YP Letters: The Lib Dems' best may be yet to come

Following the Lib Dems’ conference, the media scrambles to write off the party, What short-sighted nonsense!

To anyone with only a basic knowledge of political history, it is obvious that the Lib Dems have firm and deep roots in our political life.

In the not too distant past, who would have forecast that the party would gain office in coalition for a full term of five years? Even the biased media found it difficult to deny their achievements during this period.

Due to the failings of the other two parties it is clear that the Lib Dems are strategically placed to come back into the political reckoning. In the light of the fraudulent first past the post system, the party have done extremely well to make their voices heard. The best may yet to come.

From: Peter Grainger, Westgate Lane, Lofthouse.

I am a very proud 70 year old Yorkshireman. Yorkshire and the North in general gets a very rough deal from a very biased South-based parliament.

I would like to see all Yorkshire MP’s of all parties form a White Rose Group and stand up for God’s own country, in an effort to gain the funding we need and deserve.

From: P Johnson, Wakefield Road, Pontefract.

The policy of the British Government towards devolution of the English counties is a red herring to conceal their real intention of depriving England of equal democratic rights with the rest of Britain. A policy of divide and conquer.

Clearly, England needs a new set of politics which do not include any of the three main current British political parties.

We need a new political movement dedicated to securing equal democratic rights for England and our own English Parliament.

Doing Attlee a disservice

From: Mr PA Murgatroyd, Maize Street, Keighley.

I would like to take issue with the correspondent (Arthur Quarmby, September 20) who described Clement Attlee as a “nonentity”.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and is, obviously, the basis for the vast majority of historical writing and research. How could it be otherwise?

So we cannot know how Mr Churchill would have handled, say, the problem of Indian independence, which wasn’t going to go away.

Churchill had helped supremely in ensuring that this country defeated Nazism and remained free. However, the result of the 1945 General Election showed that the British people, eternally grateful for Churchill’s immense effort on their behalf, thought that they had earned the right to something better after the immense sacrifices that they had made.

Therefore, in my opinion, what Attlee did, in creating the NHS and the basis for the welfare state, ranks equally alongside Churchill’s wartime leadership. And, don’t forget, Attlee had served in the wartime cabinet.

Granted, Attlee has come to acquire the reputation of a dull boy. But please, in this age of Trump, Kim Jong-Un, Putin, Assad, and others, can we have more of these dullards, like Attlee, when, clearly, those four cannot claim to have done a quarter of the good that Attlee achieved!

If the A64 was down South

From: Peter Hyde, Driffield.

On September 27, for the first time in ages, I travelled from York to Scarborough along the notorious A64.

Having read so much about the terrors of that highway I was, or so I thought, ready for holdups.

The journey took far longer than I had anticipated and was not helped by the presence of a number of tractors and slow- moving vehicles.

Only once did a slow mover pull into a layby to let traffic flow, the rest just soldiered on oblivious to the long tailbacks.

If this road had been near London far more sections would by now be dual carriageway.

As far as the Government is concerned we live in the sticks and have to manage with what we have.

Turn the bank ...into a bank

From: M Whitehead, Norfolk Mount, Chapel Allerton, Leeds.

I know I am not alone when I say please don’t turn our lovely Yorkshire Bank building into yet another restaurant (by the way this is in Chapel Allerton not Moortown as printed in the article).

We have quite enough eateries and food outlets in this “vibrant community”.

What we don’t have is our Yorkshire Bank.

Plus the Leeds Building Society has closed.

Do these people want us all to move up to Moortown?

There are three banks up there after all. We shouldn’t have to traipse up there, and I am sure it has caused inconvenience to some of our independent shops.

I think Martin J Phillips has a good idea – turn it back into a Yorkshire Bank.

Their motto “We are here” rings a bit hollow.