2013 letters

Windpower problems

8:54am Friday 17th May 2013 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus

 

Sir – Mr John Hall suggests windmills are very effective and reliable (Letters, May 15).

Whatever planet Mr Hall is living on must have a constant wind that never fluctuates because on this planet the wind varies and amazingly sometimes never blows at all.

Mr Hall’s windmills will therefore not work if the wind is (a) not blowing fast enough (b) is blowing too fast or (c) is not blowing at all. Whichever way you ‘spin it’, the windmill is ineffective most of the time.

Mr Hall claims windmills are ‘clean’ yet each windmill needs approximately 30,000 tonnes of concrete in its base to stop it falling over and environmentalists can provide evidence that turbines affect wildlife, specifically birds.

Like most windmill enthusiasts, Mr Hall seemed to ignore my comment that they drive down house prices, by an estimated 40 per cent! I wonder has Mr Hall got a windmill in his back garden?

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford Chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury

 

Missing the point

9:06am Thursday 16th May 2013 in Readers' letters

 

SIR – John Appleyard is very far off the mark when he claims ‘Parties so similar’ (Letters, May 13) in regard to UKIP and the Tory party.

While the Tories are only for tax cuts for the rich, UKIP supports tax cuts for everybody, our flat tax and abolition of NI will see everybody pay less tax, our no tax on minimum wage will see all low wage earners pay no tax at all.

He claims both parties want to exit the EU, well that is true of UKIP, but the Tories want to ‘renegotiate our relationship’ and Cameron has stated his intention to stay in the EU at all costs.

While UKIP oppose windfarms, this is certainly not the policy of the Tories; a cursory glance at the horrific Tory manifesto will confirm this.

In fact, Mr Appleyard is so far off the mark, you can only hope he never takes up archery!

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury, Bradford

 

 

Climate debate fears?

8:37am Tuesday 14th May 2013 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus

 

SIR – Ron Harding wades in (T&A April 30) on the big ‘global warming’, ‘climate change’– or whatever it’s called this week – discussion, suggesting that myself and colleagues always come to the conclusion that ‘experts’ are wrong.

This is, of course, not the case; while I disagree with most ‘official scientists’ who support the theory of man-made global warming, there are many thousands of independent scientists who are sceptical of this and who I more often than not tend to agree with, but as they do not fit in to the mainstream political climate agenda, you never seem to hear of them, at least not in the mainstream media.

People might remember environmental TV personality David Bellamy, who in 2004 famously suggested the theory of man-made global warming was “poppycock”, very soon after he mysteriously disappeared from our TV screens altogether. I wonder are the establishment afraid of a proper debate on this issue?

Jason Smith, Ukip Bradford chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury, Bradford

 

 

Lose-lose situation

8:33am Monday 13th May 2013 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus

 

SIR – Ashley Forsyth (T&A, May 7) rightly highlights the Tories’ devastating plot to concrete over our district’s countryside, mentioning that David Cameron made a comment about our ‘lovely countryside’.

What I think David Cameron was thinking when he looked at all the lovely green belt area was, ‘look at all that potential space for more nice windmills!’.

Cameron’s family have ‘history’ with windmills – his father-in-law earns almost £350k a year from a publicly-subsidised wind farm on his 3,000-acre estate.

When we see windmills popping up in our back gardens, ruining the landscape and driving down our house prices, we must remember that, as they’re massively subsided, we’re effectively paying towards the destruction of our green belt!

So it’s a lose-lose situation, that’s unless you’re a Tory landowner!

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury

 

 

No green solution

12:40pm Friday 10th May 2013 in Readers' letters

 

SIR – Thanks for John Hall’s response to ‘Facing Facts’ (T&A, April 25) where Mr Hall actually faced the fact that ‘extreme weather cannot reliably be linked to increased CO2 in the atmosphere’.

A few more weeks of debate and Mr Hall could well be transformed from Camberwick Green’s Windy Miller to The Simpson’s Mr Burns!

