Saturday's Letters: How can a nation let down its grandparents so cruelly?

The basic state pension is 97.65 for a single person and 58.50 based on the spouses' or civil partners' National Insurance contributions (a situation in which many married women aged over 70 find themselves largely as a result of the different social conditions of their younger days and the confusion of legislation by various governments).

Ms Reeves refers to the single pension credit, of course, and even then for a couple it is 202.40 per week or between the two 101.20 – a net difference of 62.80 per week. This sleight of hand by the Brown-Darling administration appears to have escaped her notice in her eagerness to extol the virtues of her party, but not the pensioner.

Quite apart from the disparity between aspiration and reality, pensioners can only gain access to higher figures if they subject themselves to the means test. Now the means test assumes that pensioners can achieve 10 per cent return on their savings – but from where, we would all like to know?

Rather than respecting the older generation and paying a state pension appropriate to their contribution to society and the economy, as other advanced nations do, British politicians prefer a convoluted, demeaning, bureaucratic barrier to the Beveridge dream "that every citizen... can claim as of right when he is past work, an income adequate to maintain him." What the pension credit system is carefully crafted to do is to utilise the low pension and modest savings of the less fortunate to bolster the meagre pension of the desperate.

However, no doubt we all wish Ms Reeves well in her endeavours to improve the lot of state pensions – a new broom etc.

Those pensioners over 70 facing frailty, the rundown of their savings and resorting to expensive equity release schemes are cruelly served by the means tested pension credit scheme. Approximately one third of those over 70 will have passed on within the life of one Parliament – how can a nation worth the name treat its grandmas and grandpas so?

From: GHD Duffitt, Rosedale Avenue, Hartshead, Liversedge, West Yorkshire.

Sports ground that plays a key role in city

From: Mike Hookem, Telford Street, Hull.

I REMEMBER many years ago playing amateur rugby league on the James Reckitt Ground, Chamberlain Road, Hull, and after the game having a few beers in the club house.

How shocked I am now to hear that the present owner has allowed the club house to fall into disrepair (Yorkshire Post, October 19). I am sure many of your readers will remember playing sports on this once marvellous ground, or celebrating a marriage, birthday or anniversary in the fine clubhouse.

The sports field was originally set aside for workers of the Quaker philanthropist Sir James Reckitt; it was sold to the Hull Brewery Company Ltd in 2000 for just under 200,000 and sold on later to its current owner.

A planning application has now been put forward by Barratts to build on this historic 17 acre inner city sports facility.

Residents in the area are strongly objecting to any proposals to build on this land, led by Serji Singh, owner of the local Post Office, who has gathered together a 1,000-plus signature petition against this development and whose actions by putting aside profit for the good of the community are laudable. The objections are many and sincere.

I have already spoken of the loss of a sports facility and inner city green space but you may recall in 2007 the field acting as a flood plain and the criticism that there wasn't enough green land to act as soakaway, because developers keep building on sports fields.

Also, Chamberlain Road is part of the ring road and already has problems due to heavy traffic volume; this development can only make this worse.

There are many brown field sites in Hull which are yet to be developed such as the Skeltons bakery site on Lorraine Street and wasn't it John Prescott, the former East Hull MP, who said that the development of brown field sites should have preference over the ever scarce green areas?

Once this pocket of green land has been developed, it will be lost forever to the sporting youth of this city.

There are many alternative ideas being put forward by the local population but a firm plan is on the table. A local syndicate led by Serji Singh is willing to purchase the land, restore it as a sports complex and return it to its former glory. To lose the James Reckitt playing fields would be a great loss not only to the residents of Drypool but also to the city of Hull.

Tory grandee's high treason

From: JW Smith, Sutton-on-Sea, Lincolnshire.

A BUSINESS mogul supports Lord Young and questions why he was sacked (Yorkshire Post, November 22).

While most people disagree with Lord Young, those who suffered through the previous recessions in the 1980s and '90s, which were local – not worldwide – with high interest rates and increased unemployment, know they are in fact better off now.

So, why did his remarks so infuriate David Cameron? Could it be that, contrary to what he and his colleagues said in opposition, what Lord Young said was actually an affirmation of the competent way the recession was handled by the previous Labour government? In the eyes of most Tories, something like this from a Conservative grandee is bordering on high treason.

A policy of hypocrisy

From: Malcolm Naylor, Grange View, Otley.

THE spectacle of Tory Education Secretary Michael Gove pontificating about inequality is too much to bear (Yorkshire Post, November 25).

If inequality is so important to him, why is he not out in the street throwing pounds up in the air for distribution by the wind? We have a Government not only of incompetent idiots but also greedy hypocrites.

And the latest insult is David Cameron seeking an index for happiness. Has not inequality got anything to do with it? It is the very thing they claim to take an interest in.

And these same millionaires who also pontificate about increases in student fees received their university education free.

