YEP Letters: November 11

Spare and hour for fallen heroes

Coun Bob Gettings, Mayor of Morley

Remembrance Sunday, which falls on November 13, is a day for the nation to remember and honour those who have sacrificed themselves to secure and protect our freedom.

On Sunday at 10.30am Deputy Lieutenant Col Alan Roberts will represent the Queen and will be joined by our MP, city and town councillors and representatives of the British Legion and other community groups. We will march from the Town Hall to the Scatcherd Park war memorial .

Some years ago the national press described Morley as the most patriotic town in England.This Sunday let’s demonstrate that this is the case!

Spare an hour to remember those soldiers who paid the ultimate sacrifice.

Penalty points system doesn’t seem to add up

Enest Lundy, by email

After watching a TV programme on traffic policing, I wonder if someone in authority could explain why drivers with a first offence of speeding (two or three mph above the 40 mph limit for example) get three points on their licence, when the driver of what could have been be a stolen car, with no driving licence, tax or insurance was given only six points on his licence. What licence?

The presenter of the programme added insult to injury when he said “A massive six points!”. Am I missing something?

It seems to me that if an otherwise fully legal driver were to be caught in similar circumstances, he would be put off the road.

Or are those in authority unable to distinguish between a person accidently going over the limit and out and out lawbreakers? Perhaps they should go on a points awareness course.

And also explain why the penalties and fines on those causing death and severe injuries by dangerous driving bear no comparison to the pain and suffering they create?

I was one of the pub fish sellers

Peter Thorpe, Sherburn Court, Leeds

In reply to Geoff Hardwicke’s letter about the fish sellers to the pubs and clubs of yesteryear, I worked for a company called Roy Donneley back in the 1980s.

I used to patrol down York Road’s pubs from the Melbourne at Killingbeck, The White Horse, Shaftesbury, into Harehills and back and then all the pubs down to the Woodpecker and also into Halton and back up from town. Later I went out with my own stock.

It’s part of our consitution

Mike Harwood, Solicitor (non pracising), Kirkstall, Leeds

A REFERENDUM may well serve a valid and useful purpose; it does not and cannot, under the democratic constitution of this our country, in itself represent the constitutionally binding ‘will of the people’. Those who are claiming that it can are mistaken, and dangerously so.

The millions of men and women who were giving their lives in the Second World War were doing so in the defence of our democratic constitution and as part of the struggle against the populist fascism of Hitler and his mobs. That constitution requires that will of the people of this country can only be, should only be, authoritatively expressed through the properly constituted organs of Parliament as mediated by our properly constituted courts.

Theresa May and her ministers are part of that Parliament. They have authority only as part of it. They are not above it. In the seventeenth century a great number (more as a proportion of the then population than in the trenches on the Western Front) of the ordinary people of this country died to establish and defend that principle, that foundation of our democracy.

If, when the constitutional judgment of the courts requires Parliamentary consultation, May and her ministers seek to ignore and subvert that judgment, they are actingunconstitutionally.

We’ve been stitched up

Terry Watson, Adel

THE High Court Judges were wrong in their ruling that Parliament must have its say before we can trigger article 50.

It looks like seventeen and a half million people who voted to leave the EU will be let down. Cameron when he resigned, refused to invoke Article 50, but why did May put it off until March?

Why did Merkel suggest that the UK should be given as much time as possible to trigger Article 50? Johnson and Gove both said “no need for haste”on Article 50. They all kept quiet about the 31st of March being the deadline.

After that it would need fourteen countries to agree to Britain leaving under the Qualified Majority Voting rule. Is it likely that any of them would want the second biggest contributor to the EU budget to leave?

We have been well and truly stitched up by our own politicians. We can only hope that Nigel Farage will intervene, he seems to be the only politician we can trust.

Bedrock of democracy

Alan Slomson, Grosvenor Park Gardens, Leeds

DEREK Barker (YEP, November 8) seems to have misread the High Court decision on Brexit.

It had nothing to do with the arguments put forward in the referendum debate. Instead, it was based on the fundamental principle that the law of the land should not be changed except by the consent of Parliament.

(They make this very clear in paragraphs 18 to 36 of their judgement.)

This principle is the bedrock of British democracy. It is absurd to say that invoking it is undemocratic.

Do those who voted “leave” wish Britain to remain within the single market? When they voted did they realise that this key decision would still need to be taken? Do they think this decision should be made by the British people - either through our elected representatives or another referendum - or by the Prime Minister in secret?

Free press is cornerstone

Alan Thompson, Bramhope, Leeds

THOSE desperate to frustrate the will of the people attack the press for being anti-democratic.They fail to understand the cornerstone of any democracy is a free press.

So, how strange it is that many of those whom we elect to represent us should then seek to defy our democratically expressed wish.

It is apparent that they think we are too stupid to know what is good for us. They should be aware we are not so stupid that when we see their name on a ballot paper, we may refrain from putting our little cross against their name. By acting the way they are, they will bring an early end to their political careers and good riddance.

Privileged and out of touch

R Kimble, Hawksworth

THIS week the new benefits cap was introduced. There was a young woman on BBC Breakfast this morning who is going to be £76 a week down on income.

These privileged Tory MPs are of the opinion that this will encourage people into work. Do they know anything about psychology?

Of course not.

You don’t encourage people by punishing them and implying that they are work shy.

Let’s look at them: massive, hypocritical expenses claims and they criticise these “ordinary” people.

Being a politician requires no training - all you need to be a Tory MP is to have gone to the right school and have the right friends.

Most have no experience in their fields – Hunt isn’t a doctor or nurse yet he presumes to tell them what is good for them.

They get huge pensions (I assume the comment by Robert Holman about giving them a “decent pension” is completely tongue-in cheek) for not a lot – standing around huffing and puffing your personal opinions without theoretical basis or

research is not a real job ladies and gentlemen.

They are all utterly self-centred these days and show no empathy for, or understanding of, the real worlds of some people.

There is a psychiatric term for this kind of behaviour that has been used by me and other well qualified observers.