Saturday's Letters: Give hard-working people the rewards they deserve

Once again, I cringe when reading Bernard Ingham's article (Yorkshire Post, June 30). Let's get one thing straight. Every government since Thatcher, and I include New Labour, has been guilty of perpetuating a low wage economy. The minimum wage has had a double-edged effect. Admittedly, some employers would still be paying as little as 1 per hour but the minimum wage has created a workforce of thousands, if not millions, who depend on benefits to maintain some kind of dignity. This is something that successive governments should be absolutely ashamed of.

Big businesses like supermarkets have welcomed the influx of economic migrants from the poorer parts of Europe. They have been able to employ the majority of their staff on the minimum wage at the same time as making massive profits to pay the ever increasing dividends to their shareholders.

At the other end of the scale, we have witnessed the obscene greed of senior executives in the financial services industry. We have witnessed hundreds of MPs fiddling their expenses and robbing the taxpayer.

Bernard Ingham rightly states that Thatcher reduced unemployment benefit when she knew full well that her policies would increase unemployment. Her party ridiculed Labour's record prior to the 1979 election by showing a poster of the unemployed queuing for their dole. A few years later, there were three million unemployed and industrial centres were turned into wastelands with no hope and we witnessed the birth of the underclass.

The people who have brought this country to its knees are not the trades unions who were blamed by Ingham and Thatcher all those years ago. On the contrary, the ones to blame are the friends of the establishment and the privileged. And what is their punishment? Laws passed by government to curb their excesses? No, a slap on the

wrist and told to disappear with their grotesque pensions and share issues and enjoy your retirement.

Let me tell Bernard Ingham that if a government decides to reward its hard-working people with peanuts and puts all its eggs in one basket, ie, relying entirely on financial services, the culture of benefits is here to stay. Long may it last until decent hard-working people get the financial rewards they deserve – the same people who have bailed out the bankers. As one reader stated, it's strange how billions can be found to rescue the very system that sent us towards the abyss.

From: Andrew Cooper, Ascot Avenue, Kimberley, Nottinghamshire.

Peat moor action could ease floods

From: MJ Potter, Ryedale Flood Research Group & Pickering & District

Civic Society, Undercliffe, Pickering, North Yorkshire.

I LISTENED with interest to a feature on Radio 4's Farming Today, claiming that 90 per cent of the country's peat bogs are dead. To revive them, it was said that moorland gullies and drains should be blocked in order to retain more water within the peat.

As a flood protection campaigner for Pickering and Ryedale, I know that a large area of the catchment for this area is peat moorland and am therefore most interested to know what percentage of the North York Moors is regarded as "dead" and, more importantly, how much more water could be retained by this huge natural sponge, to be released slowly.

As peat dries out and dies, not only does it retain much less water and for a much shorter time, but it also erodes easily to carry large amounts of sediment downstream, which settle in the slower moving rivers of the vales.

From every aspect, this increases flood risk – water moving rapidly down the system to rivers with reduced capacity.

In this harsh financial climate, particularly for public bodies, it strikes me that money from North Yorkshire Moors National Park or Natural England would be well spent improving and restoring our peat moorland by the relatively simple and cheap solution of blocking drainage channels, particularly when there is already a multi-agency demonstration project up and running to co-ordinate, funded by Defra.

If you consider the massive cost of flooding to councils, emergency services, businesses and private individuals, this small investment would appear to stand up well to any cost-benefit analysis. Preferably, it could be done with some alacrity and without a massively expensive consultants' report. Perhaps the National Park and Natural England would like to comment.

Liberty and DNA data

From: James Elsdon-Baker, Wadsworth, Hebden Bridge.

ALAN Johnson writes to defend the previous Government's track record (Yorkshire Post, June 25) on the use of the DNA database and complains of a half-baked libertarian agenda to reform DNA retention on the database.

It's worth us remembering though that the European Court of Human Rights has ruled the blanket retention of innocent people's DNA and fingerprints is in breach of the convention on human rights.

It is therefore the "half-baked libertarians" who are in this instance seeking to uphold the law.

To maintain the principle of law, we must also uphold the rule of law in determining whose DNA is retained, and that requires reform of the retention rules.