That brings me on to our potential energy crisis – Mr Hall’s party of choice chooses to promote windmills, which are neither reliable nor cost-effective.

I would suggest his solution of concreting over our green belt with heavily-subsidised windmills will not only lead to an energy shortage down the power line, but will also see even larger increases in our energy bills as consumers indirectly subsidise this unreliable energy.

For our future energy security should we look to include shale gas in our energy plan? The US has and has seen consumer bills reduced dramatically.

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury

 

 

Ban this testing

8:35am Tuesday 30th April 2013 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus

 

SIR – I fully support everything Ashley Owen of Animal Aid says (Letters, April 23). I personally find any animal experimentation disgusting and believe animal testing is no better than animal torture.

One of the biggest increases in animal testing is due to the EU’s REACh (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) Directive, which mandates that all chemical substances must be tested to ensure they are safe, even substances that might have been used for years without any problems.
In an 2009 article by Thomas Hartung and Constanza Rovida in the Nature journal, they estimated that 54 million vertebrate animals would be used under REACh.

I’d like to see a national referendum on the question of banning animal testing, I am confident when people see the kind of ‘experiments’ animals have to endure then I believe most will support a ban.

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury

 

 

Food supply threat

8:51am Monday 29th April 2013 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus

 

SIR – Maureen Wakelin makes some good points on ‘Food price misery’ (Letters, April 22).

I would suggest one of the biggest contributors to high food prices must be the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which basically deters cheaper imports of food from outside the EU with a system of import tariffs. The CAP also seeks to control production by setting quotas on how much a farmer can produce, then paying them not to produce more; this allows the EU to control how much food is produced and therefore control how expensive it is.

The fact that countries like France seem to be earmarked as EU ‘farming’ regions works well from an EU perspective, as it creates more interdependency between member states, but I would suggest it further threatens our future food supply as we become ever more reliant on food from abroad.

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury, Bradford

 

 

Facing climate facts

8:50am Thursday 25th April 2013 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus

 

SIR – John Hall and Keith Thomson (T&A, April 12) were quick to jump to the defence of the establishment on the subject of global warming.

Mr Hall suggests extreme weather is a result of climate change, yet both the Nature journal (editorial of 19/9/12) and the leaked IPCC AR5 report agree ‘extreme weather events’ cannot reliably be linked to increased CO2.

Another interesting real fact is that airborne CO2 has increased eight per cent since 1997, while temperature hasn’t; this is acknowledged by Dr James Hansen of Columbia University.

I could quote real scientific papers all day, just as Mr Hall and Thompson could quote ‘official Government figures’ or Wikipedia entries, but this is not going to solve our potential energy crisis.

We can either follow the climate agenda of building windmills and taxing people to death, or we can choose to keep the lights on with nuclear, clean coal and shale gas.

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury, Bradford

 

 

Planning policies just show contempt

8:48am Tuesday 23rd April 2013 in Emma Clayton By Telegraph & Argus

 

SIR – I wonder did Government Planning Minister Nick Boles actually “hear the fears of residents” (T&A, April 16) with regard to concreting over green belt in Wharfedale, or were his ears closed?

This terrible Tory tale highlights a lot of what is wrong with the ‘not very’ Conservative Party.

It uncovers the truth of their new planning policies which gives the green light to destroy greenbelt and it shows the Tory governments loathing for local democracy by routinely ignoring the people.

We think the answers to this problem are pretty simple, if there has to be new homes built then they must be built only on brown field sites. Local people should have a say via local referenda on whether they accept new housing developments.

In the light of his visit, will Nick Boles be rolling out a new Tory logo soon, with the Tory tree being replaced by a house?

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradfordchairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury, Bradford

 

 

A slippery slope...

8:55am Monday 22nd April 2013 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus

 

SIR – The BBC in my opinion made an appalling error of judgment on their decision to censor the track Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead. The BBC played just a short section of the track.

