Tuesday's Letters: Examples of Mrs Thatcher's legacy that went badly astray

Council houses were sold at a fraction of market value and – far from making the mistake of ensuring more council houses were built – Mrs Thatcher litigated to prevent councils from even spending the sale proceeds. In this respect, Miss Gibbard either didn't experience this occurrence or has a memory of convenience.

What shares did Mrs Thatcher encourage people to buy? Shares in privatised industries where, instead of income being re-invested in those few industries which remained, it now goes to line the pockets of foreign owners.

She encouraged the de-mutualisation of building societies where investors received shares at a discount which they could market almost immediately at a profit. What has happened to the shares of those who did not sell? Where today, for example, are Halifax, Alliance & Leicester and Northern Rock?

Without substantial aid from the taxpayer and Lloyds/TSB, whose shareholders found the value of their holdings severely diminished, Halifax simply would have collapsed with the consequent loss to shareholders. Alliance & Leicester has been swallowed up and is now owned by a foreign bank. I do not need to comment further on Northern Rock. There are other examples.

Miss Gibbard has obviously forgotten about the destruction of mining communities, although we still need and still import millions of tons of coal, and that the unemployed were told to get on their bikes. She has forgotten how the deregulation of bus services deprived vast rural areas of buses; she has forgotten that slashing the defence budget and removing the Navy from the South Atlantic brought about the Falklands war. These were purely dogmatic decisions doing absolutely nothing for the working class and lower middle class. As for a state funeral, there is absolutely no precedent for such an occasion. Surely no-one would consider a comparison between Lady Thatcher and Sir Winston Churchill?

From: JW Smith, Sutton-on-Sea, Lincolnshire.

Benefits of a practical education

From: Heather Causnett, Escrick Park Gardens, Escrick, York.

I WAS interested in the letter from RC Curry about the lack of technical skills in the job market (Yorkshire Post, November 10).

With so many young people aspiring to go to university these days, it is inevitable that people who want to use their hands rather than their minds are on the decrease.

Many years ago, I worked for a firm in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, where they organised and administered something called the Engineering Industries Group Apprenticeship Scheme.

Young men signed on as apprentices and spent some months or so at specialist firms, to gain skills in every branch of engineering.

They were given certificates at the end of their training and were able to work wherever they wanted with the skills they had acquired.

From what I remember, the scheme worked very well and turned out confident and competent young engineers. We left the district and I believe that the firm I had worked for died a death.

I am sorry, because I think schemes like that could work for youngsters now, and I wish that university was not considered the be-all-and-end-all of education.

There is nothing wrong in earning a living with practical skills and I do so agree that we should be training our own young men in these rather than depending on people from other countries.

From: Dr K Swann, Summerdale, Gomersal, Cleckheaton.

THERE is an accepted problem that the education system does not produce enough people who are interested in engineering careers.

Most educators would admit that the main reason students avoid engineering related subjects is because there is a misconception about what an engineer does.

Perhaps that is because the term covers such a broad spectrum of jobs, from the person who comes to fix your washing machine to the person who designs the engines of the aircraft that take you on holiday.

Many professional engineers suggest the term should be protected by law as doctors are to improve the profession's image. But there are other ways to promote the appealing aspects of the job to attract young people to the profession.

The use of computer-aided design (CAD) in schools could provide one of the biggest recruitment boosts to the engineering sector yet.

All major engineering vendors provide software free or at discounted rates to students. Traditionally, these were university students who had already chosen an engineering related subject however CAD is being used in the classroom before university level. The natural place for CAD to be taught in a secondary school is the design and technology classroom where it can be presented as the kind of tool most engineers use in their workplace every day.

Older teachers are amazed at how quickly students pick it up.

Getting CAD in schools tackles the misconception that engineering is a profession where you have to wear grimy overalls.

Workshy in Westminster

From: Dai Woosnam, Woodrow Park, Grimsby.

THE Government has told the unemployed that unless they take the job they are directed towards, they will lose their welfare benefits from (initially) three months, to ultimately as long as three years.

This is rich, coming from such a workshy bunch as MPs.

Turn on your TV to the BBC Parliament channel. Observe the vast number of empty spaces. And don't tell me they are in their constituency: what are local councillors for?

It is time they all clocked-in and clocked-out. And if they are not in the chamber, then they must not get paid. They are – with their absurd holidays and vast over-manning – the true workshy of the UK. And whatever happened to Mr Cameron's promise to greatly reduce their numbers? It is going the way of all politicians' promises, methinks.

Magna Carta is our right

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

IS there a degree of farce when Europhile Ken Clarke leads a procession to start five years of celebration that will lead up to the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta? Surely his stance and that of many others is the very antithesis of what Magna Carta has stood for?

