YEP Letters: July 16

Brexit process in danger of collapse

Bernard Goldstein, Alwoodley

Calamity May shows her tough side at Chequers by presenting the Cabinet with a ‘this is how it is going to be’ option.

The result? David Davis resigns and the whole process is in danger of collapse. Nigel Farage would have been the best person to replace David Davis as Brexit Secretary. He got the whole thing going, and would have wrapped it up in a few weeks if meddling, muddling May had kept out of it.

Hunt helped keep the show on the road

Niall Dickson, chief executive of the NHS Confederation.

Jeremy Hunt, the great survivor as Health Secretary, has moved on.

His legacy will be a better settlement for health than many had expected and a real focus on patient safety.

He inherited a tangled mess of a reorganisation from his predecessor Andrew Lansley and he had to live with a succession of austere funding settlements which were never going to meet rising demand.

Given so little to play with, Hunt deserves credit for helping to keep the show on the road, but the Health Service – better in many ways – has also slipped back when it comes to meeting many of its core standards.His successor Matt Hancock has one overwhelming challenge – how to help the NHS and the social care system to become sustainable in the face of rising demand and a severe workforce crisis.

Screen medics better paid

Mike Bytheway, Leeds

MY wife recently underwent surgery at St James’s Hospital with, I am glad to say, a great outcome. She received wonderful care and attention at all stages.

Yet the BBC has been paying the actor Derek Thompson a salary in the region of £350,000-£399,999 for his medical role in the TV drama Casualty. Meanwhile the salary for a general surgeon employed in the NHS is £76,000-£120,000. I shall be forever grateful to the NHS and all the staff we met, and ever disappointed by the BBC. This one actor’s salary could pay for three qualified medics. How did we get to this situation?

Sold down the river on Brexit

Richard Saberton, by email

Theresa May is about to be dominated and humiliated by the EU whilst trying to convince us all that it’s what she wanted all along!

She and her cabinet are going to try and perpetuate a massive political con trick on the British public. They are going to try and convince us that complete capitulation to and acceptance of all the EU’s demands relating to Brexit is really a hard fought and negotiated agreement. They are going to sell this country down the river.Mrs May never wanted to leave the EU and has had no stomach for the fight; looking more and more ill at ease as negotiations progressed. She has put herself and party before country and will do anything to cling onto power.I voted to leave the EU because I don’t want to be regulated and controlled from cradle to grave by a bunch of bureaucrats in Brussels and because I think we can do better outside the EU. I still want Brexit but most of all I want a Prime Minister and Government that have the country’s interests at heart and will fight our corner! Does anyone know where we can find one?

About money, not homes

Coun Mark Dobson, Leader, Garforth & Swillington Independents Party

In response to Mrs E Grogan (YEP letters, July 12) and my objection to the rampant house building on both greenbelt and inappropriate brownfield sites in Garforth and the surrounding area.

I agree wholeheartedly that people do indeed desperately need houses but with average prices for what’s being developed in our area at around the £300,000 mark this isn’t about homes for people, it’s about money.

Money for developers who are happy to sit on 17,000 (yes, 17,000) granted planning applications for housing where it’s needed across the city but will start work immediately in areas where the profit margins are at the highest.

Money also for a council relying on the hefty New Homes Bonus windfall.

Let’s get these 17,000 built where they’re needed without delay.

Help make our birthday special

Andy Gilliland, Trustee, The British Polio Fellowship

The British Polio Fellowship continues to be a voice for the 120,000 people in the UK living with Post Polio Syndrome (PPS), and on the eve of our 80th anniversary next year, we aim to plant 8,000 oak trees, one for every one of our members to leave a visible, lasting legacy for future generations to enjoy.

We want to see oak trees, not as common as they once were (much like polio survivors), to thrive once more.

The British public has helped us survive polio and we now we live with PPS – a debilitating neurological condition for which there is no cure. We felt living memorials would be the best way to say thank you to Britain, in a lasting way.

We need to collect lots of acorns. Horticultural advice would be welcome if Alan Titchmarsh, Monty Don or Rachel de Thame are reading!

We chose the oak, because this member of the beech family is renowned for its endurance and as a symbol of immortality.

None of us will live forever but if 2019 is the year we finally see polio declared eradicated worldwide, that for us would be the best present we could hope to receive.

We’d love to hear from schools, Autumn Watch, acorn gatherers and sponsors.

Help make our birthday special.

Call 0800 043 1935 or visit www.britishpolio.org.uk

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