Letters to the Editor

His remarks that nine out of ten people in City Hall don't help anyone are unfounded, unprofessional and have no basis in fact and indeed are a discredit to the position he holds.

We have more than 8,000 members working in Bradford Council, many providing front line services to some of the most vulnerable members of our community. To suggest nine out of ten homecare workers, school-meals workers, care assistants and many other of the professions do not help anyone is deeply offensive and Mr Pennington should apologise publicly for his comments.

Clearly as a businessman in the city he indirectly benefits from the patronage of council employees who may frequent his nightclub and he should therefore be more considered in his comments to the media.

Finally, should Mr Pennington wish to meet with UNISON which represents a high percentage of council employees to discuss any issue with the service our members provide we would be delighted to do so.

Liz Devlin, branch secretary, UNISON, Upper Piccadilly, Bradford, BD1 3NU

John Pennington said: "I will gladly apologise to all those care workers and the many like types who do a great job but I maintain that the Council is not business-friendly. There is an in-built culture against enterprise. Without prospering companies there will be no care service or employment. Firms are continually faced with Council red-tape and bureaucracy, indecision, additional fees, delays, problems and a couldn't-care-less attitude. I speak as I find and speak for many. Bradford needs leaders like Ian Stewart. He tried to run the Council like a business. If things are so good, why did he leave? If anyone comes along to Pennington's Live with a Unison card, I will be happy to let them in for free."

SIR - I see that the spin process has begun again on the bogus negotiations to cover the embrace of the Lib-Dems and Tories on the Council.

Let us be clear, their budget is in place after they rejected en bloc all the Labour Group proposals including additional funds to schools and not charging for bins to new homes. Theirs was the highest rate despite millions set aside for, we presume, more consultants.

Labour have challenged and proposed policies where we feel we need to. Indeed at last Council I proposed two motions that got full Council backing.

I see again we are name-calling on who does what. Coun Sunderland's veneration of Coun Ward is touching, but rather insulting to the rest of the Cabinet.

For my part I am chairman of the Early Years and Childcare Partnership and Careers Bradford's Board, as well as being a director of the EPP. I am not shy in chipping in with ideas or issues. Hardly the conduct of a sectarian or narrow-minded politician.

Having spent Friday and Saturday on these duties I rather resent the cheap slurs being made about commitment and responsibility. It is arrogant for Coun Sunderland to assume she calls the shots on what I and others not part of her group should do.

Coun Ralph Berry, Labour spokesman Education, City Hall

SIR - Well said, Mike Priestley. Quite rightly he speaks out against the proposal to put fluoride in our drinking water (North of Watford, May 7).

I must avoid gluten - the protein in wheat, and so cannot eat "normal" bread. But I can find alternative breads and other foods.

If we are to have fluoride in our water this will be an unavoidable forced medication.

I understand that fluoride is an ingredient in some anti-depressant drugs and that the Nazis used it in their prisons, prisoner-of-war camps and concentration camps to subdue the inmates.

Is this going to be Dictator Blair's way of controlling the population in the future? Shades of George Orwell's 1984!

Those who feel the need for fluoride can buy tablets or use toothpaste containing it.

Peter A Rushforth, Sutton Drive, Cullingworth.

SIR - Re your story "Battered Husbands Need our Support" (May 19). According to the report, the immigration law states that a victim of domestic violence has the right to stay in the country.

As a working person who every month sees a large portion of his hard-earned wage disappear in taxes partly to fund the burgeoning welfare budget, this concerns me.

Is it just coincidence that the number of people who came here for an arranged marriage and are now coming forward as battered husbands is increasing?

If this domestic violence is occurring, why are we not seeing criminal convictions rather than legal advice being fought by the victims of this abuse, no doubt with a view to having the right to stay in this country?

I hope this law is tightly regulated as it looks to me that if no criminal charges are levelled against the perpetrators of this violence and the victims are then allowed to stay in the country, it opens this law up to abuse from economic immigrants.

Jason Warren, Currer Street, Little Germany, Bradford 1

SIR - I am sure that, like me, other readers are aware that the question of the euro seems to be very much on the minds of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister.

I am quite concerned about price increases if we join the single currency. I remember reading, just one month after the euro was introduced in Europe, that the Germans were complaining that 72 per cent of their prices had been increased - some by as much as 150 per cent. My real concern however is what price democracy?

Mr Blair promised a referendum on joining the euro; I would not like to bet that we shall get a referendum on the euro this side of the next election. But if we do, think carefully about all the implications before you decide to dump the pound.

Coun Margaret R Bates (Con, Spen Ward), Kirklees Council, Bradford Road, Birstall.

SIR - Chris Leslie says that a regional assembly will devolve power from Whitehall. True, and hand it over to Brussels, which I believe is even further away and more foreign.

As for all these alleged financial benefits he claims we'll get, Mr Leslie, why aren't we getting them now?

If the money is there it's there now. So go out and get it for us.

Of course the real reason so many MPs are in favour of regional assemblies is because it's another layer of bureaucratic parasitical government they can get jobs in when we kick them out of the other place.

Are we going to get these benefits only if and when we hand our county and our country over to Brussels?

Scotland and Wales are not going to be regionally assembled. The Germans, Irish, French, Danes, Poles, etc, are all going to have national governments and voices. Only England is to be punished and humiliated. Why?

E Firth, Wellington Street, Wilsden.

SIR - Lorraine Kirkwood's letter extolling the virtues of the euro has done nothing to convince me that we should adopt it. The UK already runs a negative trade balance with the EU. Adopting the euro would increase this, as well as rendering our farming even more vulnerable to EU policies.

We would hand over all our financial reserves to the EU and lay ourselves wide open to becoming just a puppet state of the EU monster (which is non-democratic being actually run by the non-elected EU Commissioners - not the EU Parliament).

In any case the Euro currency is not issued by a central federal bank (as in the USA) but by individual states - who can break the rules for political reasons (as France and Germany have both done in the last year).

I would refer her to the website www.credence.org for in-depth information of the details of the EU and the euro.

Our career politicians have been steadily selling this country out, purely for their own political ends.

Arthur Bailey, Nelson Road, Ilkley.

SIR - I note that a list of the Top 100 Books of All Time was submitted by nearly 140,000 people to the BBC2 programme the Big Read.

Not you notice, "The favourite books of a few people in 2003." What arrogance. Who are they? Who or what gives TV or any other organisation, the right to tell me, or anyone else, that the works of say J R R Tolkein, is a better collection of books, than, say H G Wells?

According to this list, writers like Dorothy Dunnet, H Rider-Haggard, Arthur C Clark, Conan Doyle, right, and many others, are not worth our time reading.

Could it not be argued that, had this list been presented ten years ago, or ten years hence, it would be, or would have been, totally different, and to me, just as pointless.

Jack Mawson, Grove House Crescent, Bradford 2.