YP Letters: Give Britons a chance in the top jobs

From: Father Neil McNicholas, Yarm.
Brexit continues to divide Yorkshire - and readers of this newspaper.Brexit continues to divide Yorkshire - and readers of this newspaper.
Brexit continues to divide Yorkshire - and readers of this newspaper.

HAS anyone else noticed how often when documentaries 
and interviews feature curators and heads of national museums, archives, libraries, university colleges, and similar institutions they always seem to be 
American or possibly 
sometimes Canadian – as with the Governor of the Bank of England?

I have nothing against Americans or Canadians, but why is it that we can’t produce individuals experienced and qualified for such positions? Also if Brits wanted to work in the US it could only be in jobs for which no Americans are available.

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Shouldn’t such a basic policy be at the heart of the current Brexit considerations surrounding the issue of how to keep control of the UK job market?

How Churchill saw Europe

From: LR Hirst, Northorpe Lane, Mirfield.

IN response to your correspondent who highlighted Winston Churchill’s role in liberating Europe – and what the continent could have been like today.

His view can be summed up by this quotation: “We have our own dream and our own task. We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked but not combined. We are interested and associated but not absorbed.”

Vote on Brexit still divisive

From: Mr A Davies, Augusta Park, Grimsby.

IN 2016, about 75 per cent of the electorate voted – 52 per cent said Leave and 48 per cent said Remain. This means that only 39 per cent of the entire electorate cast a vote to leave the EU.

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The majority voting in favour was smaller than that voting to join in 1975 and we could well have a long period to wait for a further vote.

Why do we regard a vote on one particular day and which commits the nation, perhaps for decades, as more democratic than one in Parliament which can be changed in five years or so?

From: John Turley, Dronfield Woodhouse.

THE Leave side’s narrow victory last year resulted from a number of factors, including the much higher level of motivation of their supporters to vote on the day, the false promises about extra spending on the NHS, and those who voted ‘Leave’ as a protest vote, not expecting them to actually win.

Most opinion polls indicate that that if everyone who was entitled to vote in the referendum had actually voted, or that if there was another referendum tomorrow, it would be a narrow victory for Remain, which explains why we get the constant message from the Brexiteers to the so called Remoaners of ‘we won’ so ‘shut up’.

Scandalous waste of cash

From: Mrs MW Whitaker, Harswell.

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THE other Friday, I fell in the road and rang the GP surgery for advice. I explained that my “stroller”, as it was called in Pocklington Occupational Therapy, had twisted on the pebbles used to repair the highway in this rural area where no pavements exist, and I now had grazed kneecaps, shock and a shaky stroller.

In the end, a nice chap came from Hessle, and ended up giving me a new “walker” as it is now known. I offered him two hardly used pairs of walking sticks, one pair with comfortable handles for sprained wrists. He told me to “put them in the rubbish”. Well! I then questioned him re my used walker. He said that it would be “mended”. Thank goodness.

My daughter, visiting from Canada, tells me that the Red Cross have a charity shop in Canada in every town, where people give their used equipment to be sold to those who need them.

This is a scandalous waste of money when the NHS is so short of cash. Why on earth couldn’t a scheme like the above start here?

From: Paul Rouse, Main Street, Sutton upon Derwent.

DO Government Ministers talk to each other?

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Because we closed down so many polluting power stations without replacing them, we hardly generate enough electricity for our existing winter needs. So what will happen if people flock to buy the sort of electric cars that must be recharged from the National Grid?

The Energy Minister is running around organising contingency plans involving, amongst other things, diverting power normally supplied to industry into domestic systems, in order to keep the lights on. The Transport Minister, meanwhile, is subsidising the purchase of electrically-powered vehicles.

A grey Britain

From: Edward Grainger, Nunthorpe, Middlesbrough.

IN response to correspondence about the silencing of Big Ben, and mood of the country, Britain does not have the “sunshine all the way” climate of Australia.

What we do have now is almost wall to wall technology in our homes promoted by industries that can only thrive if we are encouraged to spend long hours in front of a variety of screens of one type or another.

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The opportunity to get out into the fresh air is therefore limited. The resulting miserable looking people, all with poor dress sense, does nothing to help us out of the mess of our own making, but people with grey skin and dull eyes obviously have their appeal to others.

Sack Carney

From: CS Heaton, Leeds.

HOW did we convince ourselves to appoint Mark Carney as ‘Governor of the Bank of England’? Of paramount importance to the future of our great country, he is not fit for purpose.