Whether you were a lover of Margaret Thatcher or not, surely the role of our national broadcaster is to uphold freedom of speech, even when we might sometimes find it offensive.

BBC controller Ben Cooper justifies this move by saying: “It’s a personal attack on an individual who is yet to be buried”. I disagree. It is a song from a 1939 children’s musical, which has been embraced by people who dislike Margaret Thatcher.

Is the BBC seriously saying that if a ‘group’ takes on a track to support an agenda that they, the BBC, disagree with, then that track automatically becomes offensive? Seems like a slippery slope to censorship to me!

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford Chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury

 

 

Repressive thinking

8:59am Thursday 18th April 2013 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus

 

SIR – John Pashley asks ‘Where’s the logic?’ with regard to the recycling permit scheme (T&A, April 9).
I don’t think there is any logic, but the policy tells you all you need to know about the mentality of the New Labour Party, which is increasingly becoming a party championing law of ‘authorisation’.

This is, of course, consistent with their previous policies of allowing protest only in specific designated areas and their obsession with ID cards which would only allow card holders to access specific services.

Increasingly under Labour legislation you can only do specific things if you are authorised to, whereas in a free society the principle should be that you can do anything providing it is not illegal. This may on the surface not seem like a huge difference but over time will begin to become quite oppressive.

The New Labour Party thinking is becoming progressively more repressive.

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury, Bradford

 

 

Make decisions local

9:00am Monday 15th April 2013 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus

 

SIR – Malcolm Balmforth is correct in his assertion that building houses in the area of Denholme would be lunacy (T&A, April 8).

It must also be said that the Government’s whole planning strategy is lunacy.

We have been told that Bradford needs 45,000 new homes, and due to financial considerations, many developments will be built on green belt land.

The Government’s recent planning legislation was originally sold that it would protect green belt, but we are now seeing it is delivering exactly the opposite.

We passionately believe that green belt land should be protected at all costs, and that the whole planning process should be opened up, giving local people the ability to call local referenda on controversial local developments.

The reason the eroding of our green belt is taking place is because we have allowed the eroding of our local democracy.

The people will be heard!

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury

 

 

No rights sacrifice

8:30am Thursday 11th April 2013 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus

 

SIR – Mr John Hall suggests that I am guilty of bending the truth on the issue of the EU’s human rights (Letters, April 5). Interestingly, Mr Hall manages to badly misquote me by naming Article 42 of the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights, when the correct article I mentioned was 52.

Mr Hall, though, does not disagree with the ‘terms and conditions’ of the EU’s human rights, in that they may limit human rights if in their ‘general interest’. He claims it is ‘perfectly reasonable’ to set aside some individual rights in the interest of the greater EU. This is where we fundamentally disagree.

For me there can be no sacrificing of individual rights to serve the interest of what is effectively an undemocratic government. Surely the purpose of human rights is that they are just that – ‘rights’, not something that can be revoked on the whim of the EU?

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury

 

 

CO2 is essential

8:19am Wednesday 10th April 2013 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus
 

SIR – Keith Thomson suggests extreme warm and extreme cold are the result of an ‘energetic, changing and warming atmosphere’ (T&A, April 3).

What nonsense. Even climate change fanatics now acknowledge that the Earth is cooling – that is the reason they changed their mantra from ‘global warming’ to ‘climate change’.

While I am not a scientist, and neither, I suspect, is Mr Thomson (or indeed global warming guru Al Gore), I did learn a few things in school and one was that C02 is not a pollutant.
In fact, it’s quite important as trees eat it!

If there was no C02, then trees would die and we would be in trouble because they produce oxygen which is pretty important for us. So carbon dioxide is essential to the life cycle.

The fact is, the Governments’ ‘Climate of Fear’ only exists to control and tax us.

