YEP Letters: October 15

The benefits of Brexit to the shame of Britain, the future of the cloth hall to Strictly Come Dancing are all subjects for discussion on today's Your Say page.
Whitby harbourWhitby harbour
Whitby harbour

Taking back control of our fisheries

From: Amjad Bashir, Conservative MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber, Wellington Place, Leeds.

ONE of the many benefits of Brexit will be that we finally regain control of our own seas and our own fisheries. An academic study this week demonstrates just how great that bounty could be.

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Research by the University of the Highlands and Islands discovered that boats from other EU countries are catching more of our fish than we do. In fact 58 per cent of the fish and shellfish landed from UK waters was caught in foreign EU nets.

During the study period between 2012 and 2014, this added up on average to some 650,000 tonnes of fish and shellfish worth more than £400m per year.

By contrast only an average 90,000 tonnes of fish and shellfish, worth about £100m, was landed by UK boats fishing elsewhere in EU waters. Leaving the EU will spell the end of the hated Common Fisheries Policy.

It will allow the UK to re-assert control over our 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone so foreign vessels could not fish within it without consent.

A whole sea of opportunity will open up to us.

I feel ashamed to be British

R Kimble, Hawksworth

I FIND unbelievable that in a

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country and county that fought against Fascism and Nazism there is a report this morning that hate crime in North Yorkshire has increased by 40 per cent.

In particular these crimes revolve around disability, people from ethnic groups other than white British and on grounds of religion.

What has happened to this country and some of its newspapers ?

One tabloid prints lies about Muslims then retracts – but the damage has been done. Another prints cartoons of migrants that are reminiscent of Nazi cartoons. Some of these people are the sort your front page this morning reports on (‘Living in fear’, YEP, October 12). Councils and the police need, surely, to banish these people from housing estates and let them live in expensive private accommodation in the same way they want to banish people they think are inferior to them.

Inferior to you thugs? Good grief, look at yourselves.

I’m ashamed to be British these days in many, many ways.

Why save the Cloth Hall?

DS Boyes, Upper Rodley Lane, Leeds

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WHAT is so special about the ruins of the White Cloth Hall when today in the 21st century we live in a world of smartphones, tables, laptops etc?

It was only ever a room where handloom weavers carried pieces of undyed or white cloth on their backs to sell for a pittance to very greedy exploitative middlemen.

Mechanisation from the late 18th Century by steam-operated spinning mules, power looms etc. made that work obsolete, just like the canals put pack horses out of work, then railways did the same to them, followed by road haulage becoming the main form of goods transport even today, with former mail boats replaced by aeroplanes.

The Leeds Corn Exchange is worthy of preservation, I remember it still functioning as that in the 1950s, when salesmen discarded their samples of grain outside for the pigeons to eat at close of business.

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To preserve Leeds’ 1896 abattoir once between the back of the Central Bus Station and the Kirkgate Market complex could have still been useful today, as Leeds City Council no longer has one.

And Kirkstall Forge with its 1000 years of history from the time of the monks of the nearby abbey could have been saved, but wasn’t either.

The White Cloth Trade belongs in a museum, of which Leeds has some very good ones, but spending scarce resources on trying to recreate something which in reality no longer exists is a waste of time and money.

Anti-social media storm

Hilary Andrews, Leeds

WITH all the fuss about suspected racism in Strictly Come Dancing, it seems that Twitter, Facebook and Instagram seem to be media for spreading an unwelcome climate of hatred in this country. We are normally so tolerant. What could be the cause of this phenomenon?

Who left this boy alone?

Julie Goodwin, Altofts, West Yorkshire

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Rather than Lily Allen apologising on behalf of the people of the UK because she feels not enough has been done to help those living in the Calais so called jungle, should she not be asking the strapping 13 year old why his dad abandoned him to go to the UK and also demanding the French equivalent of our NSPCC to take action. Also if said child is allowed to come to the UK will they hand him over to the dad who was so cruel to leave him to fend for himself.?

The hypocracy of politicians

Alan Thompson, Bramhope, Leeds

The self-righteous Shami Chakrabarti insists she is not a hypocrite for sending her son to a private school while opposing grammar schools.

I would argue she personifies everything that is wrong with the Labour Party, ‘don’t do as I do, do as I say.

Labour is now run with establishment elites whose blatant double standards erode any semblance of solidarity or trust they might have with traditional Labour voters.

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If privately educating your own children while extolling the virtues of comprehensive education for the rest of us isn’t hypocrisy I really don’t know what is.

Better off under Labour

Mick Hooson, King George Avenue, Chapel Allerton

Alan Thompson’s letter (Yorkshire Evening Post, October 13) quite simply misunderstands the economic policy outlined by John McDonnell, not Derek Hatton.

The policy is for productive investment in infrastructure and well-paid jobs through state investment of £500bn over the term of a future Labour government. This will generate far more wealth than it costs and will benefit the vast majority of the population and not the tiny number of the super rich whose interests are served by the Tory party.

The bottom line is people will be better off under 
Labour.

Warn off cold callers

Mr P Butterworth, by email

Regarding the issue of people “cold calling” at the door.

If you, or a relative, can go online then go to the Money Saving Expert website run by Martin Lewis (who also has a fortnightly column in the Yorkshire Evening Post).

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You can print off a notice that you can put in your window. If people call, then just point to the notice.

If they persist then point to the bit that informs them that they are committing a criminal offence.

Best of luck.

What do you think?

Your letters, every day

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