Wednesday's Letters: The Liberal Democrats are 'the best out of a bad bunch'

They seem to believe that the concept of "the big society" will

resonate with the public enough to propel them to a final push towards victory at the polls.

They are wrong, the majority of the people want to see the back of New Labour and especially Gordon Brown. They are crying out for an alternative, any alternative, with a clear, uncompromising message, not a wishy washy soundbite. So, when Mr Clegg said what he said in the debate, he came across as honest and forthright with clear statements of intent, without the need to constantly attack his opponents or point score.

In other words, the Liberal Democrats are the best out of a bad bunch, and unless the Tories change tack and give the people something

tangible to hang on to, then New Labour will return to power by default, and that will be a final insult to the country and a shame on the Conservative Party.

From: A Ogden, Oxford Road, Gomersal, West Yorkshire.

From: Derek Dawson, Ryhill, Wakefield.

BERNARD Dineen states (Yorkshire Post, April 19) that the average voter would give some strange answers to Nick Clegg's and the Lib Dems' policies. The items that alarmed me were:

n Now that the Cold War is over, Trident is obsolete. I think these people should take off their blinkers, it is still a very dangerous world out there.

n Amnesty for illegal immigrants. You cannot be serious?

n We are jailing too many people. That may be right but Nick Clegg's idea that we could educate young criminals away from crime has been proven not to work. Discipline has become a dirty word for the liberal apologists, but it worked for many, many years, didn't it?

From: Les and Pauline Arnott, Shangri-La Hotel, Bangkok.

CURRENTLY to be found where politics is somewhat more interesting than at home, we have been fascinated to hear reports of "The Great Debate" between the party leaders as we desperately try to "beat the ash" and wing back to the UK.

Forgive us if wrong here, but at present we have no elected MPs in Westminster. All seats are now up for grabs.

Last I heard, Ukip, second in the last major elections held, was going to contest more than 500 of these. So why no place on the podium for Malcolm Pearson or Nigel Farage? Why is it just assumed that voters want only three parties debating? Why not four – or arguably more?

From: June Warner, Kirk Deighton.

THREE party leaders recently debated on television. Might I ask why Nick Clegg was allowed a place in this?

In the last national election held in this country, the European last May, didn't his party come fourth – two places behind Ukip?

It is morally wrong that the results of an election should be

anticipated before a single vote is cast.

Public-sector pensioners face freeze

From: Brian Ormondroyd, Brindley Court, Skipton.

WITH public-sector pensions seeming a cause for concern from all political parties, it may be of interest to read the following just received.

"Information for teacher pensioners. The increase in each April is the percentage rise in the Retail Price lndex in the 12 months leading up to the preceding September.

"So the review for April 2010 takes account of the rate of inflation in the year up to September 2009. This was actually a negative figure. However, the Pensions (Increase) Act 1971 does not allow for a decrease in the rate of a public service pension.

"Therefore, there is no increase in the rate of public service pensions in 2010."

Given the substantial increases in energy, fuel, food, council tax, the fall of interest rates on any savings etc, pensioners are now much worse off.

Cheaper clothing, electronic items, household equipment are not things the average pensioner buys.

Public pensions are a result of extra and compulsory contributions made over many years by teachers and other public-sector workers.

One notes the recent MPs' pay increases and their expenses.

Failed bankers continue to receive huge bonuses despite their mismanagement.

l would be interested to hear what our election candidates think of this issue.

From: John Mackfall, Branch Secretary, North Yorkshire Police Branch of Unison, Fulford Road Police Station, York.

IN the strident and wilfully confusing election debate about the need for public-sector cuts, I wish people would stop trying to tar every public sector worker with the same brush.

You ran a story (Yorkshire Post, April 12) from West Yorkshire Chief Constable, Sir Norman Bettison, urging public-sector pay freezes and criticising the huge salaries of the small elite of senior managers.

Sir Norman stressed that the highest paid should be targeted first, and dismissed as "nonsense" the argument that public-sector chiefs should be paid as much as private business executives.

But the vast majority of public servants could never dream of the vast salaries taken by their senior bosses. Huge differentials in pay between "executives" and essential frontline workers have flourished, and people are rightly outraged at what appears to be a small cartel enriching its members from the public purse.

