IT WAS said on radio travel news earlier today that the road round Castle Hill is, like many other roads in our area, blocked by snow drifts.
Will the wise councillors and planners who voted to have a cemetery at nearby Stirley Hill make their way on foot to the site and stand there for half an hour please.
Whilst there they can try to use their imaginations to think what it might be like for some frail 80 or 90-year-old paying their last respects to a long loved spouse or other relative or friend.
I feel sure that the planners and others concerned are well educated people. What a shame it is that their education comes at the expense of commonsense.
Jeff Milner
Digley, Holmfirth
Time to leave
WE HAVE been aware for years that the EU, at best, only pays lip service to the ideal of democracy.
Many, particularly after developments in Eire, Italy, Spain and Greece, have accused the EU of being an autocracy.
Now, following events in Cyprus, it is absolutely clear that the EU in its ‘Eurozone’ guise is neither more nor less than a full-blown kleptocracy founded on the premise that private property is there for the State to confiscate.
There is no other interpretation to be placed upon the state seizure of a substantial part of the relatively modest (above £85,000) deposits of private individuals, held in properly licensed banks.
If you think this only affects “the rich”, just consider the case of someone who is selling a very modest house in order to move up the property ladder.
Most often there is a time when a solicitor holds a balance of more than £85,000 in trust and it is mandatory to hold this in a bank account. Now, at least within the Eurozone, such a deposit is at the mercy of the state.
This level of state kleptomania has only previously existed in the former USSR and other Communist states or in the premodern Kingdoms of mediaeval Europe. Now, it is the working model for the EU when facing financial problems.
I have never trusted the EU and have often complained of a lack of democracy, but even I am taken aback at the confiscation of private money in Cyprus. The robber barons of Olde England had nothing on this lot.
I’m not sure just how much evidence our political leaders require before deciding that the best thing to do is withdraw in an orderly manner from the EU.
Certainly, I cannot understand the reluctance of the elite to grant the people of the UK a referendum at the earliest opportunity.
In case David Cameron is reading this, 2017/2018 is NOT the earliest opportunity!
Bill Armer
Deighton
Disc parking plan
PERHAPS Clr Mehboob Khan and the rest of Kirklees Council could shut down their new iPads (provided by us) and consider giving back something to the council taxpayer.
Why do they not adopt the free parking disc allowing one and a half hours free parking within the town centre at any time.
The parking discs could be purchased, say for a fee of £2, and used similar to a ‘blue badge’ scheme.
This would encourage more people into the town centres and would be easier to monitor.
It certainly works elsewhere.
No doubt this will not bring in enough revenue although Kirklees Council have millions of pounds in reserve.
If parking charges go up, Huddersfield will become a ghost town. Even the pound shops and charity shops will close, leaving students and takeaway shops.
Who will be to blame? This Labour Council.
P Fahey
Fixby
Out of touch?
THE work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith has obviously lost touch with reality by suggesting that the victims of the savage 14% to 25% cut in housing benefit should seek employment for a few hours to make up their benefits shortfall.
This ludicrous suggestion serves to highlight just how completely out of touch he and his government are with the plight of people who through these devastating cuts will probably be forced to live on the breadline.
Mr Duncan Smith obviously has no concept of the daily endurance test that the less- privileged must face on a daily basis just to survive.
Here in the forgotten north we are forced to face the reality of cuts to many of our vital services.
Moreover, Mr Duncan Smith seems blissfully unaware that many people who rely on benefits to maintain a bearable quality of life would love to be able to work.
However, many people are simply too physically or mentally ill to hold down a job and even if they were fit to work, due to the ineptness of Mr Duncan Smith’s and previous regimes, we no longer have a manufacturing industry to provide us with the opportunity to work.
There simply is very little employment available.
This blinkered approach devoid of human compassion adopted by the well heeled Mr Duncan Smith, who probably has little concept of the ‘terror’ we face when we cannot afford to pay our mortgages or utility bills or buy adequate food, is totally bizarre and counter productive.
But then what can we expect from an individual whom in common with many of his fellow MPs is not forced to dwell in the nightmarish world created for us by our Government.
Indeed, when was the last time Mr Duncan Smith struggled to pay his mortgage or couldn’t afford to heat his home or buy food?
Will he ever experience the sheer terror of homelessness? Probably not.
If he lived in the real world, with real issues, he would quickly realise that his proposals are totally unworkable.
One wonders how a person so apparently lacking in compassion could ever be entrusted with the responsibility of such a key position as work and pensions secretary with the means to totally destroy peoples lives, as he seems intent on doing.
One thing is certain, that if we don’t make a stand against this latest debacle many of us will be put into the impossible situation of being unable to survive on a daily basis?
Can we really afford to accept this proverbial ‘kick in the teeth’?
Peter A Ellis
Dalton
Weather warning
LAST year’s hot March – global warming. This freezing March – global warming.
Is there any sort of weather for which global warming is not responsible?
Godfrey Bloom MEP
UKIP MEP for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire
