YP Letters: No one has a crystal ball on Salisbury spy attack

I don’t know whether it is just me, but are there any others who are sick and tired of our mass media and senior politicians determining that the Russians are unequivocally guilty of everything under the sun?

For until there is definitive and unequivocal evidence of any misdoings, in the English courts at least no judge could make a judgement of guilt based on hearsay and could-bes. The recent case of the poisoning in Salisbury is a case in point where because he was a double agent, the Russians did it, although there still is no indisputable evidence that proves this fact.

Let’s wait is my thinking for the indisputable evidence to be “released”.

I believe Jeremy Corbyn is right here, unlike the likes of Boris Johnson and the Defence Secretary together with 30 Labour MPs and Conservative MPs who seem to have a crystal ball to see everything or Aladdin’s magic lamp to rub to know everything.

From: Alan Chapman, Gawthorpe, Bingley.

I saw the PM’s statement live on TV, regarding the nerve agent attack on members of the public in Salisbury. She spoke with authority and declared 23 Russian diplomats would be expelled from the UK within seven days.

Then the Leader of the Opposition responded to the PM’s statement in the House. Mr Corbyn’s reply sounded like a long list of technical questions supplied by the Kremlin to a sleeper agent acting as Putin’s puppet.

More important matters intervened so I switched TV channels to watch live National Hunt Racing from Cheltenham, missing the balance of the debate in the House. Thankfully I knew I could rely on The Yorkshire Post to fill in the accurate details of what I missed from the Chamber.

The editorial the following day and Bill Carmichael’s regular Friday column adequately clarified how low Corbyn will go to run down our country. Even the majority of Labour MPs supported the PM’s line.

Note the silence from Corbyn’s close comrades and his Momentum gang.

Corbyn must never be the occupant of No 10 Downing Street.

Enforce law on our taxes

From: David Collins, Scissett.

I am writing in support of Peter Broadley’s letter concerning payment of taxes or not as the case may be (The Yorkshire Post, March 16).

In fact, the rules on payment are straightforward so why Government ministers feel that they can be flouted by businesses just because they are sports related is beyond me.

The rules clearly say that, for instance, PAYE must be paid by the 22nd of the next month after salaries are paid. Simple.

A company can’t kick a ball round a field so how can football clubs pay a third party in lieu of the individual?

No matter what contractual arrangements are in place the individual is paid for kicking the ball and is therefore subject to tax and national insurance and the football club should pay employers NI.

If the players want to pay the advertising fees and royalties into a company then fine. As long as any tax is paid in the country where they are paid for kicking a ball.

The same applies to employees of businesses such as the BBC. If someone appears on the same programme day after day doing the same thing, they are employees not contractors or companies.

The law is clear that personal service contracts that can only be performed by a named person are contracts of employment. A whole industry has been built up to ignore this. Government ministers please enforce the law, and if it is not clear to you or others then change it.

Mother of all arguments

From: Gordon Lawrence, Sheffield.

I’d like to challenge Brian Sheridan’s criticism regarding the apostrophe before the “s” in Mother’s Day when he contends it should be Mothers’ Day (The Yorkshire Post, March 16).

We only have one mother and the celebration, after all, is directed at individual mothers even though all mothers are included in the anniversary.

It would seem then that either use of the apostrophe would be logical and grammatical but, in fact, the conventional practice is either to miss the apostrophe altogether (Mothers Day) or use the individual form, namely, Mother’s Day.

Brian admits his pedantry so I’ll forgive him this time.

From: Mary Alexander, Sheffield.

In reply to Brian Sheridan’s letter regarding apostrophes, I see nothing wrong with placing the apostrophe before the ‘s’ in Mother’s Day if you think of it as the Day of the Mother.

Vowel play

From: Michael Robinson, Huddersfield.

Have you noticed how for some time now the radio and television announcers’ diction has degenerated into the adoption of a very slack homogenous “uh” as the pronunciation of initial vowel sounds in such words as “uhlympics”, “uhfficial” and “uhmmediate”?