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury

Room for soldiers

8:49am Tuesday 9th April 2013 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus

 

SIR – It’s a pleasure to correct the errors of Mr John Hall (T&A, April 4) on the subject of the ‘bedroom tax that is not a tax’.

Mr Hall then presumes “that most service personnel are not on benefits and so cannot be ‘taxed’ by having their benefits cut!”. While this is true, I suspect some might be pretty young, still live at home and need to return there to stay when on leave, and it is quite possible that their parents might well be in social housing.

Mr Hall questions why I was pushing this cheeky line. The answer is simple, to help shame the Government in to making service personnel exempt, which they finally agreed to do. Had the Government not added this exemption, then there could well have been no room for young warriors when they returned to their family home.

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury

 

 

Room for soldiers

8:49am Tuesday 9th April 2013 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus

 

SIR – It’s a pleasure to correct the errors of Mr John Hall (T&A, April 4) on the subject of the ‘bedroom tax that is not a tax’.

Mr Hall then presumes “that most service personnel are not on benefits and so cannot be ‘taxed’ by having their benefits cut!”. While this is true, I suspect some might be pretty young, still live at home and need to return there to stay when on leave, and it is quite possible that their parents might well be in social housing.

Mr Hall questions why I was pushing this cheeky line. The answer is simple, to help shame the Government in to making service personnel exempt, which they finally agreed to do. Had the Government not added this exemption, then there could well have been no room for young warriors when they returned to their family home.

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury

 

 

MP’s about-turn

8:15am Monday 8th April 2013 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus

 

SIR – I see MP Kris Hopkins has proposed that town or parish councils must hold a referendum if they propose a precept rise of two per cent of more. That’s a bit rich coming from a member of the Conservative Party to demand referenda when they routinely reject the people’s right to have a say on important national issues.

As a member of a party that puts referenda at the heart of its manifesto, I would never reject the public’s calls to have their say on any important local issue, although I wonder is Mr Hopkins aware that having a referenda at parish council level may well be a lot more expensive than the actual precept rise?

Clearly Mr Hopkins has a hole in his latest policy, not dissimilar to the huge hole he left in Bradford from his reign of degeneration.

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury

 

 

Human rights ignored

9:30am Tuesday 2nd April 2013 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus

 

SIR – Lib-Dem Ian Lyons suggests (Letters, March 22) that proponents who call for us to “abandon the European Union and human rights must understand that the consequences are a divided and unstable society”.

Firstly, Mr Lyons tags together the European Union and human rights and seems to be suggesting that the EU champions human rights, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

The EU’s own Charter of Fundamental Rights says in Article 52: “Scope and interpretation of rights and principles that the limitation of human rights can be made if it is ‘necessary and genuinely meet objectives of general interest recognised by the (European) Union’,” which means human rights can be ignored if the EU deems that necessary, which renders their entire Charter Of Rights meaningless.

Apparently in Mr Lyons’ Lib-Dem parallel universe, being a sovereign free nation makes your society divided and unstable!

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford Chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury

 

 

Permits are a waste

9:06am Friday 29th March 2013 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus

 

SIR – I find myself agreeing with DS Boyes (Letters, March 26). I shook my head when I received my application form from the Council in order to obtain a permit to access my local waste recycling plant.

Forgive me, but I thought the idea was to encourage people to recycle, not to force people to possibly travel further to a plant and to obtain a permit to use it? What a total waste of time and money!

It is ironic that it is a Labour council that has created border controls for recycling, yet they believe in total open borders for migration of people in Europe.  

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury

 

 

Policy is topsy-turvy

9:27am Monday 25th March 2013 in Readers' letters

 

SIR – The continued slow-motion overseas car crash – or as it’s more commonly known, the UK’s Foreign Policy – continues to become even more reckless.

William Hague stated: “The risks that UK-supplied weapons could fall into the hands of jihadists in Syria may well be outweighed by the gamble of not doing more to end the crisis”.