It is Johnson's ideological drive that allows him to so easily

disregard this point, so as to defend his record of treating innocent citizens as criminals.

Lost faith in America

From: Jeffrey Beaumont, Marsh Lane, Shepley, Huddersfield.

REGARDING Ross Taggart's letter (Yorkshire Post, June 16) I believe BP acted honourably in the matter, doing all it can to stop the oil flow in the Gulf of Mexico and remedy the situation, while other companies involved have done nothing.

This is in stark contrast to America's involvement in Bophal, where their strategy was to cut and run.

We have stood shoulder to shoulder with the Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan for the last 10 years, with the loss of hundreds of fine young men and women together with thousands of our forces returning with horrific injuries.

This whole affair has shown that Obama's America is no friend of Britain. As a former supporter of Anglo-American co-operation, I admit to being wrong. I now strongly support our withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Don't let the politicians loose on our justice system

From: RC Curry, Adel Grange Close, Leeds.

AWAY from the dramatics, as a result of the recent Budget there are noises being made about changes to the justice system. In these suggestions our politicians may be showing some navete.

It is easy to say that keeping offenders in prison is more costly than having them on community penalties, but the true costs of the latter are rarely totalled. For a start, the "roof over head" figure is distorted as that still falls upon the state, like many other social welfare costs, as so many offenders are in any event unemployed. Managing the offenders and re-training is a cost wherever they may be;

by staff inside the prisons or probation officers and others outside.

Then turn to the not-so-hidden costs to society, police, insurance companies, and all the administration developed by our recent Government, which are brought into play when an offender commits another crime.

Even anti-social behaviour has a cost as PCSOs (police community support officers) and suchlike are a charge on the local authorities, albeit by courtesy of Government-collected taxes.

Now there is talk of reducing the number of courthouses. Who has worked out the costs of the expenses paid to all those involved who will have an entitlement to be paid for travelling the often vastly increased distances? Even appearing by video link has a cost. Much of the need for that nowadays, in the case of remands, is because procedural administration has choked the system into delays.

In any event, have we to demean the justice process even further? Mickey Mouse ticket penalties and other nonsenses have diminished the effect of the law already.

The simple process of arrest and bringing someone before three trained but voluntary unpaid magistrates in a local venue has vanished.

Instead, there is a vast structure of bureaucratic shambles known as Her Majesty's Court Service with semi-interacting departments riddled with administrators; all the costs of which could be properly used directly, as used to be the case, to administer justice.

It is said that there is a reduction in cases being brought to court. That is scarcely surprising as so many offenders, instead of being cuffed, are let off with a slap on the wrist just to offend again. Further, statistics on levels of crime and anti-social behaviour are distorted by the huge changes of the last 13 years.

It is fairly certain that a group of experienced magistrates could

advise the Lord Chancellor and his Ministers rather better than officials who have vested interests in preservation of the system and their jobs. Do not let the politicians loose on the task.

Penny wise, pound foolish

From: Chris Gott, Elland Road, Churwell, Leeds.

WITH reference to the Forgemasters article (Yorkshire Post, June 26), the withdrawal of the Government's 80m loan astounds me. I was hoping that the new Government would be helping the ever-dwindling UK manufacturing sector, not kicking it in the teeth.

These components we require for our self-sufficiency energy programme will be purchased from Japan, they having the only other press of this size at present.

Yet the cuts allow the Government to maintain the level of foreign aid with, unbelievably, China being one of the recipients. The old adage comes to mind: "Penny wise, pound foolish.".

Real Labour

From: Tony Armstrong, Ilkley, West Yorkshire.

MARK Stuart (Yorkshire Post, July 1) writes in an otherwise reasonable and searching article, that "Labour needs to get real on the state of the nation's finances".

However, does he really imagine that some vast improvement in their

collective intellectual powers miraculously took place when they ceased to hold a majority in the House? Labour governments have always placed ideology above logical and rational thought (and action).

Poor law

From: David Asher, Pickard Crescent, Sheffield.

I SEE that Nick Clegg wants to know which laws should be repealed. Well, the candidates are many but one is more important than all others put together – the 1972 European Communities Act.

I would wager many pounds to a penny that this piece of much-needed common sense will (of course) be considered strictly off limits by the

Con-Dems – just as it was with Labour before them. New Government but

no change.