Right decision to stay out of Syria conflict

ONCE again, we want to go to war – this time with Syria. When will they learn? We are still fighting in Afghanistan and it’s gone on so long we have forgotten what it is all about. It is just costing us lots of money.

I know it is hard to see all the deaths but at the end of the day it has nothing to do with us. If they come over here dropping chemicals then I would be the first in line to fight for our country. But until then, yes, it is sad. The situation should be taken off the news and it should not be reported on. Just let them get on with it and at the same time, bring our troops out of Afghanistan. Let them all look after themselves and let’s see how much money we could save.

From: Ruthven Urquhart, High Hunsley, Cottingham, East Yorkshire.

HOW many more glaring mistakes and stupid errors of judgment will our PM make during his Tory tenancy?

I am much saddened to realise that he has been proved so wrong, and out of order, by his opinion regarding the ill-conceived HS2 project – and now his decision on Syria.

From: Phyllis Capstick, Hellifield, Skipton, North Yorkshire.

WITH reference to the letter from Peter Hyde (Yorkshire Post, August 31) to give the position of Peace Envoy to the Middle East to Tony Blair, someone who went to war on a lie, beggars belief.

Truth really is stranger then fiction, especially where politicians are concerned. How is it that prime ministers and politicians in general have so little regard for the feelings of people?

We are supposed to be living in a democracy, that being defined as the will of the whole people.

Switzerland manage to stay out of trouble by having referendums on important matters. The people know best – what is right for their country.

Tony Blair had to forge ahead with the Iraq war, at all costs, before anyone could stop him, and what costs they were.

If Saddam Hussein did at that time have weapons of mass destruction targeted on us, ready to be implemented in 45 minutes, as we were told, and we invaded and attacked as we did, surely those weapons would have been unleashed immediately? With, of course, disastrous results on the innocent citizens of this country, who did not want to go to war in the first place.

From: Keith Knaggs, Felbridge, Normanby, York.

WILL the law of unintended consequences kick in following the Syrian vote debacle?

Parliament was probably right to reject military intervention without a clear strategy as to what would happen next. But the vote will have been noted by, amongst others, Spain and Argentina.

How will MPs react if the status of Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands (which we might struggle to defend today) is seriously threatened?

How ironic if the Falklands, which made one Conservative Prime Minister – Margaret Thatcher – destroy another – David Cameron.

From: Peter Neil Taylor, Magnolia Close, Driffield, East Yorkshire.

SO the number of persons currently displaced by the conflict in Syria is estimated as being seven million and counting. When can all this be brought to an end?

The UN personnel reporting on this matter seem to revel in the fact that the number of displacements are so large and that the camp being provided at the crossing point into Jordan will be the biggest in the world.

It would appear that a lot of the money being given to the UN Refugee Agency overseeing this matter is coming from Arab States adjoining Syria.

This is all well and good but it isn’t bringing this terrible conflict to an end.

From: ME Wright, Grove Road, Harrogate.

ONE day, will David Cameron have the humility to acknowledge that Parliament saved him from being Blair Mk2?

I understand that chemical warfare was banned after the horrors of 1914-18, leaving killing other humans with bombs and bullets acceptable.

Whence came Assad’s chemical stockpile? I ask this with some trepidation as, well into this century, we deferentially supplied the southern states of America with chemicals to enable ritual killings in their execution factories; do we still?

From: B Tighe, Woodford Green, Spawater, Essex.

Just as I was thinking of supporting Labour again after their splendid vote on Syria, I learn that some of their Blairites want another vote.

Will the New Labour warmongers never learn? They want to trample on parliamentary democracy in order to drag Britain into yet another war.

If Labour votes for war they can kiss my vote goodbye.

Idea fails to make grade

From: John G Davies, Alma Terrace, East Morton, Keighley.

WHILE the Government’s recognition of the literacy and numeracy problem with many school leavers is to be welcomed (Yorkshire Post, September 3), 
its plan to make these students stay on at school until they 
obtain a Grade C in Maths and English suffers from two problems.

Firstly it mimics the discredited French system of redoublement, repeating a year until the set level is reached.

While this may work with borderline individuals, it risks consolidating failure for others, unless an intensive programme to diagnose and remedy the reasons for failure.

This will be a relatively expensive undertaking for schools, which rather smacks of bolting the stable door after the event. Adding another year of the same after 11 years of schooling seems a bit much.

Individuals at risk of failure 
are largely identifiable before 
they enter school; this is 
where early interventions like Sure Start used to play an important role before their funding was cut.

Problems show up early enough in primary schooling for them to be treated, but again it depends on specialist teaching on programmes like Reading Recovery, which are also expensive though very effective.

I suspect that the only significant result of this reform will be to keep a large number of 16-year-olds out of the unemployment statistics.