Power more important than the NHS

AS I write this, it’s bitter cold and dark outside. Thankfully the lights are on and the heating is working. But picture a time when that may not be the case.

Make no mistake, our electricity supply is on a knife-edge. We’re relying on Russia, Norway and Quatar (of all places) to provide the means by which we continue to keep a power supply. I tell my friends and family that the most important thing in this country is not the NHS or defence or the economy – it’s electricity.

Without electricity, there’s no water, no sanitation, hospitals stop working, money supply stops, nobody gets paid, no mobile telephony, no heating (even gas boilers require electricity), no petrol or diesel and no food in our shops. And then what? Anarchy on the streets?

And what’s our Government doing? It’s closing perfectly good power stations like Ferrybridge and potentially Eggborough, to gamble on a variety of uncertain sources with the vague hope that sometime in the future nuclear or gas plants will come on-stream and save us from the darkness.

They have to stop all of these closures until viable, reliable alternatives are up and running - then close the older plants. To do otherwise puts us all at risk. Tell your MP to get his finger out!

Pre-Thatcher
UK was mess

From: Mrs Valerie Moody, Little Smeaton, Pontefract.

DO your correspondents who vilify Margaret Thatcher so vociferously honestly have no memory of just how parlous a state this country was in during the latter half of the 70s? Shopping by candlelight? Can younger people comprehend that reality today?

I was unlucky enough to be hospitalised for a month in February 1979 during the winter of discontent! My husband brought me nourishing flasks of soup and my mother provided clean bed linen when supplies on the wards were exhausted. How I survived I do not know. My condition was exacerbated by the fact that I spent three days at home in agony because my local hospital would not accept any admissions!

Can people not remember? Margaret Thatcher had many faults but can one really think, avid patriot that she was, that she would accept the present situation with our national services set to be put under even more pressure? As for social housing, where was the massive investment during Labour government administrations? Too busy spend, spend spending on jobs for the boys in local government across the land.

Fact of coast
ship assault

From: Eric Houlder, Carleton, Pontefract.

MAY I add a note of clarification to Andrew Robinson’s report (Yorkshire Post, January 1)? The German raid on Scarborough on December 16, 1914, was not carried out by gunboats but by the battlecruisers (full size battleships minus the heavy armour) SMS Derfflinger, and SMS Von Der Tann. There was no concurrent air raid, as suggested by the writer.

This, together with attacks on Whitby and Hartlepool, was an attempt to draw part of our fleet based at Rosyth and Scapa Flow into a trap of U-boats and mines. It did not work!

As an American commentator wisely remarked: “The High Seas Fleet (German) has assaulted its jailer, but is still in jail.”

Why plastic’s still fantastic

From: H Marjorie Gill, Clarence Drive, Menston, Leeds.

RE your article “Green appeal to shun plastic bags” (Yorkshire Post, January 1). Actually plastic bags and wrappings are such useful materials that modern life would be very difficult to manage without it. They keep vegetables fresh and contains nasty smelly/dirty/foody items thrown away in the wheelie bins.

Plastic bin liners are a must for our pedal bins – I imagine most people use shopping bags for this purpose. When we are trying to save paper, plastic bags are used.

The solution must be to find a way of making bags biodegradable when they reach the the landfill sites. Surely our chemistry boffins will be able to sort something out to manage this problem. Give a reward for the first to find the solution.

Sorry tale of cycling row

From: KS Chapman, Olive Grove, Harrogate.

ON Sunday, October 27, I was very nearly run down by five cyclists riding on the pavement.

I rang the police to report it. I was told that an officer would come to take a statement at 12pm on Wednesday, October 30. No one came.

On November 20, I sent a letter of complaint. On November 28, 
I received a letter from the 
police stating that they would deal with my complaint on December 19.

Two police officers came to 
see me but all they did was 
write down word for word 
what I had already advised in 
my letter.

My letter was my statement. Why wasn’t it good enough?

On the following Sunday, another police sergeant came to get yet another signature from me. How pathetic.

This carry on is nothing more than a total waste of time, money and resources, all paid for by the council tax payers of North Yorkshire.

Honours that
deserve boot

From: David W Wright, Uppleby, Easingwold, North Yorkshire.

I VERY rarely agree with Jayne Dowle and her opinions expressed in her weekly column, but her remarks concerning 
the now discredited annual 
New Year Honours jamboree is spot-on (Yorkshire Post, December 30).

The Honours system has been devalued over the years by politicians and the Palace by handing out dubious “honours” like Smarties to overpaid entertainers and the political brigade.

The same remarks apply to the creation of peers etc – simply to swell the ranks of the House of Lords with supporters of the political party which happens 
to be in power thereby creating an undemocratic balance 
of power and mockery of the original concept of the 
Second Chamber at great expense to the taxpayers.

Together with the so-called democratic EU, which is 
far from democratic, these institutions should be demolished.