Tuesday's Letters: Compensation culture to blame for regulations

Many of his readers will agree with him wholeheartedly, but I wonder if his fire is aimed at the correct target.

Most of these petty officials work either for employers, for suppliers of goods and services or for the insurance companies which provide public liability insurance. This is in response to the compensation culture that has developed as a direct result of allowing lawyers to supply their services (and advertise them extensively) on a "no win no fee" basis. In these straitened economic times, I wonder if our new Government could be persuaded to compel these parasitic lawyers to include more information in their advertising. Specifically, what proportion of the "compensation" that they squeeze out of the insurance companies and/or their clients ends up in the lawyers' pay packets?

Making that information public should bring a much needed curtailment to their activities. And let no one forget that the contents of their pay packets comes out of our pay packets in the form of higher prices and higher insurance premiums.

From: Richard Ainley, Ridge Hill, Rastrick.

A long list of failures from Brown

From: George Harrison, Chantry Court, Ripley, Harrogate, North

Yorkshire.

AT last Gordon Brown did something worthwhile for the country; he resigned. However, he leaves the country with a number of "black holes".

The budget deficit – we have at least some idea of how deep this is. PFI – we have no idea how deep this is, it could turn out to be a long-term mortgage for the country. Public service pensions liabilities – we have no idea of the depth of this one.

He undermined the financial foundations of the country by selling a large proportion of our gold reserves at rock bottom prices. At the same time, he was raiding the private pension schemes of people who were providing for themselves with the result that a great many pension schemes are now closing. He then walks away from it all so that he doesn't have to take the ultimate responsibility for his actions.

He calls the last 10 years a success, but I dread to think what a disaster would look like. There are people who can totally ignore facts when it suits them to do so.

He presided over the expenses scandal without making any comment on or condemnation of MPs' behaviour. We now find that his reforms, and the creation of the FSA, made the financial crisis far worse.

Benefits of Superbus

From: David M Cook, director, CRL Architects, Headingley Lane, Leeds.

DAN Laythorpe (Yorkshire Post, June 22) suggests that Supertram should be resurrected in Leeds in preference to the fortunately now aborted NGT (New Generation Transport) trolleybus scheme.

Is a bus or train powered by an overhead power system any more

attractive to commuters than any other bus? Overhead cables will be an ugly intrusion and require pruning or felling of trees. This

despoliation of the townscape cannot be justified.

Superbus with its own power source could offer an attractive passenger cell with all the wonderful internal architecture of NGT but without the costs of the specialist chassis and overhead wiring. This would also free Superbus from the three corridors and the cost saving in using proven running gear would allow many more car sets to be purchased for the same investment. Superbus would be flexible. All the congested arterials in Leeds could benefit not just the chosen few.

I reiterate: all the technology for Superbus exists. With park and ride and a logical congestion charge, it will reduce congestion without the offensive visual clutter of either Supertram or NGT. It must be the way forward in Leeds.

High cost for our troops

From: Rev PN Hayward, Allonby, Maryport, Cumbria.

YOU report (Yorkshire Post, June 15) that the new Prime Minister has told the Commons that British troops are in Afghanistan for reasons of national security – that if they left al-Qaida would use the country as a place to plan attacks on Britain. We heard exactly the same tale from the last Prime Minister on his return from visiting the troops.

They are there primarily for emotional reasons. George W Bush sent

troops there after the Twin Towers as a fillip for American morale. It was felt that at a difficult time Britain should support him in any way possible. All that was nearly nine years ago.

Whether or not in the absence of the troops ammunition would be manufactured to be used against this country is doubtful. But one thing is definite.

Seeing that 300 of our troops have laid down their lives – and still counting, of course – it would already have needed six terrorist attacks similar to that of London in 2005 (when the death toll was 52) to match the current total of military fatalities.

Community sentences

From: Andrew Sinclair, West Yorkshire Probation operations manager, Community Payback, Wakefield.

DON Burslam is quite correct in saying that short prison sentences are largely ineffective as a deterrent (Yorkshire Post, June 23). The Government's own figures show that almost 60 per cent of ex-prisoners are reconvicted within 12 months of release.

While there are many crimes for which prison is the most appropriate punishment, a community sentence can be far more effective than a short spell in custody.

The courts can pass a community sentence of up to three years, which may include a curfew, or compulsory attendance on a probation programme to change the way the offender thinks and behaves.

Community payback, formerly known as community service, is, as Mr

Burslam says, a way for offenders to serve their sentence in the community and pay something back to society for their crime.

