Tuesday's Letters: Asbos on the internet will not cure crime

Surely the prime objective of Asbos, and of the justice agencies involved, is to nip the offending behaviour in the bud while it is still low level, and hopefully engage the offender in training and so forth that can put their lives on a productive track.

I don't see how this noble objective, which I think we can agree is a common sense solution to today's low level fecklessness, can be squared with the fact that anything published once to the internet tends to be hovered up by Google and other tools, and can be instantly found in perpetuity.

What happens when prospective employers, landlords, voluntary agencies and others look up a person's name on Google, as many do now these days, and find the person's Asbo details, possibly from many years before?

They are hardly likely to react positively to the news, and this continuous isolation from jobs and housing will ensure the behaviour that led to the Asbo is likely to be continued.

It's a shame that the professionals that are engaged in this scheme are unable to separate their desire for personal glory via a flash

initiative and press attention, from the real reason they hold their jobs which is to stop the offending.

Of course, I've always had a sneaking suspicion that those in the criminal justice system have an interest in keeping offending alive, as it helps immensely with their job security!

From: Simon Maufe, Beck Hall, Malham.

Israel is only acting to defend itself

From: David H Rhodes, Keble Park North, Bishopthorpe, near York.

DOES old age cloud one's judgment and memory? Do I remember that at the time of the formation of the state of Israel, land was offered so that the Arabs/Palestinians could form their own states – this was then declined?

The current issue of the boarding of aid ships and the blockade of the Gaza Strip gives rise to world hostility because a nation wishes to protect itself. I abhor violence but the so-called conflict is surely to some degree self-imposed.

The "peaceniks" posing as aid workers deliberately challenged the blockade, expecting immunity from any military interventions – why? They are being confrontational themselves. Israel is protecting itself from Hamas much as the US and Britain are fighting in Afghanistan against the Taliban – please explain the difference.

From: Wilfred Robinson, Roman Avenue, Street Lane, Leeds.

FOR 10 years now, Islamic terrorists have launched suicide bombings. The atrocities are ongoing.

Thousands of innocents have been murdered. Yet not a whisper of protest from the UN or International Court of Criminal Justice at the Hague.

Israel makes a terrible mistake, and all hell is let loose.

Late news over expenses

From: Roger Tipping, Marlborough Road, Doncaster.

IT is unfortunate that all the details of wrong doing regarding

expenses during the last Parliament could not have been out in the open before the General Election.

The new Government needed a clean start and the revelations continue. David Laws had to resign from the Government because of allegations that he claimed taxpayers' money to pay rent to a "male friend".

He appears to have been trying to protect his privacy and his sexuality.

Our politicians are mistrusted. We have a culture of "guilty until

proven innocent" and afterwards there are degrees of guilt. The Parliamentary Standards Committee will have to investigate and come to a conclusion. I believe Mr Laws is now considering whether to resign from his Yeovil seat. This would be honourable but I understand that neither the local constituency nor the Westminster coalition parties want that to happen. Mr Laws may be one of the more unfortunate of our defaulting MPs – but he should still resign.

Why did these facts not emerge before the General Election? How many more revelations are there to be revealed? Could any Government succeed if they are wondering what is coming next? David Laws would not have been news had the election result have been different.

The Daily Telegraph released the news deliberately at a time most damaging to the Government. Without a truce between press and MPs, we cannot move on.

A puzzling picture

From: Karl Sheridan, Selby Road, Holme on Spalding Moor.

HAVING adopted years ago the true Yorkshire spirit of spend nowt til you 'ave to, and investing in trousers with pockets longer than my arms, I felt loath to part with my hard-earned brass replacing my excellent and expensive analogue TV until the digital changeover took place.

However, just lately the picture quality on BBC1 and BBC2 has deteriorated considerably, yet bizarrely the ITV and Channel 4 have not. Nevertheless, I had the aerial checked out but no fault was found. I remarked on this to a friend and she pointed out that her analogue set in the kitchen was just the same, yet her main digital set was

fine.

Would I be right in thinking the BBC, intent on pushing digital, are now actively broadcasting most of their programmes in digital ahead of schedule and ahead of the designated change over time? Surely the Beeb would never stoop so low as to pull such a fast one on us Yorkshire folk?

