Thursday's letters: Government needs to rethink over coalfield regeneration

My memories of the years 1939-1945 and beyond up to 1952, when my father died tragically young, was of a community employed either at the local colliery or steelworks and munitions factories working tirelessly to help the war effort when steel production was so vital in the armaments sphere and afterwards in reconstruction projects.

Working conditions were fairly primitive and there was a distinct feeling that when the war was over these workers were not going to endure the hardship and insecurity they had endured pre-war.

Better conditions were to be negotiated, including a fairer share of the financial cake and the good leisure centres provided at the local welfares and institutes providing a good social element. To me, miners and steelworkers during the war were heroes in their own right.

Unfortunately, nationalisation did not provide the hoped for golden age. The miners themselves were older, suffering from industrial diseases. Many welfare committees are still saddled with this problem and what are now new communities see green spaces once well used, neglected and vandalised.

Companies in the new units built on former colliery sites bring their own workforce with them and, in any case, cannot hope to create the number of jobs required in a coal mine.

Central Government is now proposing to build 700 new homes in Dinnington.

Where are the inhabitants of these houses going to work? How do they get there? What kind of jobs will be on offer? Where will spaces for relaxation be? Who will maintain them? What will it cost? Who pays?

I certainly think that the Government needs to rethink. What were they thinking about in the first place?

From: JW Slack, Swinston Hill Road, Dinnington, Sheffield.

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From: Geoffrey Thorpe, Lister Avenue, East Bowling, Bradford.

OVER the last few weeks, letters have been printed in the Comment and Letters to the Editor columns blaming the state of this country on Margaret Thatcher during her term as Prime Minister. What people seem to forget is that it was the unions that took on the Government.

Nationalised industries kept going on strike for bigger wages, most of them unreasonable demands.

Workers, mostly union bully boys, thought it their divine right to control the Government and demand higher wages, but if that industry does not make a profit there is no money in the pot, and wage rises had to be funded by taxpayers in the private sector.

Why should private sector workers pay tax to give increases to nationalised industries, coal miners, steel workers, railway workers, and a few others besides?

Unions were needed many years ago as workers were exploited by factory owners and such like and somebody had to make a stand.

We now see unions are going to cause havoc again if the Tories get power at the next election. What is the problem with these people? BA cabin crew are going on strike, a company that makes a loss of millions of pounds has to make changes or it will cease to exist and then there will be no jobs.

As for the bankers' bonuses, this Government pays bonusesto departments that have not even done their jobs correctly. The biggest and most

disgusting department, the Rural Payments Agency, has not got it right in seven years and they get a bonus.

So, the people that blame Thatcher want to take a look at what New Labour has achieved; nothing except to bring the country to its knees.

Only first class politicians can sort out EU

From: D Wood, Thorntree Lane, Goole.

ME Wright's three choices in his letter (Yorkshire Post, March 10) are ill-thought-out.

First, joining Germany and France to sort out the EU. This is impossible because the EU is already run the way that France and Germany want it to be run, with French and German national interests put first. Britain is only there to be humiliated and to pay most of the cost.

The second one, doing as Brussels dictates, will continue – with the exception of the dreaming of Empire part – if any of the three so-called major political parties win the next election, as they all kow tow to the EU.

As for the third, if we had some politicians with the backbone required to reassert our independence, and free us from the governance of the EU, surely these same politicians would not then limply bend the knee to America or anyone else for that matter. Why do so many of your correspondents seem to think that we need to be tied to anyone? Much smaller countries like Switzerland and Singapore seem to do quite well due to effective self-government.

The only things we need are some first class politicians who will put this country and its people before their own self-importance and enrichment.

Men like Winston Churchill, Benjamin Disraeli and Enoch Powell spring to mind. The real tragedy is that there is only Frank Field among the current crop of MPs who can come anywhere near to these great men.

The EU is failing – the euro cannot support the likes of Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Italy. Let us get out before it takes us down with it.

From: David Asher, Pickard Crescent, Sheffield.

OH dear! John Abbott (Yorkshire Post, March 11) seems to have fallen (as many have) for the propaganda machine and has dropped three major clangers in his references to UKIP:

n "Fanatical" is hardly the word to choose for the only party which truly supports democracy.

n Mr Abbott seems to have missed the point that UKIP possesses a full and rich manifesto with virtually every policy having the majority support of the public and;

n UKIP does not advocate "walking out of a single market of 300 million". UKIP wants, and could have, the same associate membership of that trading area enjoyed by so many other nations (without it costing us more than 40m per day).

Regarding the Conservatives; they are just as Europhile as the other main parties (so don't let's kid ourselves) and the Greens – well, they just pretend otherwise to con Eurosceptic voters.

