WHAT a carry on! Ross and Brand, two mature (in years anyway) millionaire men, earning millions for abusing an old age pensioner.

We are all paying for this as BBC licence payers. Thank goodness the public are protesting as abuse of the elderly, in whatever form, needs stamping out.

Perhaps the BBC millions saved by sacking these two clowns could be used to enhance the £90 a week state pension or provide more health care for the elderly. The Brand incident has certainly led to a lot more coverage than the two minutes air time last week, when hundreds of pensioners descended on Parliament to lobby their MPs about the parlous state of the state pension.

Few MPs supported Kate Hoey’s Early Day Motion with regard to the state pension but the Brand incident has led to Early Day Motions being tabled by all parties and even Prime Minister’s Questions has been mooted.

However, Prime Minister’s Questions revealed more questions about pigs and post office closures than the disgraceful antics of Brand and Ross.

Yet the Prime Minister was right to condemn the actions of this heartless pair in spite of his onerous economic problems. I wonder what the Queen thinks. Take them to the tower! Off with their heads!

JEAN LORRIMAN

Press officerHuddersfield and District Pensioners’ Organisation

Big thanks to Andrew

I THINK the 91% of Examiner readers who voted against the present “alterations” to St George’s Square should be eternally grateful to the paper’s reporter Andrew Baldwin for at last giving us the views of English Heritage on the subject (Examiner October 29).

Up to now their views have been a well-kept secret. All we have heard from the redoubtable Clr Sims is that English Heritage took too long in answering the Kirklees queries, so his committee just got on with the job and he’s sure it’ll be all right when it’s finished!

Kathryn Gibson, of English Heritage, tells a different story in Mr Baldwin's article. Two different stories usually mean that someone is being very sparing of the truth. Either English Heritage is a big toothless and expensive quango or our Kirklees Cabinet can simply ignore it and go its own merry way.

The cost of all this they tell us is not from our council tax. Nonetheless, it is from our taxes one way or another, which makes the whole thing a very serious business which cannot simply be answered by: “It’ll wear well and be all right on the night.”

After English Heritage’s remarks I think we as ratepayers deserve a full explanation of the whole sorry story. Pubs on the top of high hills have been pulled down for less!

Austin Holroyd

Almondbury

What about the policy?

CLR Ken Sims has many things to explain about St George’s Square. One of them is that the purchase of Chinese granite is in clear breach of the council’s environmental purchasing policy. This policy was started in March, 2002.

The policy says the council should:

“Minimise the environmental impact of all council purchases of goods and services through a comprehensive environmental purchasing policy.”

“Work in partnership with our suppliers and contractors to minimise the environmental and social impacts of our supply chain.”

“Where possible , purchase local products and services.”

I cannot remember any council statement explaining how the Chinese granite purchase can be justified in light of this council policy.

Tony Woodhead

Lib Dem councillor for Lindley

‘Isms’ and human nature

I NEVER expected to see the day when Alan Brooke (Mailbag October 25) would write to support me in a discussion about “isms”!

I have already noted that Marx’s Utopian scheme has never been put into action and have stated that no “ism” is inherently good or bad; it is human nature which perverts them all.

I have also said that we saw state capitalism in the USSR, which includes the Stalin era. No disagreement there, then. What I did NOT say is that I am “happy to live in the world as it is”. I see many problems and much suffering in almost all parts of the world. Who could be happy with that?

I am unsure what Mr Brooke means by “true” socialism. I can only assume that he speaks of the idealist notions of Marx, who paints a picture of human nature as co-operative and collaborative before broaching the metaphysical with his talk of humanity living in tune with nature.

We can all dream of an ideal, but most of us have to live in the real world. Marx himself kept a maid-servant and, in true Victorian middle-class style, fathered a child upon her (talk about exploitation of the workers!).

I am not an ideologue. I am a pragmatist who believes that we must make the best of what we have. It is in that spirit that I say that capitalism, for all its flaws, is our best option. Although I have more than a passing acquaintance with the ideologies of the ‘isms’ I also have a fair understanding of human nature. As a former policeman and later publican I have seen people at close quarters; not always pretty.

Unlike Mr Brooke, I base my arguments on empirical observation, not ideological conviction. In a nutshell, Marx believed that capitalism made people greedy and competitive. I believe that greedy and competitive people made capitalism. In the real world it is better to work with human nature and seek to curb its excesses rather than to follow an ideological dream.

Bill Armer

Deighton

Drivers ignored injured girl

I AM absolutely mortified at the behaviour of drivers today. My niece of 16 finished her job in Huddersfield last Sunday and set off home on her scooter about 4.45pm. Her route home is Halifax Road.

At about 5pm, somewhere near the Calvary Arms pub at Birchencliffe after the traffic lights, she was knocked off her scooter by a blue Peugeot. She did not get the number of this car as things happened too fast.

Did this driver stop? NO; the driver just carried on. And to all you other drivers who drove round her while she was lying in the road what were you thinking of, why did you not stop to help? By trying to drive round her you could have easily run over her and caused major injures. Why did you not stop?

My niece thankfully only suffered cuts and bruises. But if it was up to you drivers – and I’m sure you know who you are – we could have been looking at more serious injures.

Disgusted Driver

Huddersfield

Zap! It’s the parking Taliban

IT is not only small businesses that are targets for Kirklees’s parking ticket Taliban (Examiner October 28). It is every one of us who owns a motor vehicle and stops and takes their eye off their car for more than a minute. Zap (welcome to Huddersfield) you have a ticket and those who gave it out have vanished like smoke,

You cannot expect them to apply common sense as they do not have any. They are programmed like Stepford Wives and I am sure they are deaf as well.

Parking fines are very big business. I hear the Mafia has been over to look at the way Kirklees runs its parking operation.

Peter K Garside

Slaithwaite

Where was the watchdog?

HOW do the “experts” from the grand-sounding Commission For Architecture and the Built Environment, based miles away from here, know what the people of Huddersfield want? (£200m Queensgate revamp).

Where were they when the old market hall was demolished?

While the Town Hall may be an imposing building the old market hall had atmosphere and character and would have made a great centre piece for the town.

What a huge mistake. Please do not make another.

L Booth

Moldgreen

Smelly old vehicles

ON October 26 the Springwood car park was full of old wagons etc; all are men’s toys, no good to man nor beast.

At 3.15pm, when they started to go home, the fumes and smoke coming out of the exhausts was disgusting. The smell was still hanging about two hours later.

Things like this should be kept still and kept in museums and give other people peace, fresh air and quiet

JOAN SWIFT

Springwood