Thursday in May 1973, the big bang in local government took place across the UK. All the major urban cities became Metropolitan Councils, including my own area of Bradford and surrounding small authorities.

I was one of 93 elected founder member of Bradford Met in those inaugural elections, perchance it turned out I was the youngest Conservative councillor at the age of 30. I stood down from public life in 1980.

Posing the question, are we any better off with Metro local government? I am often told 
that it was better under the former local regime, when all councillors were unpaid voluntary people.

Up to 1980 few Bradford Metro Councillors received over £500 pay per annum; today all of them get a basic minimum of £13,042 per annum, and 10 receive over £30,000. Leeds councillors are higher paid, in the region of £14,727 per year.

Is there any wonder that the general public view councillors with disdain?

I believe that these significantly higher payments to councillors have contributed to the 
reduction of party membership over the last 20 years, for all 
the major political groupings 
and I expect the decline to continue.

Clarke is the real clown

From: Rodney Atkinson (Ukip leadership candidate 2000), Meadowfield Road, Stocksfield, Northumberland.

KENNETH Clarke accuses Ukip of being “clowns”. I can think of no other politician who has so ably demonstrated that he is a clown than Kenneth Clarke.

Clarke demonstrated his utter buffoonery when on a visit to the North in the 1990s he said he was pleased the Consett Iron Company was doing well – until it was pointed out that it had closed years before his visit. He then said that he was nevertheless pleased that a nappy factory was doing well in Consett – until it was pointed out that that had also closed.

Clarke was of course the great supporter of the euro and Britain’s membership of it. That has lead to the decimation of European economies, financial breakdown, unemployment of up to 57 per cent for youth in Spain and Greece and 12 million unemployed and social deprivation on a massive scale in the eurozone. Clarke is the clown and a rather unpleasant and dangerous clown at that.