Thursday's Letters: Let technology overcome rail link problems

Your article (Yorkshire Post, June 28) states the economy will be hit if the project fails to go ahead and then goes on to quote Arup and Volterra that the link would provide a benefit to Yorkshire's economy of between 1.5bn and 3bn as well as 29bn for transport benefit.

What do these figures entail? In what way will it benefit the ordinary working man? The one advantage you describe is that "businessmen would not need to spend a whole day to attend a meeting in the capital".

Has anyone given any thought to the fact that, even if we could afford the astronomical amount of money this project is going to cost a nation which is virtually bankrupt, do we really need to get to London in two hours?

Also, by the time the link is up and running, and the speed at which technology is advancing, the need to hold meetings in London will no longer be necessary.

We can already use the internet for video conferencing so what is the point of sitting in a train for four hours just to talk to someone face to face?

The younger generation use today's technology as a matter of course and will no doubt continue to do so. I can envisage the time when the only reason to physically travel about the country will be for leisure purposes.

From: Gordon Bray, Grange Road, Golcar, Huddersfield.

Rich escape as Budget hits the poor

From: Glyn Powell, Bakersfield Drive, Kellington, Goole.

THE lunatics really have taken over the asylum. I refer, of course, to the Budget measures announced by George Osborne on behalf of the Con-Dem coalition Government.

The greedy, avaricious bankers and their rich ilk caused this country's financial collapse, yet Osborne condemns millions of poor, vulnerable, sick and unemployed people to further hardship to prop up a failed system and the rich themselves – while the rich (who can afford some financial pain) escape relatively scot free!

More seriously, the Tories' obsession with private enterprise is amply demonstrated in other measures. Have they not realised that private banks created the crisis and the private sector share of gross domestic product has shrunk from 30 per cent in 1970s to about 13 per cent, as private capitalists move industry abroad to more profitable, cheap labour locations.

Osborne's measures will therefore fail, like Thatcher's before him, resulting in increased unemployment of three to four million, increased crime, the collapse of society and riots, as recession turns to depression.

What is needed is withdrawal from the EU, withdrawal from Afghanistan, the scrapping of Trident and reconstruction of British industry to create jobs under nationalisation, even if this means some increase in short- term public borrowing.

The time has come for trade unions to stand up to this Government of idiots by striking to protect the jobs, wages and pensions of their members. Even if this results in the overthrow of the Tories and their Liberal lackeys. The Tories haven't changed since Thatcher and the Liberals have sold their souls for a whiff of government.

Fiasco of football

From: Paul Alexander Sherwood, South Kilvington, Thirsk.

THANKFULLY, the hysteria over football will soon be over. It may appear somewhat odd but the entire population of the world is not obsessed with this puerile activity.

The red top tabloids, radio and television seem to be unable to resist this ridiculous circus, frankly who is interested in overpaid prima donnas kicking a bag of wind about?

Unfortunately, this garbage has to take precedence over any other radio or television output, not only do we have to endure the duration of the actual match; we then have to suffer further disruption to regular schedules for another hour or so while pundits give their inane opinions.

Generally these "experts" are former players and invariably are so inarticulate they can hardly string a sentence together – at least with the rugby or cricket equivalent they can usually speak. I am certainly not alone in saying that I have not the slightest interest in having to endure what is almost a year-round fiasco of football.

In the good old days, it fizzled out in spring and came back in autumn. In fact, we had a football season; now it just goes on and on.

Thank God that we are no good at this game – which is not a sport.

Sport is hunting, shooting and fishing.

Disastrous directive

From: Tim Hunter, Farfield Avenue, Knaresborough, North Yorkshire.

RACHEL Reeves (Yorkshire Post, June 10 ) is honest when she says Labour leadership candidate Ed Milliband will offer "idealism", but does

anyone really want idealism in the hard-headed, competitive world we live in? She says that Ed Milliband will support better legal protection for workers employed in temporary jobs. She is, presumably, referring to the disastrous Agency Worker's Directive which was proposed by the EU as a measure to give temporary agency workers additional rights commensurate with those of a permanent employee.

To be fair, the last Labour Government quite rightly objected to the directive's scope and intent. Due to their efforts (and those of other EU countries) the decision was left with individual member states over the precise implementation and scope of the directive. Ed Milliband's stance on this issue provides yet more evidence of a potential lurch to the Left by Labour.