Hypocrisy is the policy of this government. If we behave like docile sheep we will be treated like them. Sheared, slaughtered and covered with mint sauce.

If Cameron wants an index of happiness he doesn't need to spend 2m making us more miserable to find it. Look up Ecclesiastes, who proclaimed the dead were happy and the unborn are the happiest of all.

Cameron goes off-track

From: P Dransfield, Great Heck, near Goole.

I AM wondering if there was a mistake at the recent election whereby Gordon Brown and David Cameron were beamed up into a spaceship and had brain transplants. David Cameron seems intent on eclipsing Gordon Brown's spending spree.

He is planning new railways when the rest of us are sorting out the last lot that were built (Yorkshire Post, November 26).

For a tiny fraction of the money, we could have existing railways modernised, there are still lots of them about.

Then he is giving the Irish 7bn to cover up their spending spree over the last seven years or so. Almost everyone said it would end this way. Cameron should keep the money so that we can have it here to spend.

Blair did nothing about fat cat earnings, nor did Mrs Thatcher. Will Cameron or Miliband? It seems unlikely.

Good PR, but bad economics

Peter Broadley, Broadley & Co, West Vale Chambers, Stainland Road, Greetland, Halifax.

It does seem surprising in view of the admittedly small cuts in public expenditure (compared with the deficit), that since the Emergency Budget the Government has managed to find at least 7bn to give to the Irish (bearing in mind the billions which the Republic received in net refunds from the EU on the first seven years of their membership of this con club).

Now the Government can find further billions to give public sector workers another paid holiday, to celebrate Prince William and Kate's nuptials, worse still, they have imposed on me and all other private employers a massive bill to give staff an extra day's holiday!

As usual, Dave, good PR and bad economics.

Decline in sea fish stocks is a deliberate policy

From: RD Leakey, Giggleswick, Settle.

AS a 96-year-old ex-commercial fisherman, I remember in the 1930s when the "side winder trawlers" came into the North Sea ports with enough fish to fill a whole railway truck. It had to be eaten in the towns and cities before it rotted because there were no freezers in those days.

Just think what a financial disaster such fish landings would be to the food industry if we had that abundance of fish now.

It was most infuriating to see in the Fishing News of November 19, 2010, that the fishing industry is now run by non-fishermen in smart suits hell-bent on destroying the industry because the last thing they want is large quantities of fish causing prices of other food to drop.

The restoration of fish stocks is something the finance industry will not allow to happen.

It has been said that fishing profits will boom if stocks were allowed to recover, which was quite a false statement.

In Fishing News there was a picture of five steam trawlers going to Belgium to be scrapped, More evidence of the policy of deliberate destruction is the trawling of small fish where dead discards are thrown back to seagulls and larger fish removed so that there is no chance of them breeding. Another lethal strategy is using trawls to smother to death all nephrops, prawns, crabs, scallops. oysters and other demersal human food crustaceans and of course, polluting river estuaries with chemicals. There is a financial policy of causing the demise of sea fish stocks, so as not to interfere with the profits flowing in with high prices of other food as it gets scarcer.

It should be the Yorkshire people who restore the sea fish stocks in the North Sea with modern fish farming and water technology.

These students are just yobs

From: John Darby, Hope Street, Staincross, Sheffield.

ONCE again, students have taken to the streets of the country and caused mayhem, damage and injury (Yorkshire Post, November 25). Surely we think of these people as having a modicum of intelligence, but obviously not. It's frightening to think they may be teaching our future generation.

It's a pity that the Government is so weak-kneed as to have police vehicles vandalised and property damaged. Why not have a proper riot squad as in other countries?

Everyone has the right to complain and make their point, but these people are no more than yobs and in no way can their actions be justified. All offenders should be given an immediate prison sentence and let's keep our streets free of the mindless yobs.

From: Dr Hilary Andrews, Nursery Lane, Leeds.

SURELY I am not the only one sick to death of these student protests? They must realise that too many people are going to university and getting, in many cases, useless degrees.

Unfortunately, when they have a degree, they feel themselves above any work that is "beneath" them. They must learn that life is hard and any job is better than the indignity of being on benefits.

Let's judge the inspectors

From: Robert Dring, Keal Cotes, Spilsby, Lincolnshire.

IF schools are to be judged by their results, so should their inspectors. "Too many teachers give dull and uninspiring lessons, says Ofsted" (Yorkshire Post, November 24). If this is still the case after more than 15 years of its inspection regime, then Ofsted is surely a failing quango in need of rigorous reform.

Some people of great integrity and proven teaching ability work for Ofsted. These should be given discretion and freedom to act as critical friends to teachers. Then, where they find improvement is required, they should roll up their sleeves and demonstrate how the job should be done. Those unwilling to take this approach should retire gracefully, saving millions of taxpayers' money and enabling the inspection system, currently "no better than satisfactory" to become "outstanding", even inspirational!