HERE we go again, with the political publicity campaign condemning benefit cheats.
Labour have paid for billboard posters and TV adverts on the subject. The Tories have recently come up with the three strikes and you’re out idea which is pure gimmickry and will save next to nothing.
There is a pernicious idea that underlies all this hypocritical populism. This is that it is only the poor who swindle the taxpayer. How about a poster campaign highlighting corporate tax avoidance or general tax avoidance by the super-rich?
This is not likely to happen as these are the very people who wine, dine and lobby politicians as well as inviting them onto their luxury yachts.
They are also the ‘power behind the throne’ influencing government policy far more than the ordinary voters in whose hands the real power should be.
If someone is caught cheating the benefit system they may go to prison or they may receive a fine or have to do community service.
In contrast the taxpayer has had to cough up tens of billions of pounds propping up the banks due to what is, in my view, incompetence by politicians.
Nobody has gone to prison or been charged with anything as a result of this even though middle England and the poor will be paying back these bills for decades to come.
This tells us everything we need to know about the warped values of our political system and the political class.
Liam McParland
Crosland Moor
Living locally
WE’RE being bombarded with literature through our letterboxes and what do we read?
The only thing the Liberal Democrats in Colne Valley have to bleat about, in every single leaflet, is that their Conservative opponent used to live in Leeds.
The fact that their own much respected MP, Richard Wainwright, chose to live in the leafy suburbs of Leeds during his entire time as member for Colne Valley seems to have entirely escaped them.
Added to this is the fact that the Conservative candidate Jason McCartney committed himself to living in Honley – in the heart of the constituency – immediately after his selection, which has gone entirely unreported.
Neil Craven
Meltham
Fighting one’s corner
An anonymous ‘Cynic’ attacks Clr Nicola Turner (Hedged bets, Mailbag, April 17) on the basis of her possible lack of commitment should she win both Parliamentary and Council elections and adds ‘What about her own business?’
I can give Cynic a definitive answer to the ‘business’ question. She is both director and manager of our family business but not the principle shareholder – so long as I remain compos mentis.
Should she enter Parliament she will remain a director, involving not more than four meetings a year, but not the manager. I may add, for the benefit of another cynic, that should she not be elected her financial prospects, long term, will be rather better than she may expect as an MP – since she is not the sort of person to accept ‘money for questions’ or anything else of a dishonest nature.
Regarding the idea of representing the Valley in both seats, I was myself very dubious about this at first but am advised there are a number of MPs who also sit on councils.
The rationale is that there is no better way for a council to have its voice heard in Parliament.
Parliament may enact draconian legislation about housing, for example, which is fine for the big cities but ludicrous for the Colne Valley.
For another example, Parliament rationed the salt supply this winter taking no account of our steep hills. Who was there to fight our corner?
Mark Mercer
Golcar
Backing both horses?
As someone who lives in Calderdale and works in Kirklees I’ve been intrigued to notice what’s happening with the local and general elections in the area.
I am particularly at a loss to understand why the Liberal Democrat candidate for the Colne Valley constituency is standing for both Parliament and the local council at the same time? Surely she should be able to make her mind up which is the most important?
Or do we assume the Liberals know they do not have a chance of winning the Colne Valley constituency, confirming that voters there have a straight choice between Labour and the Tory candidate as their next MP?
Clr Megan Swift
Halifax
Don’t do deals
IN the light of opinion poll surges for Nick Clegg does anyone seriously imagine that it is anything other than a ‘get out of jail free card’ for Gordon Brown?
Only the most naive political watcher could envisage anything other than a Labour/Lib Dem pact in the event of a hung parliament.
David Cameron may not secure an overall majority but he will win the greater strategic advantage.
After all, can anyone seriously imagine a modern-day Fox/North Coalition between the Liberals and the Tories?
The lesson for Mr Cameron is to hold his nerve like William Pitt.
Let the unpopular coalition stumble from one crisis to another through a season of ‘discontent’ and never be tempted to do deals.
When Brown and Clegg are seen for what they are Cameron will win a landslide.
David Horsley
Moldgreen
We’re all spinning
LABOUR supporters are upset.
They have just found out that other parties can also massage figures just like the Labour spin doctors.
I do not know if the Lib Dems can take the seat. I doubt it because of the slavish Labour supporters, but they should remember what certain people in Labour have told over the last few years.
As for the BNP and anyone who votes for them being thick, I would not vote for them but I do not think they are all stupid either.
There are a lot of ordinary, decent people who have had enough of Labour but cannot bring themselves to vote Conservative and do not like wishy washy Lib Dems.
If any supporters are thick, it is those Labour ones who have not looked at their downsized pensions due to Gordon’s ram-raid on them, the cost of filling up their fuel tanks and the fact they cannot get an operation for years.
And just remember, Labour supporters, it is your pensions robbed that are paying for the public sector. And that is why, of course, they vote Labour.
The pensioners will have a big say this time. Lib Dems want to take hard worked for benefits off them and give them to people who have been here five minutes.
