YP Letters: PR voting may help to stop all this instability

THE Tory party makes many claims for “good governance” and being for the “nation’s good” but yet again these are proved to be false.

David Cameron took a gamble for political gain and lost, and now Theresa May has done exactly the same thing and lost. How can we trust them to run the country when their sole aim is to gain political power?

It is claimed many times that we live in a representative democracy. This is just not true. What we have in fact is a democratically-elected two-party dictatorship. The two main parties with all the power and financial strength (just look at what the Tory party spent on the campaign compared with other parties) vie with each other to gain control. Once in power, they then claim they have a “democratic” mandate to do whatever they want and just push forward their ideological plans. This does not represent the views of a huge chunk of the electorate!

Look at the situation following this election. We now have an unstable government in a poor position to carry out the hugely important Brexit negotiations. The DUP got 0.9 per cent of the overall vote, 10 MPs and a big say in government. The Green Party and Ukip got 1.6 per cent and 1.8 per cent of the overall vote, one MP and no say at all. How representative is that? Any wonder that so many people are put off politics and voting?

Many countries around the world successfully use a proportional representation voting system. Here it is often claimed that these lead to weak and unstable governments. As we have seen, our present system is quite capable of doing that!

If both the Tories and Labour were really serious about having a government that was both stable and representative, then they must push for serious changes to our broken system.

From: Barry Foster, High Stakesby, Whitby.

THE Conservative Party had the most votes and seats so they won the election. Most of us can count and should accept that. We had a vote on leaving the EU and we voted to leave. So again why cannot we accept the result?

A hung parliament surely should help us to all work together for our country and not to have the petty squabbles, disgusting comments and attacks on various politicians.

Labour lost and should accept it. As for the comments made by George Osborne about Theresa May being a “dead woman walking” (The Yorkshire Post, June 12), he took himself and his lollipop home after being sacked.

From: Brian H Sheridan, Redmires Road, Sheffield.

WOW! Whose idea was it to encourage the young to engage in politics?

Muslims must speak English

From: Bob Watson, Baildon.

CHRIS Ramus (The Yorkshire Post, June 8) is quite right to state that “it is time for the whole Muslim community to come together and put a stop to this madness in our society, and in the wider world”.

That community tries to tell us that they want to integrate with the rest of British society. Unfortunately too many of their actions seem to indicate the exact opposite.

One could list many things that need to be done to help with integration, such as:

Speaking English virtually all the time;

Not wearing burqas in public;

Stopping the third world practice of arranged marriages;

To speak far more loudly – and demonstrate – against the many atrocities committed in the name of Islam.

Such actions would help greatly to demonstrate that Muslims really do want to fully integrate with society and embrace British values. Those who do not wish to do so are surely not welcome here.

Not surprised Trump tweets

From: William Rees, Riverside Gardens, Boroughbridge.

IT was thoughtful of your American reader WE Freeman (The Yorkshire Post, June 9) to apologise for the tweets of the American President.

But I would suggest a greater need is to apologise for the majority of the American media, whose propaganda war against Trump is a sign of their growing derangement and unwillingness to accept the election result.

Fake news stories about Trump have abounded, many of them repeated by the BBC, although several of them were debunked by former FBI director James Comey’s testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

In the face of that media onslaught, it’s hardly a surprise that Trump relies on Twitter to get his message out, even if he sometimes uses language that is intemperate or even inaccurate.

Stumped over blossom axe

From: Pat Home, Bingley.

NOTICING the very attractive blossom trees (The Yorkshire Post, June 3) were those on the road of a relative of mine, I must let all readers know that this “green and leafy area of desirable Dore, Sheffield” will in the next few weeks become “the stumpy rough, treeless road”.

Unbelievably Sheffield Council is about to chop yet again. This is a residential road where in May, the blossom rivals parts of Japan and at Christmastime residents have them decorated with lights.

Just bananas

From: Tim Mickleburgh, Boulevard Avenue, Grimsby.

ON most days, I pop into my local M&S to buy bananas for friends at Fairways Care Home where I volunteer. I’m always struck how the aisles are cluttered with stock that is waiting to be packed on the shelves. As M&S isn’t a 24 hour operation, why don’t they get the staff to do this before the shop opens?