HAVE we learned nothing over these past years when it comes to our beloved water and energy companies?

I wrote some time ago with regards to what would happen if we conserved water and insulated our homes fully and in so doing our water/energy usage was reduced and asked, would these companies increase our energy bills to compensate for the underusage or give us a pat on the back.

Well the question has been answered by Sutton & East Surrey Water which is proposing to increase water bills by 10.2 percent from April next year. The reason behind this they say is reduced demand for water from metered customers during the droughts and heavy rainfall over the last four years which has resulted in less income.

No doubt less income equates to less dividend to the share holders.

In light of all these huge increases in the cost of water/energy from our now privatised companies what does our government do? In their wisdom they are selling off our share in the nuclear power stations to the French government owned company EdF. Now I don’t know how you feel about this, but I feel rather uncomfortable about allowing foreign companies and governments gaining ownership of the life blood of our people.

Have we now got so indifferent to these changes that we the electorate now do not care what happens. Or is it that some do care but are banging their heads against a brick wall when they try to raise these issues with a government that treats the very people whom they preside over with such contempt.

Gordon Brown will no doubt inform the public that the nuclear sell-off is a good thing for the country. He will tell us that the money raised will go a long way! The money raised will be frittered away and once spent it is gone, gone forever while the power stations will be eternal, churning out power making huge profits for some Johnny foreigner. Are we so short-sighted? I believe we are.

Oh, I forgot these increases in water/energy bills will only really affect the tax payer.

The benefit society will carry on as normal. Makes you wonder where you went wrong, I blame my parents and society of my time as everyone earned. Shows you how times have changed. Have they changed for the better? Only you can decide.

Priorities need to change. Instead of trying to right all the wrongs of the world would it not be better to set our sights a little lower and attempt to right the wrongs of our own country?

R J Bray

Shelley

Politics based on wellbeing, not power

I AGREE with Mike Madden (Mailbag October 1) that when councillors and MPs get positions of power the power and money takes over and goes to their heads.

I never said that an alternative government is around the corner. The first step is to build an alternative political and cultural movement which can encompass the aspirations for a decent life of the people of this country.

Never has such a movement been more relevant at a time when the get-rich-quick notion of Thatcherism and Blairism is crashing down around us. The task is to build a movement that understands and guards against those who seek powers purely for the sake of power and self-gratification. So-called socialist parties can be guilty of this too.

It is a symptom of a society that crushes the individual and creates a desire to have power over other people.

What we need to build is a movement that concentrates on the power to build, and change society one that is based on the strengths of ordinary people working collectively with no permanent hierarchy.

It is a movement that must monitor closely its councillors and their expenses, that would allow members of parliament only the average wage of any other skilled worker one where positions of responsibility would be shared and rotated.

There are already models of this kind of practice in the Quaker and Anarchist movements and there are many small groups around that operate on such principles. The challenge is to create a political movement that can challenge the power structure of society without becoming part of it.

Ian Brooke

Almondbury

Is Socialism really such a good idea?

THESE are certainly halcyon days for the few remaining unreconstructed Socialists. They’ve had to wait 18 years since Margaret Thatcher resigned.

Perhaps one of the Brooke tag-team could give us an example of a Socialist country whose population has a standard of living anything near what the British have thanks to a free market economy?

No, thought not.

Richard Huddleston

West Slaithwaite

Why not leave square as it was?

DOES the redevelopment of St George’s Square rank as Kirklees Council’s largest ever waste of money?

There was absolutely nothing wrong with the Square as it was, our council tells us it was our choice!

It was chosen as the best of the three options put forward. I asked the council at the time for a fourth option of leaving things as they were, I was told this was not an option.

The choice of the coloured granite blocks is a complete travesty, they are unsightly and not in keeping with the magnificent surroundings. Working in one of the offices in the Square, it has been easy to listen to the comments of members of the public passing through. Interestingly not one person has said they were in favour of the scheme going ahead, everyone I have spoken to find the granite blocks an eyesore.

Has Kirklees listened to any of this, the answer is no, they will carry on regardless of public opinion.

Paul Keighley

Huddersfield

Price of special relationship with US

THERE’S no way that the American people are going to elect another republican president, not one in a million.

Over the last eight years they’ve had, their first ever terrorist act on their soil, the worst military situation, and probably humiliation since Vietnam, and their worst financial situation since 1929. They want to continue that? Sadly, because of our closeness and obedience to the US we have identical problems.

In the last eight years we’ve had the first acts of home-grown terrorism, the worst and most humiliating military experience since Suez, picture the humiliating pictures of royal navy personnel paraded on Iranian TV and our worst ever financial crisis.

We have to cut ties with the US and strengthen them with the EU. The EU has two hundred million more people than the US and its combined economy is the world’s biggest. Strange that when you consider the EU economy is fifteen times larger than Russia’s, that Russia dominates us instead of the other way around, they play on the fact that the EU is disunited, they loved the referendum result in Ireland. Nationalism is nasty and petty and gives only petty results.

Let’s ditch our famed “Little Islander”, mentality, and grow up.

Eric Firth

Wilsden

Cardiac risk in young people

TRAGICALLY hundreds of young people (many of whom were involved in the world of sport) die annually at the prime of their lives from sudden cardiac death.

As someone who has been fortunate to reach the peak of a professional sporting career – I felt privileged to have been invited to support the national charity Cardiac Risk in the

Young (CRY) alongside one of my great friends and “sporting heroes”, David Walliams.

This week we will be marking CRY Awareness Week and paying tribute to the many young people who die every year from sudden death syndrome.

With a greater access to cardiac screening – especially for young people involved in sport at a community level – we really believe we can help to reduce the number of deaths from this, often, hidden killer. But we need the help of Government, leading sporting organisations and all those involved in sport at a grass-roots level.

For more information about the charity, the work it funds and how to become involved in CRY awareness week, please log onto:

www.c-r-y.org.uk

Many thanks for your support,

James Cracknell

Olympic Gold Medallist & CRY Patron

Re-establishing contact with family

I AM trying to trace members of my father’s family whom he lost touch with some 70 years ago when they moved from the Gateshead area on Tyneside.

He is called Charles Turner, aged 86 years, and would dearly love to establish some contact again.

I wonder if any of your readers may have any knowledge of the Mason family.

Sarah Ellen Turner married Sydney Mason in 1916 and moved to the Huddersfield area in the early 1930s. They had four sons, Dennis Mason born 1917, Kenneth Mason born 1920, Colin Mason born 1925, Brian Mason born 1934 in Huddersfield.

Brian Mason married Sybil Atkinson in 1956 and have two children, Julie and Alan Mason. Dennis Mason married a girl called Shirley.

I would appreciate any replies to my home address: 14 Embleton Drive, Chester-le-Street, Co Durham, DH2 3JS or e-mail address: lynda.whitwood@btopenworld.com.

Lynda Whitwood