Numbers don’t add up

IT is ridiculous to read the assertion by the boss of the charity NSPCC, Andrew Flanagan, that one in five children in this country have suffered abuse or neglect.

That would mean that I would know of about 20 people who have been ill-treated, and multiplied by this all the overlap from my friends and acquaintances. This is simply not true.

There is no way such facts could be hidden or overlooked.

In my opinion this man is simply trying to force the Government to provide more funds than the country can afford instead of looking at different ways of sorting out the miserable lives which sadly occur in far too many families.

Farmers milked

From: A Scott, South Cave, Brough.

the Government seem surprised that we will have to buy and borrow so much from abroad. Yet they stand idly by while dairy farmers are quitting in droves – forced out by monopoly buyers. Milk is cheaper than bottled water!

The role that agriculture could and should play in the economy was cold-shouldered by the last government, and the penny has yet to drop with the coalition.

Humber blunder

From: Bryan Davis, Thornhams Way, Elloughton, East Riding of Yorkshire.

I AGREE with the comments made by Brian Haigh (Yorkshire Post, February 19) regarding the use of “Yorkshire and the Humber”.

This stems from the political failure that was “Humberside” which eventually met its end in 1996 after 20 years of public protest.

Unfortunately the political classes cannot accept that they got it wrong and continue to refer to the wider region as “Yorkshire and the Humber”.

If we need to retain the regional boundaries as they are, then it would be more appropriate to use the designation “Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire”.