If this is indeed the case, then I feel that is most unfair to licence payers who have not yet made the change and still expect decent quality for their money. Have any of my fellow readers noticed the same

problem, I wonder?

The boys who benefited from an academy education

From: Mrs Jennifer Hunter, Farfield Avenue, Knaresborough, North Yorkshire.

ALTHOUGH ME Wright (Yorkshire Post, May 28) challenges my view regarding grammar schools, an opinion which I acknowledge cordially, he subsequently mentions that parents are now being encouraged to run schools free from local authority control.

Only recently, Michael Gove, Education Secretary, announced his intention to write to all primary and secondary schools in England inviting them to become academies.

The word "academy" evokes many happy memories for me because my dear late father and his friends used to recount various experiences they had at their local school which they always referred to as "Churwell Academy". During the 1930s, Churwell (situated between Morley and Leeds) was a far smaller place than it is today with far fewer inhabitants.

My father and other village children started school at the age of five, were able to leave school at the age of 14 and then they, like my father, became apprentices, or went to work in the local textile mills or anywhere else where they could find a suitable job to "earn

their keep".

Apparently, few village children progressed to grammar school and successful bright pupils were usually the offspring of "white collar workers"as opposed to manual workers. My father and his contemporaries received what they described to me as being a rounded elementary education of reading, writing, arithmetic, history, geography, basic science and French. Obviously, they also enjoyed sporting activities. They were taught how to spell and punctuate correctly and legible handwriting was very much approved of. He, like most other village children, left school upon reaching his 14th birthday which, for him, coincided with the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939.

While perusing my father's chattels, I came across an old copy of the Churwell School magazine. This magazine contains extremely impressive, high quality contributions such as short stories, poetry, limericks and serious prose.

The standards of punctuation and the attractive pencil sketches therein which illustrate the printed matter are also praiseworthy.

My father and his friends may have jested about attending "Churwell Academy" in their younger days, but may I make the following suggestion to those educational experts who are, at present, contemplating the introduction of academies.

Please consider reading a copy of the Churwell School Magazine dated March 1938, a copy of which I have in my possession. It could become an exemplary educational instruction manual due to the high standards displayed by young people below the age of 14 who experienced very difficult social circumstances.

Counting the cost of VAT

From: J W Smith, Sutton-on-Sea.

IN his letter (Yorkshire Post, May 28) Paul Buckley claims pensioners would be worse off if the earnings link was restored and quotes current figures in support of his opinion.

He further claims there is no economic or social justification for this link. I wonder then why Mrs Thatcher found it so important to remove it?

What he overlooks is that this year, for example, but for the Government pledge that increases would be linked to inflation with a guaranteed minimum of 2.5 per cent, there would have been no increase at all as at the measurement date inflation was actually negative.

He says VAT is an efficient tax and compares it favourably against payroll taxes. Tax systems should be compared with the effect on payers rather than the inability to administer them properly.

So far as domestic fuel is concerned, in 1997 the rate of eight per cent was an interim rate which was to be raised to the standard rate, had the Tories been re-elected. It was said at the time that, because this was an interim figure, it could be reduced permanently but only to a minimum of five per cent.

Egg on faces of Tory critics

From: R Billups, East Avenue, Rawmarsh.

WHEN, in 2001, a young man, threw an egg at a 62-year-old man, the press castigated the old man for having a go back. Now the old man is to become a lord and Tom Richmond is condemning John Prescott (Yorkshire Post, May 31).

I wonder what the press would write if a young man threw an egg at an old Tory. John Prescott is not a hypocrite, the Tories are.

From: Iain Morris, Caroline Street, Saltaire, Shipley, West Yorkshire.

TOM Richmond gives a long list of faults he finds in John Prescott.

They say that "a week in politics is a long time".

John Prescott was an MP for East Hull for 40 years, I believe.

My father, who was a Desert Rat in the 8th Army, told me always to look for the good in people – 40 years is a long time in a lifetime in anyone's book.

Europhile party

From: David Asher, Pickard Cresent, Sheffield.

THE Spanish Secretary of State for Europe, Diego Lpez Garrido, was quoted after his first meeting with the new UK Minister for Europe, David Lidington, as saying: "I haven't perceived any Euroscepticism."

Well, of course he hasn't! When will people get the message? The Tories are a fully committed, Europhile party which likes to sound mildly Eurosceptic – but only when elections are in the offing!