Prosperity can only come from manufacturing

WHEN will our out of touch politicians realise that the country’s economy cannot be run on house building, the price of houses, and borrowing money to buy houses?

It needs to be based on a solid manufacturing base. Like giving £1.4bn contracts for trains to British firms and not letting the EU tell us that such contracts should be given to the Germans (Andrew Adonis, Yorkshire Post, October 12).

As for public infrastructure projects, instead of wasting billions of pounds on useless wind farms which are not going to save the world and worse still, do not make any electricity worth mentioning, we need to spend this money building more conventional coal-fired and nuclear power stations, using only British firms, while we perfect the methods required to generate enough power using the sub-sea tides, as unlike the wind, the tides never stop.

The same goes for our defence procurement. Why do we buy lorries for our forces from Germany when there are British firms more than capable of supplying these lorries?

We have some great manufacturing industries in this country and these, and new ones, are what our economy needs to be built upon.

From: Duncan Anderson, Mill Lane, East Halton, Immingham.

WHAT happens if more than 50 per cent of company employees forgo their employee rights, as promised by George Osborne, take the share option, sack the owner and either mutualise, co-operativise or seek nationalisation of the company?

Or will the Chancellor of the Exchequer make sure these company shares have no real voting power, thereby disengaging the shareholders from the company operations?

From: Hilary Andrews, Wentworth Court, Nursery Lane, Leeds.

OF course George Osborne is right when he says that it is unfair that young married working couples have to weigh up carefully how many children they can afford to bring up whereas those on benefits can have as many children as they wish.

They get a bigger house and their benefits increase. It is high time that we, the taxpayers, only gave benefits for the first two children and after that you are on your own.

This would save millions and, hopefully, encourage more responsibility.

From: Tim Mickleburgh, Boulevard Avenue, Grimsby.

AT a time of austerity and public spending cuts, many are arguing for a reduction in the amount we spend in overseas aid. Well obviously, like any other part of the state budget, we must be careful that money is spent wisely. Which probably means it going to the British aid agencies at work on the ground, and not to some despot leader who would fritter it away on arms spending and the like.

Apart from that however, it is good on humanitarian grounds that we as a rich western nation are willing to help those not as lucky as ourselves. And in the long run we will gain from other nations becoming richer, and more able to buy our products.

My concern, though, is that David Cameron may be using his liberal stance on aid to disguise the fact that when it comes to home spending (or cutting) his government is certainly following in the Thatcherite tradition.

Bettison must stand down

From: Andrew Suter, Station Road, Ampleforth.

I REFER to Sir Norman Bettison, Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police (Yorkshire Post, October 13).

At the time of the Hillsborough disaster in 1989, he was a chief inspector, a mid-ranking officer not in a position to make major policy decisions and the public should to be fair to him and bear this in mind when talking of his role in the aftermath of the disaster.

However, I do feel that given the number of allegations now made against him, the more recent involving his recent behaviour, and the seriousness of the allegations made, he should either stand down now or be suspended from duty.

As a retired constable, I am confident that if I was serving under Sir Norman, guilty or not, I would without question have been suspended from duty in the interest of fairness to all parties involved.

From: H Marjorie Gill, Clarence Drive, Menston

IT is to be hoped that the latest Hillsborough investigations start right at the beginning from the time the football authorities knew how many Liverpool fans were to be expected and the arrangements to cater for their entry to the ground. Nobody has given the general public any indication of how the arrangements were made.