Wednesday's Letters: Any plan for bin tax will provoke 'dirty' protest

You quote the Local Government Association spokesperson as saying that the chips "simply identify the house to which a bin belongs". The

question is why? Any householder who wants to tag their bin can do so by putting their own house number on it.

The Leeds City Council spokeswoman says that the information from the chips is used to improve services. The rotas introduced after the bin strike were supposed to do that. She goes on to claim that the information from the chips will help the council understand the total amount of waste being collected. That was already being done before the introduction of the chips.

The bin wagons are weighed on entering and leaving the waste transfer stations so the amount of waste is calculated. Two weighings are required.

Compare that with the weighing of every bin. The binmen are supposed to empty about 150 bins per hour under the new working arrangement. The information is beamed back to HQ from every bin wagon to be collated so that a day's total can be arrived at. Is this really necessary when the same data can be collated from the transfer stations?

Finally, there is the comments from Caroline Spelman, Shadow

Communities Secretary, that the chips are a Labour plot to introduce a bin tax across the country. A Government spokesperson says the use of the chips is a local council decision. Just remind us which party/parties are in power in Leeds.

If a bin tax is introduced, I foresee a "dirty" protest far surpassing the protests when the poll tax was introduced. I can imagine that some people will put their rubbish in the bins of others or that bins will be exchanged for others in the neighbourhood to confuse the councils as to which house the bin really belongs to.

From: Michael Gillson, Quarry Lane, Birstall.

From: J Layden, Leeds Old Road, Heckmondwike.

THE problem with councils charging by weight for bin collection is that people who create a lot of rubbish will go round after dark on the night before collection and put their rubbish in other people's bins.

This has already happened several times to my daughter even without any charges.

Punch and Judy still going strong

From: Marilyn Bradley, Wandales Drive, Burniston, Scarborough.

AM I right in remembering David Cameron, when he took over the leadership of the Conservative Party, saying he wanted an end to "Punch and Judy" politics?

In the last few weeks, Punch and Judy politics seem to be the only game in town for the Tories.

Firstly, Andrew Lansley pulled out of cross-party talks on how to fund social care for the elderly. One of the various options was a tax on the estate of a person after their death.

Various other options such as the purchase of various types of insurance had been discussed, but the Tories withdrew and published a new poster publicising a "Labour Death Tax".

Then we were told that the Tories were not prepared to look at a White Paper on high-speed rail links to the North. Allegedly, it was to pass through marginal Tory constituencies and they did not want that. So much for high-speed rail links to Yorkshire if they take over

government.

Immediately on top of that we had allegations from Andrew Rawnsley, via the National Bullying Help Line, that Gordon Brown had a vile temper and hit and pushed staff.

Now we have Lord Ashcroft finally admitting he is a non dom, and surprise, surprise, a large portion of his billions are made in Belize and are not UK taxable. He is supposed to have a major role in the upcoming election. Are his colleagues so nave they did not know exactly where his money came from?

Do you remember us having to pull out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism? When Norman Lamont, the Tory Chancellor at the time, appeared on TV to own up to this misjudgment, hovering behind him was his aide, David Cameron. So he is obviously well up on how not to run the economy.

Nor do I want to vote Labour, they have been messing things up for more than 12 years.

There should be a space on the polling paper to vote "a plague on all your houses" and then maybe they may "get it". But I am not holding my breath.

Time to cull the BBC

From: Peter Lee, Harrogate.

SO Mark Thompson has announced his strategic review of the BBC. Thompson had the sense to make cuts within the BBC before he was pushed.

Colin Philpott (Yorkshire Post, March 5) tells us the value of the BBC in a glowing report on the difficult decisions Thompson has to make. Please!

I'll make it easy – scrap the BBC, making it a level playing field across all the TV channels – why should I pay 143 for something I don't watch?

The licence fee is an archaic legacy from the 1940s.

Philpott tells us the BBC is unadulterated by commercial or political influence – what BBC is he watching? The schedule is interrupted by trailers for forthcoming programmes. The websites and worldwide service allow advertising as do the magazines.

The whole BBC is corrupt with liberal bias and political correctness that makes me both squirm and laugh out loud.

The man-made global warming mantra is pushed day after day with the "flat earth sceptics" ridiculed or dismissed.

Peter Dunscombe, head of BBC's Pensions Investment, is also part of an international group of investment managers who busts a gut to invest in "climate change" schemes.

The BBC is a huge white elephant ripe for the culling.

Injustice to Citizen Kane

From: C Elliker, Walney Road, Heworth, York.

