Osborne has grown into his job

AFTER listening to George Osborne at the Conservative conference, I must say how disappointed I am with your Editorial, which I find more insipid than Mr Osborne’s speech (Yorkshire Post, October 4).

We were not totally convinced with Mr O at the beginning of his time as Chancellor but now feel that he has certainly grown into the job. Indeed, he spelt out the situation clearly and invited us as a nation to weather the economic storm.

I agree that politicians should not be solely judged for their oratory skills but I feel that the media should be judged at times for their criticism skills and wonder what they would do in similar governmental posts, particularly given what this Government inherited from the last one, together with the world economic climate.

From: T Marston, Lincoln.

I REALLY enjoyed David Cameron’s speech, so full of exhortation and leadership (Yorkshire Post, October 6).

One fault – no policy, no route map.

But resounding advice – just no direction and no leadership.

Churchill could be thus excused in 1941 – he had probably more than just a Plan B. Churchill wanted to fight them on the beaches etc. Anywhere!

Cameron doesn’t seem to know where the fight should be pitched – except that we should fight.

No wonder he doesn’t want to discuss policy – they haven’t got one for the economy. He hopes we will find our own. We probably will – before he does.

From: John Gordon, Whitcliffe Lane, Ripon.

THE Prime Minister, a PR man and the product of an all-boys school, suddenly remembers that women have the vote, so he apologises for a sexist remark.

But such an apology is in itself sexist, so he makes things worse rather than better. Judging from the batch of new female MPs, I am sure that chivalry is the last thing they want; they want to be considered 100 per cent representatives of their constituents.

If the former PR man has PR advisers, it’s time they did their job.

From: Ernest Dufton, The Faulds, Sedbusk, Hawes.

FOLLOWING the closing speech by the Prime Minister at the Conservative conference, William Hague was being interviewed by Andrew Neil on TV.

My attention was particularly grabbed by his reply to a question regarding something to do with the present financial predicament.

The content of the question was not important to me, nor the answer, it was the way the answer was made.

Quoting some enormous figure the gist of the reply was “bla.bla... eighty five billion pounds... bla.bla”.

However, the actual words used by William Hague were “.... eighty five thousand million pounds….”.

A “thousand million pounds” sounds like an awful lot more money than a “billion pounds”. How much debt did Labour actually leave following their “13 glorious years” – was it billions or was it thousands of millions?

Leave speed to the drivers

From: Peter Neal, Mill Road, Cleethorpes.

I MUST reply to the column by Jayne Dowle (Yorkshire Post, October 3) with regard to higher speed limits. The present 70mph motorway speed limit has survived for more than 40 years, yet with current car technology, the proposed increase to 80mph is sensible, feasible and long overdue.

As a hackney carriage driver and a Leeds United home and away season ticket holder, it is particularly frustrating to be bunched up crawling at 70mph with the car capability being considerably higher. Driving on motorways late at night or early mornings with virtually no traffic certainly justifies 80mph.

Similarly, in adverse weather or when traffic is very busy, conditions dictate that a lower speed is the order of the day.

How Jayne Dowle can speculate that with an 80mph limit it will lead to more accidents defies belief.

As an advanced driver, I consider that provided motorists drive according to the prevailing conditions, increasing the speed limit is perfectly safe.

Motorways are the safest roads in this country so why do we need a speed limit at all?

Lack of speed hits Tube plan

From: D Yates, Springwell Lane, Doncaster.

IN recent months, there have been several letters and articles in the Yorkshire Post about re-using life-expired London Tube stock on the Leeds-Harrogate-York line.

The early figure for this “enterprise” was quoted as £150m.

May I state a few factors to illustrate some of the fallacies of such a scheme?

London Tube stock is designed for an underground system (with some overground running) certainly not for cross-country overground running.

Most of the Tube system twists and turns under London’s streets in “cut and cover” tunnels and/or in true tunnels winding around/over/above etc the basements, buildings and many and varied subterranean structures of the city.

Usually there are only a few hundred yards or a mile or two between central London stations, hence its trains are designed for rapid acceleration – to depart stations quickly – up to a low maximum speed.

Because they will soon reach the next station or are limited by the twisting and turning, they have no need for high speed capabilities.

Hence their design maxima of some 40-50mph or so.

It would take major re-engineering to increase this speed.