Restore the Ridings of Yorkshire like Baron Jonathan Caine says - Yorkshire Post Letters

I COULD not agree more with the call by Baron Jonathan Caine for the restoration of the county’s Ridings after speaking out in the House of Lords (The Yorkshire Post, September 17).

Once again, it shows the House of Lords being a good cross section of society and showing they are fully in touch with those that they serve.

The whole of local government reorganisation in 1974, and much of it since, has been a total waste of taxpayers’ money, costing millions more to run and too big to set any standards and adhere to them.

The Ridings of Yorkshire go back 1,000 years.

I am also fed up going into the Yorkshire Dales and seeing the historic signs pinched or broken.

It would nice to see the signs restored to their former glory.

A good campaign for The Yorkshire Post.

From: Louise Mauborgne, Glasshouses.

THE Government has now introduced a new clause into the Elections Bill to remove a form of Proportional Representation (PR) from Mayoral elections in England in favour of the archaic system of First Past the Post (FPTP).

The reason commonly given is “it works well”. It works well for who? For their party! Under FPTP a “majority” can amount to one vote.

If voter turnout is low, that “majority” can be as low as 16 per cent (e.g. Harrogate Bilton by-election 2021).

To my mind this is a “lose”. How can it be a win? What post are we talking about?

Under a fair voting system, seats equal votes. It is common sense. Each seat should broadly equal the same number of votes.

I am shocked to see democracy in England slither down the drain like this. In North Yorkshire the Conservatives would still probably hold a majority, but debates on policy would be richer and better informed if the views of voters from all parties were heard.

The new North Yorkshire mayoral elections in 2023 would benefit from a richer, more inclusive discourse rather than one party’s ideas only.

From: Otto Inglis, Crossgates.

AS I looked through the list of government appointments in Boris Johnston’s reshuffle, I had a eureka moment.

Beyond some leading ministers and a couple of others who had campaigned for Brexit, I had never heard of any of them.

Not a single one of them had come to public attention for arguing strongly and passionately for or against anything.

And then the penny dropped. We have such poor government, because ministers and their juniors are selected for their complete lack of concern about what actually happens in the real world.

As long as lack of concern for the real world, more often than not coupled with ignorance of it, is the route to political advancement, we will be