YEP Letters: November 24

Check out today's YEP letters
Jimi Hendrix. PA WireJimi Hendrix. PA Wire
Jimi Hendrix. PA Wire

Share memories of Hendrix in Leeds

Richard Houghton, by email

Had he lived, Jimi Hendrix would have turned 75 years of age on 27 November.

I’m putting together a ‘people’s history’ of Jimi Hendrix, trying to tell his story in the words of fans who saw him in concert.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

I am looking to hear from anyone who saw his April 1967 appearance at the Odeon in Leeds supporting Cat Stevens and Engelbert Humperdinck and who’d be willing to share their memories.

I can be reached at [email protected].

Lords claiming expenses for ‘doing nothing’

Paul Dainton, by email

Yet again recent revelations have shown that peers in the House of Lords are claiming expenses for doing nothing.

Last year 115 Lords claimed £1.3 million despite never speaking once in this unelected upper house. Many are claiming the £300 per day to such an extent that they claim more than the average person takes home a year, yet do absolutely nothing. This is absolutely indefensible.

Now we discover in the Paradise Papers that Lord Ashcroft (worth approximately £800million) was registered as living in Belize in the House of Lords expenses register, beyond the reach of HM Revenue and Customs.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Lord Ashcroft promised to return to the UK and pay income tax in return for his peerage but it seems he never did. How is it possible for a non domiciliary person to take a place in the legislature of the UK when they don’t live or pay taxes in the UK?

If an unemployed person made a benefit claim of £300 per day for doing nothing over several years, odds are they would be jailed and rightly so.

Why not the same scrutiny for the people who are claiming £300 day for doing nothing in the House of Lords, or avoiding income tax, or both? The problem is that MPs in the House of Commons who have the power to intervene and stop these abuse scandals live in the dream that they may one day join this rich privileged members club. If that’s not true, then let’s see our MPs go after these Lords and reform the upper house with elected representatives.

They should also go after all these people named in the latest tax avoidance schemes, and while they are about at this work, demand that all MPs also PAYE tax just like nurses, firemen, and ambulance workers. After all they all work for the same company, don’t they?

Points taken into consideration

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Kath Lovatt, Customer Service Team Leader, West Yorkshire Combined Authority.

Regarding John Turner’s feedback (YEP Letters November 22), about the scrolling message advertising the penguins at Lotherton Hall.

West Yorkshire Combined Authority offers the use of screens at bus stops to public sector partners as it is a cost-effective way of getting their messages across to a wide audience about events and exhibitions in their area.

We were asked by our partners, Leeds City Council, if we would help them to promote this by adding the messages to our electronic screens at bus stops in Leeds.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The Lotherton Hall message was only scheduled to appear for three days for 2 ½ hours each day. Service disruption messages always take priority and the message would have been removed if we had travel news to display.

I understand his point about not being able to travel there by bus and will take this into consideration when being asked to add these messages in the future.

Parking near schools

Thelma Dixon, Leeds

I am writing re the article about the ambulance blocking someone’s drive.

Whilst I think the people who complained were out of order in this instance the paragraph that we all pay our road tax as an argument for parking , well you should try living near a school.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

We all pay our council tax too which should entitle us to get on and off our drives without having to ask someone to move.

I have a keep clear sign outside my house yet it is used most morning as a dropping off point. One afternoon a young lady parked there, totally ignoring the sign and when I asked her to move she seemed upset because I hadn’t asked nicely enough.

I then realised she’d been in the car on her phone with the engine running which made me think about air pollution near schools. We must have about 100 cars coming into the area twice a day.

The council goes on about banning cars in the city centre, well how about banning them near schools?

We owe nothing to Europe...

M Meeson, Leeds

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Another “remainer” James Bovington (YEP Letters November 21) blaming Brexit for the relocation of the European Union Youth Orchestra, then has a nasty spat at the “feral youth from the less salubrious housing estates that ring our glitzy centre.”

It makes me wonder how we managed to survive before joining the Common Market in 1973, and how we could possibly manage without a European Union Youth Orchestra?

Well those people living in those housing estates are the same people who lived and grew up through many years of World War Two.

We owe Europe nothing, indeed it is they who should have repaid the U.K. immense debt of £21billion incurred after the war.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

We repaid £42.5 million to the USA, £11.6 million to Canada and the final payments were made by 2006. Can we now ask Europe to repay the “debt” they owe this country? Instead they are trying the bleed every last penny out of the UK as a punishment for leaving.

If we had not at to repay this amount perhaps it could have been spent on “new housing” and the “feral youth” James Bovington so scornfully speaks of.

Taking it with pinch of salt

Derrick Bond, Shadwell

I find it irritating when people drone on about their bucket list. So what if they want to jump out of a plane or abseil down a building? It’s their choice, and if they are fit and healthy to do this, what’s the big deal?

Equally irritating are those who boast about how they go to the gym three times a week, do yoga and go to an art class and singing group while looking after the grandchildren in between. I take it all with a pinch of salt.