As this is the start of the panto season, is there a danger that this could give rise to a planning of an It's A Knockout-style festival for this event. The culmination would be on June 15, 2015, in front of an audience of EU leaders.

The highlight could then be for this charter of rights to be handed over to the President of the EU and acquiescence to their total sovereignty over us. Maybe the spectre of Winston Churchill et al will save us from this potential ignominy.

I know I am British and not European, I wonder how many others feel likewise. Magna Carta is my right and yours, let's live by it.

Responsibility for poverty

From: Philip Smith, New Walk, Beverley. East Yorkshire.

I SIMPLY do not believe that there are "shocking depths of poverty" (Yorkshire Post, November 6) in Yorkshire – or anywhere else – other than those that are self-inflicted. If people are living in so-called poverty in idyllic villages or cities like Hull, then they should move to where job prospects are better and/or costs of living are lower. Five of my children have moved to the West Riding for better jobs and prospects.

The only reason any child would arrive at school hungry these days is because their parents have spent their children's food money on a combination of alcohol, tobacco, the latest fashions, fast food and gambling like the national lottery. Or they shop at traditional supermarkets rather than the low cost chains, which are much better value.

As for the elderly, my father (and mother when she was alive) has lived off the state pension for the past 26 years. In my father's words: "I have never been so well off." However, he does only heat one room and he has an electric blanket in his bedroom. He does not expect to be bailed out if his spending exceeds his income. He uses his money wisely, manages to save a little for a rainy day and does not regard himself as in poverty. Only when people take full responsibility for their own situation will they act to change.

There is no excuse for this student violence

From: Eric Vevers, Turnberry Avenue, Alwoodley, Leeds.

YOUR front page picture (Yorkshire Post, November 11), showing a student yob kicking in a window at the Conservative Party's headquarters in Millbank Tower, London, gives yet another example of how this once green and pleasant land of ours has degenerated.

Whatever the merits or otherwise of the Government's stance on student tuition fees, there is no excuse for vandalism by the very people who, surely, should be setting an example to our even younger generations. What a rotten-egg country we have become.

From: Michael Booth, The Birches, Bramhope, Leeds.

I SINCERELY hope that at the conclusion of the Metropolitan Police inquiry into the student riot, those directly responsible are brought before the courts for criminal damage and the appropriate crimes committed under the Offences Against the Persons Act.

I was even more disgusted to read of a university professor who openly refused to condemn their criminal actions, stating that "anger was necessary".

In my day, teenagers were sent to university to finish their education being taught by academics who were respected by all and who were law-abiding citizens.

Why on earth we trust the final education of our offspring to

individuals who advocate criminal activites beats me.

What sort of an image does he exhibit?

From: Barry Foster, High Stakesby, Whitby.

I AM so pleased that some of the students have spoken up about the disgusting behaviour by some of their number at the recent riots. I don't think they would have been behaving like that if they lived in some other countries. So much for freedom of speech. However, as a long-suffering taxpayer very nearly in my dotage, I just cannot understand how they are given the time to protest and be excused from their studies?

Bring back the conductors

From: Dr Hilary Andrews, Nursery Lane, Leeds.

DOES the public really think that Iain Duncan Smith wants everyone on benefits to pick up litter?

There are many jobs that the unemployed could do. One of the ones I would suggest is reintroducing conductors on buses. Having recently travelled on the Number 71 bus when school was out and witnessed pupils swinging from the handrails like monkeys, I feel this would help the drivers control the passengers and free him/her to concentrate on driving the bus.

It would also speed up journeys by taking fare from those passengers who manage to have nothing in their possession other than a 20 note.

France's disadvantage

From: Mrs EM Crabtree, Fairfax Road, Cullingworth, West Yorkshire.

I'D like to respond to Terry Palmer's letter (Yorkshire Post, November 8) with the headline "French left us to fight alone", and his theme was that they did this "through two world wars".

Our position as an island was a great advantage. That vital stretch of water, the English Channel, only 20 or 30 miles wide, was our great advantage, and France itself was occupied anyway.

They weren't in a position to help us. Frontiers, consisting of soldiers, fences, and barricades are far more vulnerable than sea crossings and landings.

Riot experts

From: M Dobson, Feversham Crescent, York.

NOW that Britain and France have signed a treaty to share military resources, could we perhaps take this one step further and prevail upon the French to lend us a contingent of their riot police, who seem to have a more pro-active approach when dealing with violent demonstrations?

Drug solution

From: Roger M Dobson, Ash Street, Cross Hills, Keighley.

MILLIONS of pounds are being spent trying to stop the distribution of drugs, apparently to no avail. Why on earth are class A and class B drugs not put on doctors' prescriptions, free to users if necessary?