Not only is he proposing we arm the Syrian rebels, but is admitting that many of them are ‘terrorists’.
He added: “If this crisis goes on worsening in the way that it is… there are even greater risks that have to be weighed against that: the risks of international terrorism and extremism taking root in Syria.”

I would suggest to Mr Hague that there is indeed a huge risk of international terrorism taking root in Syria – that is, if he decides to fund the Syrian rebels/terrorists!

This is the topsy-turvy world of UK Foreign Policy.

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury

 

 

‘Theft’ is concerning

9:25am Monday 25th March 2013 in Readers' letters

 

SIR – I thought I had become desensitised to EU cruelty and didn’t really think I could be shocked further by their undemocratic antics, that was until I heard about their ‘Cypriot bank bailout’ plot.

The EU has proposed to bail out the banks of Cyprus but only if the banks charge a levy on bank deposits. In plain English, this means the people have to pay a proportion of their savings to save the ‘private’ banks!
If we stole money from a bank, we would be committing a criminal offence and most probably imprisoned, but when the EU does it, it is nice and legal and just business as usual.

Quite rightly the Cypriot people were up in arms and the subsequent pressure meant that their government rejected the EU’s proposal.

There is now genuine concern that the ‘EU theft’ policy might be directed at other EU states to further financially enslave them.

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford, chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury, Bradford

 

 

‘Tax’ claim is just spin

8:56am Friday 22nd March 2013 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus

 

SIR – I think John Hall (Letters, March 15) is getting a little confused with regard to the Government’s ‘bedroom tax’. Mr Hall states there might be a good reason why criminals don’t pay the tax.

Contrary to popular belief, mostly among Labour supporters, the ‘bedroom tax’ is not a tax at all, but rather a benefit cut if you have a spare room in your Council or housing association home.

It is, to be fair, a neat little bit of spin by the Labour Party combined with a failure by the Tories to give their latest unfair policy a catchy title.

Although it is not technically correct to call it a ‘bedroom tax’ it is so entertaining stating this whenever you meet a Tory and watching them proceed to foam at the mouth and shake violently.

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury

Bedroom tax unjust

8:52am Tuesday 19th March 2013 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus

 

SIR – In answer to J Appeyard’s question (T&A, March 15), I can categorically state that neither I nor UKIP support the Government’s ‘bedroom tax’.

Not only is this policy unjust, but it is unlikely to save the Government much money in the grand scheme of things.

UKIP policies focus on fairness for all British people and as such this Government policy fails on this count.
I fear despite the unpopularity of this policy, the Government is unlikely to backtrack on it.

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury

A Libertarian party

8:55am Monday 18th March 2013 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus

 

SIR – I feel I must correct the political inaccuracies of Lib Dem Ian Lyons (Letters, March 13). Mr Lyons claims he is ‘disturbed’ that ‘a right-wing party advocates isolation from Europe’. Mr Lyons, of course, refers to UKIP. He erroneously called us ‘right wing’. While some policies might be leaning slightly right, our party is firmly Libertarian.

Mr Lyons might understand this term because this is something his party used to be. He continues that we advocate isolation from Europe. Well, UKIP would continue as friends and trading partners of Europe but would retain our own sovereignty and freedoms.

We then get the tired old ‘lots of jobs depend on Europe’ line. The truth is we would look to the world for trade and our family in the Commonwealth, not be limited to the economic death that is the EU.

I would suggest it is Mr Lyons who is the ‘little-European’.

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford Chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury

Misleading the public

8:52am Monday 18th March 2013 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus

 

SIR – I cannot let Lib Dem parish councillor Ian Lyons get away with trying to mislead the public on the important issue of ‘secret courts’ (Letters, March 13).

Mr Lyons says it was an honour to join his colleagues in rejecting the Government plans for secret courts. Of course Mr Lyons does not mean he joined his elected colleagues in opposing the law, but rather Lib Dem members present at their party conference.

