YEP letters: November 16

Worried for world after election

John Appleyard, Liversedge

PEOPLE are asking why out of a population of 320 million can the American public not come up with something better than Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton to stand for the American presidency?

A major problem is finance. You need to be extremely wealthy with wealthy backers to climb to the top in American politics.

A concern is that of the 231 million eligible to vote, 100 million didn’t bother to.

People come into politics promising to change the world, but in reality the world changes them.

We live in a democracy but it is a limited one that favours the rich against the rest of us.

The late Quintin Hogg referred to it as an ‘elective dictatorship’ and the US presidential elections go some way to proving that theory.

Stammer story was truly inspirational

Mary Burke, by emails

WE definitely live in a new era and are out of the “dark ages”. In my youth in Ireland, I never read an article about stammering that was as positive and uplifting as “Leeds man with stammer inspires ITV’s This Time Next Year”. (YEP

I wish that during my youth in the 1960s and 1970s that I could have read an article about someone like James Tennant, who both overcame stammering and had a winning attitude about this speech problem.

The articles I read about my youth were anything but positive and made it seem like stammering was something that a child should be ashamed of.

I have met some young people who stammer in recent years and have recommended they read the uplifting biographical articles of famous stammerers in the “Celebrity Corner” section of the website of The Stuttering Foundation (www.stammeringhelp.org).

There are numerous articles on stammerers like Rowan Atkinson, Noel Gallagher, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Gareth Gates, Lewis Carroll and Paul Young. I am glad that young people who stammer of this generation are able to read about people like James Tennant and these famous stammerers.

Poverty is more than “I want”

Alex Gillies, Leeds

Poverty is a word that seems to be used as “I want” instead of “ I have no means to shelter, feed or clothe my family “ which is not the current state of British Government policy.

Every family in the UK has access to funds to ease hardship, whether their in employment or on sickness or unemployment benefits.

It’s how you manage these funds that needs to be addressed.

Rent paid, then good wholesome food, hard wearing clothes and energy bills. Not mobile phones, broadband, bingo, alcohol, tobacco, tattoos, taxis and every other mod-con that’s discarded before the empty box has reached recycle yard.

If children in Leeds are so impoverished as Mariama Weston from Leeds Poverty Truth Commission states, then Social Services, Leeds Councillors, School Personnel, close family and neighbour’s by turning a blind eye to those children’s plight borders on criminal.

Good to see some schools open early to provide breakfast for children who are reaping the benefits of a good brekkie before lessons and more pleasing their arriving in school early and cutting absenteeism.

Thanks a bunch for Trump!

Terry Mauder, Kirkstall

Well, the shock has passed in a week that also saw the deaths of Leonard Cohen and, now, Leon Russell. I have always considered America a toxic society, apart from the “spirit of 1967” and its attendant music along with jazz and blues (itself born of slavery, another magnificent moment in their history). This is a country born of genocide in which the indigenous population has been called Red Indians and, more recently, Native Americans, allegedly a more sensitive term. They are not Native Americans, they were there before the word America existed ; they are, as stated, the indigenous population, one of differing social groups , occupying different geographical locations but with some shared philosophical beliefs and a shared respect for their environment.

Then Roy Harper’s white man arrives and, boom, all ruined. Genocide. Slavery. A completely corrupt capitalist, political and democratic system replaces the previous “green”, if you will, culture of the original civilisation.

Since then we’ve had Hiroshima, Vietnam, Iraq, Bush and now Trump as examples of their “greatness”.

So, thanks you politically ignorant (they vote for people on their looks for example, not their policies) and easily manipulated white Americans for foisting a white racist, sexist, politically inept man, whose beliefs about people are based entirely on stereotypes, and not knowledge, on the rest of the world.

No, really, thank you soooo much

Remainers did warn of this

Alan Slomson, Grosvenor Park Gardens, Leeds

The difficult choices (Ernest Lundy, letters November 14) that would need to be made if we voted to leave the EU were mentioned by the remain campaign but were dismissed as fear-mongering by the leavers who talked as though leaving the EU would be easy.

As the Brexiteers won the vote after misleading the British people and telling a few downright lies, it is no wonder the many of them become hysterical when these issues are raised.

I note that Mr Lundy has failed to answer my questions. Does he think we should aim to stay within the single market? Is he content for this decision to be made in secret by the Prime Minister?

It would be good to have some answers.

Close roads for Remembrance

Scott Baillie, by email

I attended the Horsforth Remembrance Service at the War Memorial at the corner of Fink Hill on Sunday (as I have since I moved to Leeds).

It was interesting that, despite the police presence (several vans and personnel), mainly keeping moving cars from people who were having to stand on the road during the service, the usual road closure for the two minute silence did not occur.

When asked, a member of the police said that he didn’t know why this was the case, just ‘that’s how it is’.

I fail to see why this should be the case, a minimum of disruption for a few minutes surely, particularly given the massive disruption we all suffer when there is a ‘fun run’ or ‘demonstration’ in town when roads can be closed for hours.

Given that we are in the period of 100 years since World War I, would it really be too much to ask to show some respect for the fallen for a couple of minutes and briefly stop the traffic when these services are carried out?

Not in YOUR back yard

Liz Goodwill, by email

Oh how I love these “nimbys”, in places such as Wetherby, Braham and Alwoodley protesting about proposed housing.

“Oh it will ruin the village,“ they say. or “We don’t have the schools or bus service”.

But it’s OK to decimate Holbeck, Beeston etc and “swallow” our communities, that have repeatedly been run to the ground, to double the city centre.

Oh sorry, maybe what you really mean is “My property price will suffer,” and that selfish attitude is exactly what’s wrong with this country!

No pockets in shrouds you know.

Car insurance punishes OAPs

Ernest Lundy, by email

In the car insurance industry there is an as yet unexplained anomaly in the way some drivers are charged for cover.

Have you ever thought how much a driver with a safe accident free record has paid out in, say 50 or 60 years on the road? It must amount to thousands of pounds.

As a reward insurers allow a so-called reduction in premiums by way of no claims bonus, in appreciation. But what do we find? Older drivers who, presumably have paid out most over the years for no return, discover they now have to pay ridiculous sums for cover!