Still demand for ship-building

ALL these shipyards closing because orders for the Royal Navy are drying up, as must have been foreseen for years (Yorkshire Post, November 14).

So what efforts, if any, have been made to attract orders for naval vessels from other countries? After all, Britain has a fair tradition of warship-building. Surely emerging and newly-prosperous nations will, some of them at least, want coastal defence ships? But if no order can be found for naval vessels, what about all other types of shipping? The world has not stopped moving materials about over the oceans – this trade continues to grow. One is left with the feeling that BAE have been so feather-bedded by the State that they (perhaps rightly) fear to enter the real world. Whatever the reason, it all seems pretty pathetic.

Trial by MPs

From: John Senior, Skelmanthorpe, Huddersfield.

LIKE a number of people, I am perturbed when the police are required to investigate complaints against members of the police force, but am I the only person perturbed when a select committee composed entirely of Andrew Mitchell’s colleagues ‘try’ members of the Police Federation?

The same people, apparently have the power to have the inquiry into the incident re-run when they disapproved of the outcome of the original process. If these men have broken the law, let them be charged and let an unbiased judiciary decide upon their guilt and any punishment. Even with our expensive judicial system, I’m sure it would be cheaper and fairer.

Stiffer sentences

From: Roger M Dobson, Ash Street, Crosshills, Keighley.

EVERY time I turn the radio or TV on, or open a newspaper someone else has been murdered. Surely now is the time for the jail sentence for a convicted murderer to be put up to life and mean life?