When he talks of opposing the Government, he must remember that the Lib Dems are also part of the Government that tabled the legislation in the first place and only seven of his MPs voted against more ‘secret courts’ out of their 57 MPs – that is hardly anything to applaud.

At the Lib Dem conference, principled members Jo Shaw and Dinah Rose showed Mr Lyons the way by resigning from their party, accusing Clegg of “a betrayal of liberal values”.

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford Chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury


 

Exemption is galling

9:07am Tuesday 12th March 2013 in Readers' letters

 

SIR – The Tories have sunk to the lowest possible depths. The Government has confirmed that criminals will be exempt from the ‘bedroom tax’, while member of the armed forces won’t be.

Prime Minister David Cameron and his party’s continued disrespect for our proud servicemen totally disgusts me!

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury

 

 

Freedoms curbed

8:49am Monday 11th March 2013 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus
 

SIR – The Tories have made another assault on our ancient freedoms, this time they tabled plans for more ‘secret courts’ under their new Justice and Security Bill. The Government wants to see more secret courts where the accused cannot hear or challenge the evidence used against them.

This is of course contrary to habeas corpus, which forces the courts to provide evidence of the lawfulness of a prisoner’s detention. Britain’s most senior judge Lord Neuberger rightly said ‘anyone interested in justice and democracy will be very troubled’ by Government plans for more secret courts.

This did not seem to trouble the majority of Tories, who supported this draconian bill, and who were backed by the majority of the Liberal Democrats who proved once again they are certainly not liberal.

As our elected MPs have failed once again to protect our freedoms, our hopes for justice rest with the Lords.

Jason Smith, Ukip Bradford Chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury

 

 

‘Tories split our vote’

8:45am Monday 11th March 2013 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus

 

SIR – John Appleyard (T&A 06/3) questions why the media is currently focused on Ukip and suggests our second place in Eastleigh is not significant.

Aside from the fact that Ukip beat the governing Tories in to an embarrassing third place, and the fact is we would have won the seat had the Tories not split our vote. This surprising result for a party only 20 years old is not an isolated one; with second places in the recent Barnsley, Rotherham and Middlesbrough by-elections.

Mr Appleyard adds that Ukip received only three per cent of the vote in the 2010 general election, which makes our current poll rating of circa 16 per cent even more remarkable!

I have some bad news for Mr Appleyard – while the Eastleigh result was surprising it was just a political tremor, come 2014 we will see a political earthquake when Ukip come first in the European elections!

Jason Smith, Ukip Bradford Chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury

 

 

A simple solution

9:14am Monday 4th March 2013 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus

 

SIR – John Hall (Letters, February 26) quotes Nick Clegg, who asks: “While we wish cuts were unnecessary and have reservations on scale and timing, how else can we stop the debt from growing?”
This is unfortunately not just a Lib Dem question, the same question is being asked by both the Labour and Tory leadership.

I suggest the answer to how we stop debt from growing is as follows. Stop funding the EU, stop foreign aid to dictators, stop bailing out private banks and stop funding continuous wars.

Quite easy answers really, one that many readers might have given. The old parties though with their own agendas cannot grasp this simple solution.

Imagine if a political party offered this solution, with these savings we wouldn’t need to make any cuts at all! The old parties call this thinking radical, the people call it Ukip.

Jason Smith, Ukip Bradford Chairman,Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury

 

 

Confused response

9:41am Friday 1st March 2013 in Readers' letters

 

SIR – The Lib Dem comedy show rumbles on. The latest episode is one of alleged improper behaviour by Lib Dem chief executive Lord Rennard.

While this story could potentially be pretty damning for the Lib Dem party, it is now potentially even more toxic as calamity Clegg and other Lib Dem officials are seemingly incapable of getting their ‘stories’ straight, amid the cries of cover-up.

