YP Letters: Warning sign of economic weakness

We can easily anticipate up-coming Conservative Party boasts that the UK has a strong economy. I am sorry to say that this is absolute balderdash. The facts point in the opposite direction.

One marker of our economic weakness is the persistent deficit in our balance of payments current account. This is now at the level of 6 per cent of our gross domestic product (GDP).

Further evidence was published by the International Labour Office – an international comparison of “Average Real Wage Growth”. This is an excellent measure of what has happened to standards of living since 2008.

The ILO report shows average real wages in the UK being 1 per cent lower today than in 2008. Of the 28 countries that are members of the OECD, only Greece has a worse record whilst Poland comes out best with a 2.5 per cent increase in the Polish standard of living. Through your letters column can I encourage your readers to keep their candidates’ lie detectors on full alert?

Unite behind May for Brexit

From: Alan Chapman, Beck Lane, Bingley.

The Prime Minister’s style of conservatism is rooted in the outlook of the ordinary people of this country and not of the metropolitan elite. So it is important that she seeks a fresh mandate to distinguish her government from that of her predecessor to avoid any confusion.

Her government must negotiate the best Brexit terms possible. Her present small majority raises practical difficulties. Labour is collapsing into a black (or red) hole and wholly unpredictable. The Lib Dem party is trying to reverse the referendum result and wants Brexit terms which mean we would effectively still be in the EU.

In particular, Westminster SNP members care nothing for the majority of the UK and its democracy.

They wish to wreck anything a Conservative government wishes to do and accept, as though it were a right, the massive taxpayer subsidy the rest of us pay to Scotland.

With difficult negotiations starting with Europe, a clear five year term with a good working majority is vital so that the nation’s energies concentrate on the future opportunities and do not get bogged down with petty party politics. It would be tragic if in two years time an election were to derail our future course. What we face is in some ways as challenging as anything in our past.

The country has a strong leader, an almost united Conservative party, an ostrich-like opposition, a real lead in the opinion polls and the best possible opportunity to shape our future indelibly.

I appeal to middle England to work tirelessly to ensure the election of Conservative MPs on June 8. Seldom has the future of the United Kingdom been so important at an election.

Whether you were Remain or Leave the die is cast. We must be totally united in the fight for our future and the British way of life. Support Theresa May to get the job done.

Questions of democracy

From: John Turley, Dronfield Woodhouse.

In response to the many letters and articles from Brexiters decrying the so-called Remoaners, and directing their venom in particular towards the Liberal Democrats, ridiculing the word ‘Democrat’ in their name, and calling them undemocratic for supposedly defying the will of the people following last year’s EU Referendum.

One of the main reasons why there was a referendum last year was that some politicians never accepted the will of the people following the 1975 Referendum, and, furthermore, few of the leading Brexit politicians actually expected their side to win.

The best result many were hoping for was that the outcome would be sufficiently close for them to call for another referendum at some point in the future, and they are therefore now desperate for Brexit on any terms, to be completed before people are given any chance to change their minds.

Unfortunately as pointed out by Betty Boothroyd in her excellent article (The Yorkshire Post, 22 April), David Cameron miscalculated badly, and lacked the political skills of the late Harold Wilson.

Regarding the Liberal Democrats, they are actually sticking to their long-held principles over the EU, unlike 
the Labour Party who appear to have abandoned them in order to ‘go with the flow’, something which could end up backfiring on them.

One interesting fact is that the percentage of the electorate who voted to leave the EU last year (37 per cent) is virtually identical to the percentage that voted Conservative in the 2015 general election, so if you followed the same argument of the Brexiters, anyone who was in opposition to the Conservative Government after that election, should therefore also be labelled as undemocratic.

Rural police a rare sight

From: Peter Hyde, Driffield.

I noted the much trumpeted news that there would be an increase of some huge numbers of armed police officers. This news was supposed to make us all feel safe as we slept in our beds.

Well I for one don’t feel any safer because I realise that this does not mean there will be more officers on patrol in our rural areas but rather that more of the existing officers will be armed and no doubt redeployed to major conurbations, leaving our rural areas even further depleted of cover.

Mrs May may well retain her position as Prime Minister but there is little doubt that rural policing will not improve and I suspect little else either.