Letters to the Editor

Deepening insights and understanding of the world, ourselves and others is not a commodity that can be simply bought by the rich and denied to the poor.

Tony Blair is creating a mean-minded, means-tested and mortgaged generation who learn that the royal road to knowledge is an uninspiring, instrumental toll road to selfish materialism, rather than an invigorating mind-bending journey into humanity's open country.

Opportunity for all to have a real education is the responsibility of us all and should be funded by us all through general taxation.

George and Margaret Riseborough, The Mayroyd, off Roper Lane, Queensbury.

SIR - Silsden may appear safe on paper but it is far from it when you actually live there. We have gangs of youths hanging out in the town at all hours. Even on Christmas Day I had to walk past several youths at the top bus shelter who appeared to have been drinking and were shouting abuse at people passing by.

Only the other night someone kindly put our car window through while the car was parked in our drive right outside our front room window.

We reported it even when we found nothing was missing. The police can do nothing but at least they were made aware. But people don't bother reporting things when there is nothing to be done so really the figures don't tell the true story.

Pam Phillips, Thanet Garth, Silsden.

SIR - We have the answer for crime. I am 81, born in Pudsey, a mill town with plenty of poverty but little crime. We had deterrents to keep us straight, like the cat o' nine tails, the birch and prisons.

Then the do-gooders took over and corporal punishment was banned. Crime went up again and prison was not a deterrent.

A war pensioner with no legs was mugged recently. A youth confessed to it and to breaking into 54 old-age pensioners' houses. He got 15 months, and no doubt the do-gooders will help him when he comes out.

S Teale, Holme Wood Road, Holme Wood, Bradford.

SIR - Regarding the report about the cameras installed in Leeds Road being financed to the tune of £140,000 in the interests of road improvement and safety, when will some of the finance be used to make the junction of Green Lane, Baildon and Otley Road safe?

Turning right out of Green Lane is like playing Russian roulette.

I remember road improvement plans being published about three years ago, but nothing happened then. When will it?

A Dixon, Coach Road, Baildon.

SIR - Before Captain Blair sets sail for America on the Titanic, he should attend to the shambles on the home front. When he hits the iceberg which is Iraq, how many people will go down with the ship? How many lives will be lost?

All because Captain Blair is vain enough to believe that the ship is unsinkable. The ship doesn't have enough boats (ill-equipped army). And the ship (war with Iraq) doesn't hold water.

Like the Captain of the Titanic, Mr Blair believes himself to be invincible and we all know what happened to the Titanic and its skipper.

Mrs K Cliff, Southdown Road, Baildon.

SIR - It seems to me the only disease Mr Taylor is suffering from is gross delusion (Letters, January 14). Indeed the only risk posed to his proverbial pot is people like himself who romanticise about days of warm beer and village cricket while neglecting to acknowledge the fact the world has changed.

And if it simply a matter of placating former territories, can Mr Taylor remind me when Britain granted independence to the Balkans?

Moreover, unless he refuses to accept a state pension in coming decades, his attitude to immigration will have to change as one of the most elementary principles of economics governs that healthy economies depend on growth, and with the indigenous population shrinking, well... that poses a bit of a problem, now doesn't it, Mr Taylor?

Tim Kearns, University College, Oxford.

SIR - How can Bradford Council say they cannot afford to instal a shower for pensioner Margaret Harrison one minute, then say they have a surplus of £2.9 million the next?

It makes people wonder who is organising the purse strings in the Council. If Margaret was an asylum seeker, this would not have been a problem!

B Proctor, Valley View, Baildon.

SIR - How appalled and saddened I was on my recent return to Bradford for a short visit to see the sorry state of the pavements and roads in and around Saltaire. Appalled at the amount of dog dirt that littered the streets and pavements of Saltaire village and saddened that no-one seemed to care about it.

I did not even notice any of the "Clean up after your dog" signs anywhere in the village. The Council needs to accept some of the responsibility, or this will surely reinforce the "don't care" attitude.

Saltaire is promoted by the Council as a great tourist attraction. I would be deeply ashamed of recommending it to visitors unless the streets are free from dog dirt.

Patricia O'Neill, Shearwater Grove, Innsworth, Gloucester.

SIR - N Brown (Letters, January 22) seems to have hit the nail on the head regarding Europe and the Euro being an enemy of Britain.

I also agree we should have a non-political party. Labour and Conservatives are too weak on many fronts, ie Europe, asylum seekers, law and order, education, NHS, no deterrent for murder, rape, muggings etc.

Let us have a strong Government to take us out of Europe, bring back law and order in this country, bring back capital punishment for murder and life sentences for rape.

Tom O'Grady, Westfield Lane, Wyke.

Readers' views on the British National Party's by-election victory

SIR - The BNP's by-election victory in Halifax should not be dismissed as a temporary phenomenon. There exists within sections of the white electorate a deep cynicism towards the traditional political parties.

Many white people perceive that both local and national government has forgotten them. This leaves the scene open to the peddlers of easy solutions: the BNP.

They tell us that too much money of the available pot is being spent on Asians and the asylum seekers. This ignores the rampant unemployment and drug-driven crime in areas such as Manningham where thousands of Asians and Afro-Caribbeans and local whites face the same spirit-sagging poverty as the council estates.

The alienation felt by many towards the traditional parties exists because of Tony Blair's rejection of the politics of wealth redistribution. Until the traditional Left throws off Blairism and re-embraces the politics of redistribution in a new alliance of the Left, wide sections of ex-Labour voters will remain vunerable to the false prophets of the extreme Right.

Sean Connor, Cunliffe Road, Bradford 8

SIR - The BNP now have a councillor in Mixenden. Whatever one's opinion of them, they are a legal political party, and if you believe in democracy then you have to accept the views of the majority who voted.

But why are the BNP gaining support over the last few years, and why in certain areas? The answer is simple. The areas where they have gained councillors are all relatively poor white areas, which have traditionally elected Labour councillors year after year. We now have a New Labour government which many feel is not their government, and they realise that Labour's asylum system is as much use as a chocolate fireguard.

The only way to stop BNP candidates being elected is for the Labour Government to sort out the mess it calls an asylum system, which at the moment resembles an unofficial immigration policy.

Councillor Andrew Smith (Con, Queensbury), Chapel Street, Queensbury.

SIR - The recent by-election victory for the BNP was a direct result of politicians' seeming indifference to public opinion. You can't wonder at the electors turning to some other people, however outlandish or unacceptable their aims are. If the BNP or other extremists put themselves forward at the council elections in May, who's to say what might be the outcome?

W H Morey, Sycamore Court, Bradford 3.

SIR - I see the self-righteous liberal-minded are wringing their hands with indignity at the sight of yet another BNP councillor in Northern England. Their fire should be directed at the main parties who have let this situation arise.

Nobody listens to the anguish of the Silent Majority in terms of the rise and rise of asylum seekers, economic migrants and immigrant' dependents flooding into a local infrastructure that just cannot cope.

D J Ledgard, Bolton Lane, Bradford 2.

SIR - The BNP win a seat in Halifax and suddenly everyone expresses surprise and starts to panic. We have headlines like "Blunkett urges all-out battle against BNP" and "BNP success sets alarm bells ringing". Why be surprised? It's obvious that this is going to happen time and again unless the Government listens to the very real fears and anxieties of the ordinary people in this country.

M Wood, Westercroft View, Northowram