Ring-fence 
the road taxes

YOUR Editorial (Yorkshire Post, March 14) on a new direction for motoring taxes made me smile.

When I was a member of the Yorkshire Section of the Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors committee for 20 years starting in the 1960s, this was always top of our agenda at the annual meeting with Yorkshire MPs: why couldn’t the road fund tax be ring-fenced for new road construction, repairs and maintenance?

This suggestion was also sent to many Transport Ministers – some were very sympathetic, but guess who wasn’t? The Treasury.

Of course 50 years ago fuel duty was less of a problem. I can even remember when petrol was 15d a gallon in old money. Sorry – your idea of a major review is by no means new.

Killing question

From: Edwina Shachar, Stonegate, Hunmanby, North Yorkshire.

WHEN this land of ours is free of deer, badgers, foxes, birds of prey etc what are our brave and concerned keepers of the true and natural environment going to kill? One another?

Original words

From: Peter Hyde, Driffield, East Yorkshire.

I AM a Yorkshireman, born and bred and have often heard my late father and late mother-in-law use, and indeed have used, the term myself: “He’s that slow that cobs wouldn’t drop off ‘im.” Can any of your readers tell me where the term originated and just what it means?

Liberal change?

From: Max Hey, Fairway Grove, Bradford, West Yorkshire.

NICK Clegg has said that the Lib Dems are not a party of protest but of change. But what kind of change does he have in mind?

Is it the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act that brought in workhouses or the 1911 National Insurance Act that laid the basis for the Welfare State?

Both were measures of a Liberal government but they had very different impacts.