In West Yorkshire, ex-offenders not only carry out decorating,

gardening and graffiti clearance, as Mr Burslam suggests, but also cook and serve meals at lunch clubs for elderly people, clear parks,

cemeteries and footpaths so they can be safely used by the public, and sort donated clothing for charities.

A view from the river bank

From: Keith Chapman, Custance Walk, York.

LISTENING to a boater in York, it is apparent we need more mooring

points to be made available for boaters.

It would appear the 48-hour rule is not being met by some boaters visiting this city. Looking at the overview of this situation, it would appear that more and more visitors wish to arrive and stay longer in the city and at some date in the future the council will have to look at providing more provision for this increase in river traffic.

It would appear many boaters are looking for longer term stays when it comes to mooring.

This is something that Gillian Cruddas, of Visit York, may have to take on board with future planning for visitors.

Just having what we have is not being forward focused and as a tourist city we must make sure all boaters are made welcome and accommodated.

Workers still prosper from Thatcher's good work

From: Peter Neal, Mill Road, Cleethorpes, North East Lincolnshire.

I MUST reply to another of your Lincolnshire readers, JW Smith of Sutton-on-Sea, (Yorkshire Post, June 18). My memories recall the pain

of Thatcherism.

When Margaret Thatcher became Britain's first female Prime Minister in 1979, the country was on its knees following the "winter of discontent" when the trade unions paralysed the country – streets festooned with weeks of uncollected rubbish and transport practically at a standstill.

Mrs Thatcher transformed the 1980s with her brand of popular people's capitalism. The whole infrastructure changed irrevocably and countries around the world adopted the policies initiated by Margaret Thatcher.

Ailing monolithic state monopolies were refreshed by privatisation and the advent of people buying their own council houses greatly expanded the universal popularity of the Thatcher years.

Expensive spendthrift authorities like the GLC (Greater London Council under the gross mismanagement of Ken Livingstone) were abolished as the winds of change breezed through Britain revitalising us from the sick man of Europe into a highly respected capitalist success.

Margaret Thatcher was truly a genuine working class heroine, as was noted by Bill Carmichael (Yorkshire Post, June 11).

The democratisation of the trade unions today benefits all workers so that accountability and transparency are now there for all to see.

Freedom and choice for the individual are virtues of the Thatcher

legacy.

Today, workers continue to prosper from the wide-ranging reforms instigated by Margaret Thatcher.

Fylingdales' warning signals

From: RE Coates, Castlegate, Kirkbymoorside.

I AM responding to Phil Moon's letter (Yorkshire Post, June 14), only to take issue on a couple of points he made.

I lived for 37 years, until very recently, within 10 miles of RAF Fylingdales, that is, on the North Yorks Moors north of Pickering. It was, like Menwith Hill, an early warning system.

We were told on numerous occasions that it was the UK that had a four-minute warning.

I'm no rocket scientist but I rather think it would take a little

longer than three minutes for a missile to reach the US.

Secondly, as neither Menwith Hill nor RAF Fylingdales had any armaments of any kind, they were only listening posts (and still are

incidentally), we were again assured there would be no point in wasting missiles on them as their jobs had already been fulfilled.

As a point of interest, Fylingdales still tracks objects floating in space, the smallest being, I believe, a screwdriver "dropped" by an astronaut when doing some work on his spacecraft.

Pay is insult to the taxpayers

From: John Watson, Hutton Hill, Leyburn.

YOUR report about some council executives in Hull earning 800 per day is not only obscene, it is downright disgusting and an insult to the council taxpayers in the city (Yorkshire Post, June 24).

How can anyone in local government earn such a vast salary? I am told that you can't get top people on anything less and such applicants

would go elsewhere. I say, let them go.

If every council had the same salary structure, there would be nowhere for them to go.

Every day we read in the Press of greed in high places and the

publication recently of top executive's salaries was a revelation. Now new Government rules insist that everybody earning over a certain figure have their details published in the Press. Why not? We are

footing the bill!

Changing times

From: Anthony Silson, Whitecote Gardens, Bramley, Leeds.

DURING the Second World War, we had to tolerate Double Summer Time, and then, in the 1970s, British Standard Time. Double Summer Time was justified by the need to harvest crops at a period of great national peril.

Now, though, no such imperative exists. Yet there is a campaign

called "Lighter Later" (Yorkshire Post, June 22). It might as well be called: "Darker Earlier", for the one necessitates the other.

Were Double Summer Time to happen, then it would be dark in Leeds until after 9am in January. The pressure group certainly does not speak for me.