Police chief deserves sympathy

UNLIKE some, I feel really sorry for Mr Grahame Maxwell, our Chief Constable. Let’s get things into perspective, he hasn’t murdered anyone, he hasn’t robbed anyone, or run off with someone else’s wife. The offence he committed was to help a relative to get a job, in preference to others. Hands on hearts, how many of us, whatever our positions, wouldn’t have done likewise?

If that amounts to gross misconduct, then we have become a right lot of namby pambys and I’ll eat my flat cap.

From: Mrs N Sage, Meadow Rise, Skipton, North Yorkshire.

I WISH to disassociate myself from your Editorial comments (Yorkshire Post, May 11) regarding the Chief Constable of North Yorkshire Police.

I have been a taxpayer to North Yorkshire over the past 35 years and have considered Mr Maxwell to be a very considerable improvement over his predecessor.

He has been found out (and “gross misconduct” may be “police speak” but is not mine), censured and judged by the appropriate authorities. I hope he will continue in post as I dread to think whom the police authority members may find next time.

Conflict is to be avoided

From: D Smith, Sandhill Way, Harrogate.

it is utterly galling to have witnessed our politicians being manipulated into being drawn into the conflict in the Middle East.

The seemingly spontaneous uprisings, supposedly in the pursuit of democracy, are in fact being engineered by religious zealots and far from releasing the masses from tyranny will in fact imprison them in greater indoctrination of religious zealotry.

Those governments that have become involved will find they are guilty of financing and assisting the further spread of religious fanaticism.

The great irony here is that Enoch Powell warned us of this eons ago but his foresight was made to seem irrelevant.

From: Jack Brown, Lamb Lane, Monk Bretton, Barnsley, West Yorkshire.

THE Rev Tony Buglass accuses William Snowden of making “caricatures” of Muslims (Yorkshire Post, May 11).

He specifically refers to an associate’s interpretation of jihad. He should have researched it himself rather than ask an interested party. I researched Muslim vocabulary for a poem and asked a prominent university Arabist to check my definitions. He confirmed them, including: “Jihad: Crusade; both meanings.”

Wrong verdict over bull

From: FJ Rockliff, Camblesforth, Selby.

AFTER a year of frustration, due to intransigence on the part of Defra, the prize-winning bull Hallmark Boxster is to be allowed his further and final TB test (Yorkshire Post, May 7). Should the test prove positive then, no doubt, Defra will claim that their actions were justified. They were not.

As Ken Jackson, the owner of the bull, was prepared from the outset to pay for the extra test, the whole matter could have been resolved 12 months ago at no expense to the taxpayer and scarcely a mention in the Yorkshire Post.

Perhaps Defra felt that, with unlimited public funds at their disposal, they could easily overcome the objections of one solitary farmer. In the majority of cases this would have been so but, in this instance, the Ministry under-estimated the tenacity and courage of Ken Jackson.

I suspect that this case has gone far beyond the confines of the cattle industry and veterinary procedures and entered into the realms of politics – EU politics in particular.

Suez injustice finally righted

From: John Hunt, Bamber Bridge, Preston.

I HAVE written a book – Suez: The Hidden Truths – which details those turbulent years of the Suez campaign of the 1950s, when thousands of troops, many on National Service, were sent to defend the canal zone, often facing appalling conditions.

Even though many of the men who died were only in their teens, we were inexplicably denied a medal, unlike soldiers serving in other campaigns or actions. Now, after a long campaign, this injustice has been righted.

Many Suez veterans – now in their seventies – are delighted with the award of this belated medal, but it is a travesty that it wasn’t issued at the time. It might have been of some comfort to the next of kin of the lads who lost their lives and are buried in the sand at British Military cemeteries in Egypt.