Wednesday's Letters: Change of political system needed – not just party in power

BOTH David Cameron and Gordon Brown are correct in their pre-election soundbites. Cameron says we need change and Brown (after 12 years of Labour) wants electoral reform (again).

But the kind of change this country needs is not that envisaged by Cameron or Brown. We don't just need a change of party. The last thing this country needs is a Conservative, Labour or a Liberal Democrat government, all of which are under Establishment capitalist control.

We need a change of political and democratic systems. Instead of politicians telling us what they will do, we should be telling them what they "must" do.

In this age of information technology and the internet the

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centralisation of power and failure to listen to the public will not wash.

In Leeds, we have recently had a council by-election in which only 14 per cent of the electorate voted and the successful candidate elected by just seven per cent. This situation is mirrored throughout the nation.

I recently attended a meeting in which four prospective parliamentary candidates answered questions on fair trade, Third World debt, party co-operation and transport and they lacked any vision or imagination as to what was needed.

As far as they were concerned it is business as usual. They were incapable of thinking outside the box, which politicians build for themselves as a security blanket.

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The public must use this election as an opportunity to change the system not the party and call for an end to Establishment capitalism, which is incompatible with democracy.

From: Malcolm Naylor, Grange View, Otley.

From: Arthur Quarmby, Holme, Holmfirth.

I THINK the Tories' lamentable performance in the opinion polls,

despite the catastrophe created by the Government, is down to David Cameron being marketed in presidential terms. Yet he is a faceless wonder with neither charisma nor track record.

In any event, our system of Parliamentary government is supposed to be based on our electing individuals to represent our interests, who would then choose one of their number as "first among equals".

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We have had our fill of President Blair supported by his Blair babes and have no wish to replace them with Cameron's cronies. If only we could quit "yah boo" politics and elect Independents who would do what is best for the country, based on their conscience and experience.

From: Colin McNamee, Ella Street, Hull.

I LISTENED throughout to David Cameron's closing speech to the Conservative Party tribal voters attending their spring conference (Yorkshire Post, March 1).

Well, he covered just about everything from economy, education, export sales, fiscal policy, green credentials, immigration, regional development agencies and assemblies and the inclusive nature of his Conservative Party to include Cameron's Cuties and ethnic minorities. The inclusive bit being imposed on the local party associations so not, unfortunately, as inclusive as he makes out.

Apart from the tribal voters, did anyone else notice the significant omission of mentioning UK membership of the European Union? The

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elephant in the room which attends every UK political party conference but is hardly mentioned by the main three parties or simply ignored, as in this case.

The EU affects every aspect of his speech, either directly or indirectly, yet he feels arrogant enough to air-brush out the implications, let alone the cost, of our involvement in the failed and undemocratic political experiment that is the European Union.

At least with the Liberal Democrats and Labour you know that they want to embrace the EU; the euro, the European Arrest Warrant and the implications of the Lisbon Treaty – which they fully supported. More than time for a change from these parties.

From: Edwin Bateman, South Dyke, Great Salkeld, Penrith, Cumbria.

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GORDON Brown has already stopped the Tories winning power; he has given it to the EU in the Lisbon Treaty.

Whoever "wins" the election will have no power. Power is now in Brussels, not in London.

To win back power for England, there must be a vote on EU exit.

From: Terry Palmer, South Lea Avenue, Hoyland, Barnsley.

TORY leader Dave Cameron, along with "squeaky" George Osborne and party chairman Eric Pickles, now implores the electorate to please vote for them at the next General Election when the first thing they will do, Cameron says if elected, is cut taxes for business (Yorkshire Post, March 1). He says he will turn us around. What he really means is he will turn us over. Thanks but no thanks.

Give all pupils free bus fares

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From: Ms Y Jennings, St Matthew's Drive, Northowram, Halifax, West Yorkshire.

IS it time to provide free home to school transport for all children attending secondary schools regardless of distance?

In nine months' time, my second child will start secondary education and the fares I will have to pay will increase to 3.20 per day (or 60 for two monthly passes) for a 5.4-mile journey.

Two years after that 4.80 per day (90 per month – not including any fare increases). Not a small amount for a low income parent/family. Until they are of secondary school age there is help for childcare costs, why not bus fares?

How many other families are in the same position?

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In the media, at present, are appeals for car owners to drive five miles less per week and the Government strategies to cut back on carbon emissions.

Where better to start than free school transport for all?

It is widely acknowledged that there is a nationwide problem with traffic congestion around schools and there is no wonder when bus fares

exceed the amount of miles per gallon a car can achieve.