Take out the racist policies from the BNP and they have some good ideas. And, unlike the Labour smears, not all anti- immigrants are racist.
It is Labour that will lose most to the BNP. That is why they got into a panic and suddenly talked up more immigration controls. If the Conservatives lose, it will be to the Lib Dems.
As for the repatriation of Brit holidays makers by the Navy – it would not have happened if there was no election in three weeks. Talk about a cynical ploy.
Anyone who saw the three wise sheep led by Lord Mandelson on Sunday night, all ringing their hands and with befuddled expressions on their faces should recognise that someone in the forces with intelligence pushed that on them.
And, yes it is a good idea. If it was a political decision it should and would have been made a day after the volcano erupted, not one week later.
M B Fletcher
Emley
Animal welfare
AT present we are constantly being bombarded with information on what the political parties intend doing if elected.
I personally have not noticed anything to do with animal welfare.
In fact I have heard that the Tories or Liberal Democrats, if elected, intend carrying out the culling of badgers because they believe that they are spreading bovine TB and that they will get rid of the Hunting Act which means we will be back to all the cruelty of hunting with hounds.
So I would suggest those of us who do not want these to happen should ask their local candidates about these two issues and/or bear this in mind when voting.
Rosemarie F Wike
Wooldale
Some recovery!
I am currently enjoying reading the various political letters in the Examiner and confess to both occasional amusement and amazement at some of the comments.
However, I am particularly mystified by one comment by H Jones, Mailbag April 20, ‘Confusion of figures in election literature’ who says she is a committed Labour supporter, remembering the previous Conservative government and knows first hand how long it has taken to recover.
Recovery? So that’s what its called.
A Labour Government squandering an inherited positive financial situation (as defined by the IMF) in 1997 and arriving at the biggest UK debt mountain ever known. Some recovery.
Pensioners this year receive an increase of £2.40, (last year £4.55) taxed if an individual has a pension from an ex-employer.
And also this year a freeze on the normal additions many receive by way of additional state pension and graduated retirement benefit (Serps).
Unannounced of course – just left to the annual letter from the DHS to disclose.
I guess that’s what H Jones and Labour diehards not wishing to contemplate a Tory Government will regard as ‘A future fair for all’?
Peter Fenton
Lepton, Conservative Party member
Independence day
IT’S time to call it a day, time to vote out present members on May 6. This plea is aimed at non-voters and those wavering on where to cast their vote.
They must use their vote, as to not do so only means someone unwanted is elected with fewer votes cast.
There are more than enough of these electors to bring the above call to fruition if they respond as suggested.
We need to elect mature, honourable, independent candidates who have been in industry and are capable of making decisions without being directed by party whips, rather than the graduates who have no experience or existing members who have been tried and found wanting.
They must be an improvement on those they would be replacing.
For the past 50/60 years the people in power have arranged or, at least, condoned overpayment of a great number of undeserving people, especially themselves, thus creating the position in which we now find ourselves – some £750bn in debt.
Our current overlords obviously do not want to solve the problem because it would mean a reduction in their inflated pay over a period of time, but obviously the situation has to be rectified.
What money you have will buy is of more importance than the size of the numbers.
One independent candidate on each ballot paper, for both national and local elections, would be the ideal so as not to split the vote.
But they should also have a manifesto that included a promise to suspend membership of the EU and withhold all payments to it until all outstanding budgets have been audited
It’s also time for a complete overhaul on maximum and minimum pay structures and taxation, especially in the public sector.
Arthur Marson
Huddersfield
We’re out there
WITH reference to the letter from Andrew Wood (‘We’re in the money’ Mailbag, April 10), I would point out that Lindley Liberals have a team of volunteers to help to deliver leaflets and we do canvass on a regular basis.
The question for the Colne Valley Conservatives is how many of Lord Ashcroft’s millions did the party get to fight the seat?
Clr Tony Woodhead
Lib Dem, Lindley Ward
Call me cynical
CALL it cynical but I do believe these televised political debates by the three main political parties are a ploy to regenerate the dwindling interest in British politics.
For years there has been a steady decline and low turn-outs at the polling booths as people have lost interest in the political system of this country.
Having these televised political debates and seeing which political leader can score the most points is similar to voting the best act on a talent show.
The danger is, some people will vote for the candidate who puts up the best argument, who answered the questions better and presents themselves on the debate and not on their policies and, let’s face it, what they say now is not necessarily what they will do when they get into number 10. Be warned, we've been hoodwinked before.
Alan Parkinson
Lower Cumberworth
Beating Labour
READING several letters (Mailbag, April 20) I can only assume that the official Lib Dem strategy is to mislead the voters.
In Ashbrow they are distributing a leaflet which claims only they can beat Labour – an interesting fiction given that at the last Ashbrow election the first three candidates polled: Labour 1880, Conservative 1759, LibDem 299.
Bill Armer
Conservative candidate, Ashbrow
