Petrol issue fuels debate 
on Europe

I COME before you as a simple pensioner who craves indulgence for my failing grasp on reality.

Ten of my youthful years were spent as a paratrooper regularly preparing for confrontation with various hostile regimes around the world.

According to your newspaper (The Yorkshire Post, January 16) reducing fuel prices in the Yorkshire Dales now requires approval from 27 separate foreign states. Many of their representatives, unelected by ourselves, often seem ill-disposed towards the UK.

Can someone please explain how such a situation enhances the domestic, economic, and strategic interests of this country?

From: June Warner, Kirk Deighton, Leeds.

MANY voters who know vaguely that, like Ukip, they despise the EU, do not always grasp the most important point.

Twenty years ago, the EU finances were in such a mess they were forced to create their own Court of Auditors to point out all the deficiencies – presumably so that they could be addressed. But negative report has followed negative report and next to nothing has been done. Indeed, not once in the two decades of its existence have the accounts been signed off.

Times-a-many, phrases like ‘found too many cases of EU money not hitting the target or being used sub-optimally’. ‘corruption’ and ‘system failure’ are reported. Currently, only Ukip (Grant Woodward, The Yorkshire Post, January 20) are attacking these abject failures which are wasting our money.

From: Graham Branston, Emmott Drive, Rawdon.

AS the pantomime season is almost over, another is about to open. It is the ‘PPP’ ie. political promises panto. Watch it unfold as we approach the general election. Call me cynical, but post election, watch the sequel, ‘ELF’ ie. excuses, lies and failures evolve. The newly-elected MPs will definitely be laughing –all the way to the bank.

The left’s double standards

From: G.C. Wilson, Forest Crescent, Harrogate

RECENT events have exposed a deep vein of hypocrisy in the liberal left of the UK. On the one hand they leap to the defence of the French satirical magazine which seems to specialise in gratuitous insults to religious and non religious organisations around the world.

On the other they immediately condemn anyone who uses words which were in common use in this country to describe people of other countries. A further example is their condemnation of the Sun (for which I have no time) for the use of page three girls. If they defend the right of French satirists to print what they like, why do they condemn the Sun?

What is required is regard for other people who may be different from themselves, respect for their beliefs and restraint in their disagreement with these beliefs.

Warning of
rail closure

From: Michael Meadowcroft, Former Liberal MP, Waterloo Lane, Leeds.

TOM Richmond’s comments on Network Rail (The Yorkshire Post, January 17) and the chaos at Finsbury Park are very apposite, but the curious thing is that it was not a late and unplanned situation.

My brother was due to travel from King’s Cross to Leeds on December 28 and he checked for operational problems on December 17, 11 days beforehand.

There was clear information on the East Coast website that King’s Cross would be closed on December 28 and that trains would start and finish at Finsbury Park. On this basis he chose to postpone his trip.

It was not an unplanned closure and there was no excuse for the problems that ensued.

Winter’s tale 
of hyperbole

From: Tim Mickleburgh, Boulevard Avenue, Grimsby, Lincolnshire,

IT is right that people should be warned by the media about potentially wintry weather, as the cold does affect vulnerable groups. And being less likely to have a car, greater is the possibility of them having to avoid icy pavements among the many paths they will have to walk along.

Even so, I do think that sometimes certain newspapers unnecessarily panic people. Take the recent cold snap, when headlines screamed of up to six inches of snow and temperatures down to minus 10 or less.

Further examination would have revealed such snowfalls and temperatures only in the Scottish highlands and perhaps places such as the Lake District.

Where is the
bias over BBC?

From: Allan Davies, Heathfield Court, Grimsby.

AS I read William Snowden’s letter (The Yorkshire Post, January 15), I recalled my early days at work in 1945. In the canteen, a staunch Conservative frequently complained of left-wing bias at the BBC and insisted it was run by ‘Commies’.

I have heard similar complaints from the right many times since. It has often occurred to me that any bias may well be that of those who complain rather than that of the BBC. Has it ever occurred to Mr Snowden?