YP Letters: Ignore EU's unreasonable demands

IT is time to take a firm stance with the EU negotiators.

The EU has a lot to lose, they have stated more than once there will be a large hole in their finances when we leave.

The EU has little appetite to agree a favourable (to both sides) deal on future trade or co-operation, all they want is money.

Their demand for an unspecified large amount of money is unreasonable. We should just meet our financial obligations when they are invoiced on the due dates. We do not need to buy our way out of the EU.

From: Gordon Lawrence, Sheffield.

JOHN Cole (The Yorkshire Post, November 16) continues his relentless campaign to put a full stop on Brexit and this time employs the new book by that equally committed Remainer, Nick Clegg, to bolster his case.

This polemic “How to Stop Brexit – and Make Britain Great Again” is regarded by Mr Cole as an impartial analysis of the situation. He asserts it is not a Remainers tract and is even-handed. Really?

I can’t see any “greatness” bestowed upon Britain by Brussels, only limitations. Even on trade, we are constrained by the Customs Union. The whole structure has been built up into a morass of incongruous rules and efficiency-destroying regulation.

From: David Butcher, Bence Lane, Darton, Barnsley.

MR Taylor (The Yorkshire Post, November 23) assumes that I am an ardent Brexiteer, but I am not.

The overriding point of my letter, however, was to show that a majority of voters took part in the two referenda on Europe whereas all Governments since the war have been elected by a minority of voters.

No votes for under-18s

From: DS Boyes, Upper Rodley Lane, Leeds.

I THINK there is something very sinister about the Labour Party’s campaign, or rather ‘crusade’, to lower the voting age from current 18 to 16 – maybe an attempt to garner naive votes from children who might see it as a novelty rite of passage to adult status.

Harold Wilson did something similar in 1970 by reducing the voting age to 18 so as to attract the votes of students. Yet the age when you could be an MP remained at 21 for another 40 years.

There is a Private Members Bill in Parliament now on this subject.

If the Government has any sense, Ministers will see that it never becomes law and so preserve the status quo.

Welcome fall of Mugabe

From: Ruthven Urquhart, High Hunsley, Cottingham.

I AM pleased to see that our excellent Archbishop of York is already wearing his dog collar again after discarding it as a protest against Robert Mugabe’s long-running and cruel despotism.

Just how, and why, did this once prosperous and affluent country allow their wicked dictator to remain so long in office before being forced to resign?

Officers fail to look the part

From: Peter Hyde, Driffield.

I RETIRED from the police some 33 years ago and now look at the turnout of today’s officers with amazement.

We were inspected before we went onto the streets and any infringement of the condition expected of us was subject, at the very least, to a severe telling off.

I was once told off for showing the neck of a maroon roll neck sweater over my tunic when on nights. As a supervisory officer, I have been known to send a man home to shave. The appearance of some officers today does nothing to earn respect, and yet it is now considered acceptable.

Where will it end?

Rail against the jargon

From: ME Wright, Harrogate.

IT was good to read of MP Philip Davies’s warning to Northern Rail on their ‘no ticket’ scam (The Yorkshire Post, November 23). If only MPs up and down the country would be equally proactive we might, some day, see long-overdue improvements.

Once again, Northern’s Pete Myers’ curious title of Stakeholder Manager caught my eye and I looked it up.

Among a numbing cacophony of boardroom words, I spotted: High Power Interested People (them?) and Low Power Interested People (us?). ‘Human’ pops up occasionally. There is 
no mention of running an effective and affordable railway, still less that alien concept of public service.

One Yorkshire not way forward

From: Lionel Pyrah, Cambridge Street, Normanton.

IN the Budget, half of a £1.7bn transport fund has been allocated to the six areas of England now boasting metro-mayors, the other half held out for bids by a host of other cities.

It is, therefore, patently obvious that, instead of promoting a ‘One Yorkshire’ deal, the way forward is to jettison this comical concept in favour of areas based on the city regions of Leeds and Sheffield.

City that it’s hard to leave

From: Brian H Sheridan, Lodge Moor, Sheffield.

PLEASE, Adam Simmonite and Lindsay Finlay-King, don’t spread the word how great Sheffield is (Feedback, The Yorkshire Post, November 23).

It is already reported to have the greatest proportion of university students choosing to stay in the city after completing their studies.