Major flaws in your argument, Mr Abbott.

From: Dorothy Colne, Beckwithshaw, Harrogate.

IT has always been said "experience is a hard school". So few of our present politicians have run successful businesses and very few have served in the Armed Forces, and from the time they have been in the Houses of Parliament no one seems to have learnt from experience.

The older generation is desperately alarmed that no one seems to have an overall grasp of what is happening to this once great country (Yorkshire Post, March 4). It will be a disaster if Turkey is allowed to join the EU and millions more Muslims flood into Britain, already overcrowded because of lax immigration laws, false passports, exam papers, etc.

The NHS is in turmoil providing free treatment and maternity care to enormous families, education likewise. Why should we have to build all these different faith schools? Immigrant children should be educated in British schools and practise their faith at home.

If it wasn't for the immigration problem, we wouldn't have to build thousand and thousands more houses. The EU is responsible for all this misery. Who authorised these unelected people to tell us how to run

our country?

With the election only weeks away, where is the "Churchill" capable of sorting this chaos?

So what about the generation who have "been there, done that, got the T shirt", how do they vote? There isn't much choice.

I personally will vote for anyone who will challenge the stifling EU laws, or better still, get us out of the EU.

From: Mrs Barbara Stark, Ridgestone Avenue, Bilton, Hull.

"EUROPE needs UK says Sarkozy" (Yorkshire Post, March 13). You bet he does! He needs the 45m a day which the British taxpayer gives to the European Union.

From: Mrs J Morgan, Greengate Lane, South Killingholme, North Lincs.

HOW absurd that the European Court of Human Rights is insisting on "votes for serving prisoners".

Now we understand just what the EU means by "human rights". How dare they! This is a moral issue.

Apparently, we are in breach of an EU Directive. Good! We need them like we need a hole in the head.

Well done, Godfrey Bloom MEP, for speaking up on behalf of the "normal majority". UKIP is now the only "voice of the people" across the full range of issues.

MEPs should step down to allow an honest election

From: Mick Haigh, Weaponness Park, Scarborough.

EDWARD McMillan-Scott should resign as a Yorkshire and Humber representative to the European Parliament.

The Yorkshire people's ballot paper last June didn't have "Edward Macmillan-Scott" listed; it was a closed regional list with a "Conservative" option. He has left that party.

Also, as most Yorkshire voters were then unaware that "Conservative" MEPs so elected would ally with hard-right Europeans instead of the mainstream conservatives they have been part of for 17 years, it would be proper that the other Conservative MEP elected, Tim Kirkhope, also stood down. A more honest election could then follow.

Politicians seem to forget it is the electors' votes that matter. Factions and alliances supporting and influencing the Conservative or any other party may have had promises made but it is dishonourable not to declare that influence, and any pledges made, until after an election.

From: Brian Peacock, George Lane, Notton, Wakefield.

THANKFULLY, Edward McMillan-Scott has now clarified his position as one of Yorkshire's Members of the European Parliament.

His article (Yorkshire Post, March 13) confirms with details of his recent actions that he has not been a true Conservative for some time

and it is therefore little wonder that he has disagreed with David Cameron.

As he has now "crossed the floor" and joined the Liberal Democrats, I must repeat the view that I expressed in your columns in August last that any member of the European or Westminster Parliament who changes parties should resign and stand for re-election.

This may be somewhat difficult in the case of the European Parliament so he should just resign.

Child verdict on Venables

From: Mrs Annie Painter, Crofton, Wakefield.

I AM writing in response to Children's Commissioner Maggie Atkinson's comments that children under 10 years are, "too young to understand the consequences of their actions" (Yorkshire Post, March 14).

My son asked who Jon Venables was and I explained that he and another boy had done unspeakable things to a two-year-old called Jamie Bulger. My son asked, among other questions, "Did the little boy die, Mummy?" and I said that they had killed him and he said, "It's horrible, did they get sent to jail?" I said yes. My son said: "Good." My son is nine-years-old.

Arms clash

From: A Collier, Gordon Road, Bridlington.

HOW can Gordon Brown get away with the statement that the forces in Afghanistan were supplied with all the armour they requested? I think without exception all the top brass refute this, saying all requests for additional and better armour were denied. Both cannot be right. Gordon Brown is Prime Minister and hasn't a clue as to military requirements. The top brass have. So Gordon Brown should not be allowed to get away with this.

Gender gap

From: Margaret Luford, South Milford, Leeds.

I noted the end of Bernard Dineen's piece (Yorkshire Post, March 15) with sad amusement. He records a police chief inspector's response with understandable indignation but finds it necessary to inform us that she is a woman. He concludes by wondering, in another context, if "the English language has lost all meaning". Indeed.