Osborne claim wrong on gay marriages

George Osborne, a Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, has been quoted recently saying the Conservatives will not win the next election if they don’t support gay marriage.

At the risk of being called a bigot, I totally reject what he has said as pure nonsense. He has obviously been living among the so-called Liberal elite in Greater London to come to that conclusion.

There is one Conservative here who would not cast his vote in his favour if that appeared in the Tory manifesto.

There seems to be some sort of movement in this country away from the laws of living which have always been held as sacred by my generation. We have abortion on demand, we have proposals to have gay marriages blessed by the Church, we have young teenage girls getting pregnant, and we have free access to the most outrageous pornography at the flick of a switch.

If civilisation is going to last for ever it has to start by obeying certain rules which are the antithesis of what we are beginning to experience at the moment.

I am no religious fanatic or a killjoy. I think I have lived my life to the full. But I have always been aware of what my mother taught me about how to lead my life.

In my opinion we are about to experience such a change in human behaviour similar to that which, it is said, contributed to the downfall of the Roman Empire. We don’t want that here.

Tory MPs fail to do duty

From: George McManus, Whins Lane, Long Riston, Hull.

The refusal of local Tory MPs to back a Labour proposal to postpone a planned 3p increase in fuel duty is thoroughly shocking. Labour MPs opposed the Government in a crucial vote which will see prices at the pumps go up in January.

The Government is intending to increase fuel duty with a measure that will hit thousands of people across the East Riding, especially low-paid workers and pensioners. Low and middle earners are being hit hard while the rich get tax breaks. People living in rural areas will be hit hardest.

The Government cut the tax rate for millionaires and the top one per cent have seen their wages go up 25 per cent this year. They refuse to plug tax loopholes from which their friends benefit.

For local Tory MPs to say they support rural communities and then vote for this measure is sheer hypocrisy. Once again they’ve let their constituents down and toed the party line. They should be ashamed to show their faces.

Better than teaching

From: Sean Quinn, Market Street, Birstall.

it surprises me that anyone wants to become a teacher in England (as opposed to Wales and Scotland, where education is more highly valued).

For 26 years I taught at the same school in the south east of Bradford. It changed from a boys’ grammar school to a co-educational comprehensive for 13 to 18 year olds.

The pupils’ behaviour deteriorated drastically around 1994, and I left after a 14-year-old lout threw a chair at me. He missed. Typical.

I have since worked as a radio operator for taxis and for newspapers and supermarkets. All were less stressful and more enjoyable jobs than teaching.

The unrecognised overtime which teachers have to do is difficult to believe. For the Government to insist on further examinations for aspiring teachers is counter-productive.

Parking woes for patients

From: Chris Giddings, Springwood Drive, Copley Lane, Halifax.

Coun Nader Fekri is quite right (Yorkshire Post, November 14), when he says hospital parking charges are too high in Halifax and Huddersfield. But they are not the only hospitals where excessive charges apply.

Apart from the cost for parking, Coun Fekri should reflect on the effect on the local community surrounding the Calderdale Royal Hospital, Halifax, of hospital parking.

It is a historic complaint but parking arrangements for that hospital are inadequate, forcing staff, patients and visitors to park on surrounding streets or leaving people to drive round and round looking for somewhere to park.

Many of the roads in the Skircoat Green area of the town are now open only to permit holders or metered parking, with certain exceptions, with even those proposed to change.

Whoever gave permission for a major hospital to be built as it is without proper thought for parking should seriously consider their position given their legacy. The hospital along with the Lloyds Banking Group have destroyed resident and shoppers parking in two or three districts of Halifax by their actions.

Flaws in NHS cash study

From: Jo Sheehan, acting director of National Specialised Commissioning, National Specialised Commissioning Team.

IN response to the article 
“NHS chiefs under fire for ‘bias’ in heart storm” (Yorkshire Post, November 15), Coun Illiingworth’s attempt to identify NHS spend on specialised services per head “per region” is fundamentally flawed.

His method of analysis does not reflect that hospitals that provide specialist services for very rare and complex treatments see patients from across the United Kingdom, and in some cases even further afield.

The number of patients that these services see from their own regions are usually no larger than the number of patients that they see from other regions. What Coun Illingworth’s analysis does demonstrate is that there are a number of NHS services in the North East that are competent to provide highly specialist interventions, including specialist cardiothoracic services for children.