I READ with interest the article by Sheena Hastings about the Oscar ceremonies (Yorkshire Post, March 4). The most glaring example of an injustice was the awarding of the best film Oscar in 1941 to How Green Was My Valley. Granted, it was a fine film but, in the same year,

Citizen Kane was awarded only one Oscar, and that for the script by Herman Mankiewicz and Orson Welles.

This same film has been voted number one of the all-time greats by the Academy every year since its release and is still regarded as the finest film ever made. At that time, the critics raved about it and it has become a masterpiece of the cinema which will take some beating.

Lesser of three evils

From: ME Wright, Grove Road, Harrogate.

I SUSPECT that Jennifer Hunter echoes the thoughts of many of us when she speaks of the "overgrazing of our green and pleasant land" (Yorkshire Post, March 2) but must it remain so?

Is there no one among the seemingly lack-lustre bunch, soon to offer themselves for election, who can renew and re-energise this great nation for the 21st century?

There seem to be three choices: joining France and Germany in a vigorous sort-out and advancement of Europe; as now, dithering on the touch-line, still dreaming of Empire; or asserting our independence and continuing to tug the forelock to a distant, demanding and controlling former colony.

Which is better: the challenge of the first, with all its faults and problems; or the total acquiescence of the other two?

How Thatcher set out to destroy the coal industry

From: Stan Crowther, Clifton Crescent South, Rotherham.

BERNARD Ingham's memory was apparently at fault when he wrote the article about the miners' strike of 1984-85 (Yorkshire Post, March 3).

He must know – since he was close to the action at the time – that Mrs Thatcher's aim was simply to destroy the power of the National Union of Mineworkers by provoking a strike which it could not win.

The man put in charge was Ian MacGregor, who had wiped out 112,000 jobs in the steel industry in his three years as chairman of the BSC.

The strategy was to announce the closure of Cortonwood Colliery, Rotherham, where the miners were the least militant in Yorkshire and where men had recently been transferred with a guarantee of five years' work from the Elsecar Colliery (closed, let us remember, with the union's agreement).

If these essentially moderate men at Cortonwood could be provoked to strike, the reasoning went, surely the rest would follow. The great mistake made by Arthur Scargill and his supporters was in failing to hold a national ballot which, in my view, would have produced the necessary 55 per cent majority and the Nottinghamshire men would then have come out with the rest – as they had in the two previous strikes led by the more shrewd Joe Gormley.

Instead, the Nottinghamshire men held their own ballot and stayed at work.

From that point on, the chance of the union gaining anything from the strike was lost. So Mrs Thatcher won, the power of the NUM was destroyed and the country lost most of its coal industry in the next few years.

Mallard belongs at rail museum

From: J Keith Taylor, Saxon Court, Bottesford, Scunthorpe.

I READ your report (Yorkshire Post, March 6) concerning Mallard's forthcoming move to Shildon in County Durham immediately after I had returned from the National Railway Museum, where I had drooled, for the umpteenth time, at Sir Nigel Gresley's masterpiece.

Am I alone in thinking that the star of the NRM should be made

available to the maximum number of people? York is on the East Coast Main Line; Shildon is not.

I fear that without its star attraction visitor numbers to the NRM will fall, reducing the amount of donations to the museum's various appeals, including Save our Scotsman, which this newspaper has so commendably supported.

May Mallard's (whose picture appears on the NRM's latest fundraising leaflet) exile be short.

Appalling club

From: June Warner, Kirk Deighton, Wetherby.

THE European Parliament's Budget Committee has recently approved plans to hire 150 extra staff and boost MEPs' monthly allowances for

assistants by e1,500. Unbelievable.

If this were in the UK, there would have been an immediate outcry and many would have demanded to know the reason. When it comes to anything to do with Brussels, it is as if the problems are on another planet.

When will the British people stop sitting on their hands and start to get angry about what our membership of this appalling club is doing to wreck our nation?

Old desires

From: Martin D Stern, Hanover Gardens, Salford.

WHEN Roger Crossley wrote (Yorkshire Post, March 5) of "the age-old dilemma between what we see as "need" and what we "want", he made me think of how our language has changed over the years.

For example, William Shakespeare would have been rather puzzled by this statement since in his day "want" meant lack or need.

For our current use of the word he probably would have substituted "desire".

Low standards

From: Ken Holmes, Cliffe Common, Selby, York.

WE have come to something when supermarkets are having to re-educate employees because of "woefully low" education standards.

Do I remember a politician, who jumped ship, screaming from the tree tops, "Education, education, education"?