This directive is needless over-regulation at a time when we need

labour market flexibility. In some sectors, it is the norm for freelancers to find work via agencies and many prefer to work that way. If it is made more difficult to employ people, then fewer people will be employed.

Move jobs to the people

From: Duncan Anderson, Mill Lane, East Halton, Immingham, North

Lincolnshire.

Iain Duncan Smith wants the Government to help the unemployed to move to work. Firstly, a lot of people already travel vast distances to employment, but they don't move their families because of their children's education and their partners' employment.

A lot of people in the construction and engineering construction industries already travel across the country for work. You only have to look at the roads on a Friday night, Sunday night and Monday morning.

What IDS hasn't answered is whether the people who move will have the skills required for the vacancies. Or whether there will be houses available at affordable prices. And if new houses need to be built, where will they be built and how long will it take to build them?

And is IDS's suggestion to concrete over the South East of England and to what depth?

While moving people to where the jobs are might sound easy, in practice it might be easier to move the jobs to the people.

How Labour gave school PE a sporting chance

From: Eugene Johnston, assistant head of PE, Pudsey Grangefield School, Leeds.

HAVING just read the article by Jayne Dowle (Yorkshire Post, June 27) can I state how shocked I am at the the lack of knowledge from a columnist.

I have worked in state schools for the last 30 years teaching PE. The days of the last Tory administration ran down both the schools and the teaching profession.

PE was relegated to a place below Conference level football as we were under-funded and under-resourced.

Since the Labour government came in, the growth of school sport has been immense. We do compete against other schools both in our local wedge area and throughout the city. On July 6, eight schools from all over Leeds will compete at South Leeds Stadium in the athletics final. These school have competed against 24 others to get to the finals. Each sports specialist school in Leeds organises and runs sports festivals throughout the year for primary schools.

These sports colleges have competition managers who run inter school sports events. I'm off to a fixture meeting for the Aire Wharfe Rugby Union Competition this week – schools from all over the local area will be there with teams from under-12s to under-18s. The Youth Sport Trust has worked tirelessly to promote school sport.

The idea of this school sport Olympics is not new. National Youth Games have run successfully for years.

Go to any PE department in the city and see how many hours are put into promoting fitness and healthy life styles, inter school sports as well as promoting the benefits of sport and exercise to all students.

Do not be sucked into the new administration's spin. It is almost as if the last 13 years have not existed.

A failure to take tough decisions

From: David W Wright, Uppleby, Easingwold, North Yorkshire.

THE two latest policy announcements made by David Cameron and Theresa May are worryingly inadequate and ill-thought out and simply show how

frightened the Government is of making radical policies affecting the future of the Afghan war and the out-of-control immigration issue (Yorkshire Post, June 28).

Mr Cameron's promise to keep our troops in Afghanistan for another five years is ludicrous as we cannot afford to lose any more lives or expend millions of pounds on a conflict which is unjustified.

Theresa May's decision to restrict non-EU immigrants is both laughable and naive for she has obviously ignored the realities of the immigration problem whereby would-be immigrants simply apply for asylum, aided and abetted by the Human Rights brigade in spite of the UK's decision to restrict numbers entering the country.

From: R James, Ackworth Road, Pontefract, West Yorkshire.

DOES David Cameron think we are all stupid?

What he is really telling us is that our troops in Afghanistan will be staying there for at least another five years.

All at sea over criminals

From: Ken Holmes, Cliffe Common, Selby.

ALAN Johnson, Shadow Home Secretary, is quoted as saying: "The

Conservatives have got themselves in the terrible position of

supporting criminals' efforts to evade capture" (Yorkshire Post, June 26).

More to the point is the fact that Alan Johnson and his Labour Party cronies didn't know what to do with criminals when they did rarely catch them. Holidays on prison ships spring to mind.

Tales from the riverbank

From: Graham Snowdon, Eastgate, Pickering, North Yorkshire.

WITH regard to your report on flood defences (Yorkshire Post, June 29), I am perhaps being a tad pedantic but it is not quite correct to say that the River Ouse "joins" the River Humber.

The River Ouse more accurately joins the River Trent, and it is the confluence of these two rivers which forms the Humber.