But our members, among whom are Police Community Support Officers, scenes of crime officers etc, and our colleagues who are nurses, care workers, classroom assistants, cleaners, hospital porters, social workers and refuse workers, have absolutely no connection with that privileged world.

They do not have huge salaries or "gold-plated" pensions.

Every one of us depends on those dedicated public-sector workers, and I hope that when "excessive" public-sector pay is put in the dock or when public-sector pay freezes are being contemplated, we remember who the real culprits are.

Because when we really need help, it's not the billionaire bankers or wealthy chief executives or senior managers we depend on, it's the low-paid, frontline public servants who keep the whole of society

functioning.

Vanishing schools

From: J Hardcastle, Constable Road, Filey.

I THOUGHT that I would have a stroll around to have a nostalgic look at the Bradford schools I attended as a pupil, and where I worked as a teacher.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing – Thornbury Infants and Juniors disappeared; only gateposts remain. Bradford Moor School – gone. Cooper Lane School turned into a housing estate.

Bolling Grammar – is it a school now? Is Hanson Grammar a school? What has happened to Lapage Street schools?

Where is Eccleshill Secondary? Do they train teachers at Margaret Mcmillan College now? Have they all vanished into the hole in the ground?

Are there any children in Bradford now? Where do they go to school?

I did find a regenerated Thornbury School after much searching – it is built on the old rubbish tip in Dick Lane; what a long way for the little children to make their way to school on a cold winter's morning.

Britain – a once-great country now in the gutter

From: Gordon Rees, North Parade, West Park, Leeds.

THERE is something profoundly depressing about life in modern Britain. Each day is like a journey through a social landscape that is increasingly hostile, brutalised, greedy, loutish and unpleasant.

I feel we have entered a new dark age in which an aimless population spends its time babbling about trivia on mobile phones, gawping at endless soaps and attending football matches where the most vulgar swearing is commonplace. Our once-great country has well and truly

found itself in the gutter.

How are we to understand this phenomenon of decay in the country that produced William Shakespeare and pioneered a world industrial age?

I believe we can trace our national malaise back to well-meaning post-war liberalism. Nineteenth-century liberalism was associated with the opening of the human mind and the growth of education for all. Today, however, liberalism has become the very antithesis of these aspirations and is now an ideology in the grip of state political correctness.

The reasonable assumption that men should exercise free will has, in the past 20 years, become an excuse to justify same-sex marriage, the mollycoddling of criminals and the granting to so-called asylum seekers and economic migrants ready access to Britain's health, housing, jobs and social security system.

In schools, children have been induced to believe that love of country, good manners and correct speech are "outmoded".

It is high time the decent people of this country made a stand against this wrecking of our nation. Let us, the silent, maligned majority, work to kick out this impudent, arrogant, incompetent, half-educated New Labour mob.

Perhaps then the happy, confident nation of yesteryear will reappear, holding its proud head high.

Legal aid conundrum

From: RP Brocklebank, Glen Crescent, Melbourne, York.

I read that three MPs who face charges of fraud, have been granted

legal aid (Yorkshire Post, April 14).

On page six, the same day, I read that the Legal Services Commission refused a grieving mother legal aid to be represented at the inquest

into her 10-year-old son's death after an asthma attack, insisting that she could manage without aid.

It makes me think she was on a very high income or the Legal Services Commission is made up of MPs. Which is it?

Home thoughts from abroad

From: N Bywater, Airedale Terrace, Morley.

I WAS surprised to read that Gordon Brown has ordered Royal Navy ships to bring home some of the Britons stranded abroad (Yorkshire Post, April 20).

I thought that our Army was stretched with the military commitments in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Many stranded Britons have been able to make their own way home

overland; perhaps the help from our Royal Navy ships is due to the looming election?

From: Tom Howley, Wetherby.

A CALLER to BBC Radio 4 complained that he cannot afford a holiday, so why should his taxes be used to repatriate holidaymakers stranded

abroad as a result of the volcano dust storm?

Margaret Thatcher told us that "there is no such thing as society". Who says that Thatcherism is dead?