There would be several benefits to free transport:

n It would go a long way in encouraging parents to abandon transporting their children to school and leave their vehicles at home thus achieving the Government's target of five miles per week (possibly even more).

n Child safety would be improved (and if I remember correctly, the UK doesn't rate very highly in this department compared to other EU countries). There are a number of children who are forced to walk dangerous routes to and from school simply because their parents can't or won't pay the extortionate public transport fares.

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n Congestion around schools would be improved making the lives of residents less stressful due to inconsiderate parking.

To summarise, come September, I (and probably many other parents) will be significantly increasing their mileage, not reducing it.

If the Government can give free transport to pensioners, why not children? They are both the most vulnerable members of our society.

Rhubarb with a fizz

From: JB Ingall, Riverdale Road, Sheffield.

EACH year you write about Yorkshire rhubarb and each year I am reminded of what my father told me about 70 years ago (Yorkshire Post, February 26). Today you write of Yorkshire rhubarb and Champagne in the same article and it prompts me to tell you what he said.

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He said that every year before 1939 there were "rhubarb trains" that ran from Halifax across the Channel to the Champagne region of France.

My father worked for the railways all his life. First for the Midland Railway and then for the London Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS). He worked in Fleetwood and Heysham, not in Yorkshire. How he knew about rhubarb trains I don't know.

He was in no sense a wine buff but he believed rhubarb was used because it had a high sugar content but was dry (sour) and it could be blended with sweet grapes to make dry Champagne.

If this is correct, the pre-war champagne was not even from 100 per cent grapes, let alone grapes from the Champagne region.

Not so special relationship

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From: Gerald Jarratt, Baghill Road, Tingley, near Wakefield, West Yorkshire.

THIRTY-two Latin American and Caribbean countries, including some we have counted on as our friends, have demanded that we stop drilling for oil in the sea 60 miles from the Falklands. A resolution is tabled at the United Nations General Assembly condemning Britain.

The US response is to declare "that it takes no position on the sovereignty claims of either party". So much for the special relationship.

Meantime, British soldiers are fighting and dying in Afghanistan in support of President Obama's foreign policy. The special relationship seems to involve our sacrifice and American indifference to us.

Why do we go on rewarding management failure?

From: Barrie Frost, Watson's Lane, Reighton, Filey.

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MY grasp of the English language is insufficient to properly describe the performance and failings of the Stafford Hospital, run by the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, but anyone reading the report cannot, I believe, fail to understand the revulsion of all decent people (Yorkshire Post, February 25).

What I find almost as difficult to understand is the amount of money the then chief executive, Martin Yeats, was paid to achieve this disgraceful state of affairs. He received about 180,000 per year and was even paid this amount for the long period of his suspension before the ultimate insult to all who suffered at the hospital of a 400,000 pay off when he resigned.

How can this be justice? It seems rewarding failure is endemic in Britain, with this no longer being the privilege of bankers, but why do we do this? Have we no longer any understanding of plain common decency? It is feared up to 1,200 patients died needlessly in filthy, understaffed wards yet the person paid so well to oversee the safety and welfare of sick people in the hospital, and who failed so appallingly, leaves with a lottery sized pay off – a mind-boggling sum of money to all normal people.

No doubt such largesse will be excused as "we are simply honouring the terms of his contract" – or words to this effect, but, surely, his contract and huge pay was for safeguarding the health of the patients in his hospital, and the fact he didn't do this should render his contact null and void. If the terms and spirit of his contract were not fulfilled, why should he be given a 400,000 pay off?

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Rewarding such abject failure is akin to condoning such failure and must totally demoralise all the very decent and hard-working NHS staff.

How can we expect standards to improve when failure is so profitable? There will be a General Election in only a couple of months; do we have any politician who will stop this lunacy and the wasting of taxpayers' money, restore our faith in those in authority and begin to repair our delusion with the so-called top people of the ruling classes?

Strip search by scanners

From: Mrs NJ Strachan, Leaventhorpe Lane, Thornton, Bradford.

FURTHER to the letter from AB Collier regarding body scanners (Yorkshire Post, February 25), I am not usually one to back the "human rights/health and safety/politically correct, etc" brigade, just the opposite, but this is one instance where I don't think they are making enough of a fuss.

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The body scanners to be installed at airports are the equivalent of asking all passengers to undergo a strip search, and I, for one, object strongly to a stranger, male or female, looking at an image of me in the nude. And what of the very modest Muslim women who insist on going round covered from head to toe? Will they have to go through these scanners?

Out of place

From: H Marjorie Gill, Clarence Drive, Menston.

I HAD to smile when I saw the caption of the archive photograph (Yorkshire Post, February 15) stating that John Betjeman was looking towards the Midland Hotel.

He would indeed have had to have tunnel vision or a long swan neck to see the Midland Hotel from where he was standing in Town Hall Square, as the Midland Hotel stood at its present site in Cheapside round the corner from Forster Square, several hundred yards along Market Street.