Clegg’s official statement began: “I did not know about these allegations until Channel 4 informed the party of them shortly before they were broadcast”, and continued with a totally contradictory line: “Indeed when indirect and non-specific concerns about Chris Rennard’s conduct reached my office in 2008, we acted to deal with them”.

So Nick Clegg was unaware that he was aware, until he was made aware of the issue by Channel 4 that he was actually aware. That’s pretty clear then.

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford Chairman,Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury

 

 

Challenge laid down

10:21am Thursday 21st February 2013 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus

 

SIR – In response to Keith Rayner’s query (Letters, February 11) on how many people would actually bother to vote in an EU referendum due to their lack of knowledge on the subject. Mr Rayner is probably right is his assessment that there would be many people in the UK who would not be able to make an informed decision on the benefits of leaving or, God forbid, staying in the EU.

That is why EU-sceptic UKIP leader Nigel Farage has challenged EU federalist PM David Cameron to an EU debate, a debate which unlike previous leader debates should have full audience participation. Indeed we believe the questions should be put from the audience not prewritten by government officials.

Mr Cameron has claimed the EU debate should begin now, but as yet has failed to answer this challenge.

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford Chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury

 

 

Bedroom tax collusion

9:03am Monday 25th February 2013 in Readers' letters

 

SIR – Many people have criticised the Tory ‘bedroom’ tax claiming that it is part of the Tory ‘War on Poor’.
While there is certainly an element of that, I believe the real reason for the bedroom tax is the Tories immigration policy and specifically the new influx of immigrants due next year.

In 2014, people from Romania and Bulgaria are free to come live, work and claim benefits in the UK. Migration Watch suggest this will amount to at least 50,000 people per year and I would suggest they might want somewhere to live.

That’s not all. George Osborne is planning to cut child benefit for higher-rate taxpayers as we hear that £36.6 million per year in child benefit is being paid to children who are not in the country – under EU law, migrants can claim child benefit for children in other countries.

Anyone see a pattern forming here?

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury, Bradford

 

 

Cameron’s motive

9:30am Thursday 14th February 2013 in Readers' letters

 

SIR – Most of my friends have asked me why David Cameron decided to bring up the issue of gay marriage now when there are certainly more pressing matters in the country. Initially I thought he’d just got bored of beating up on poor people but soon realised there was a method to his brand of posh madness.

Yes you’ve guessed it, Cameron’s latest stance is not one of principle, unsurprisingly, it is yet another concession to the EU.

An EU report due to be voted through the EU Parliament this November would see all marriages and civil contracts conducted in any EU country become legally binding in all other member states. So Cameron’s assignment was to implement EU law.

So Mr Cameron managed to upset the Church and alienate half his own party, and all for an issue that wasn’t really an issue, just to prevent a potential showdown with the European Union.

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury

  

 

Call for democracy

10:04am Monday 11th February 2013 in Readers' letters

 

SIR – Parish Councillor Ian Lyons suggests “Isn’t it about time we seriously re-examined our democracy” (T&A, February 4), and points out that we have parish and town councils where large numbers of councillors are unelected.

Quite a bizarre statement considering Mr Lyons belongs to a party that is fanatically pro-EU, a government which is run by unelected bureaucrats in the EU Commission.

Mr Lyons apparently also wants to see a more proportional voting system. Well, ‘proportional representation’ was what everybody thought the Lib Dems believed in – until they got in to power, that is, and then they pushed instead for the much more unfair ‘alternative vote’ system.

Mr Lyons ends his plea for support stating “a regime disguised as a democracy is simply not good enough”, and that is why the majority of the people are against the EU!

If you want democracy we’re the only game in town.

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury

Reasoning is futile

8:35am Wednesday 6th February 2013 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus

 

SIR – Just one day after Cameron’s EU speech, the EU Commission has asked the European court of Justice to fine the UK £250,000 per day for failing to fully introduce into British law two directives on how gas and electricity markets operate in the EU.

Aside from the fact that we should not have given our sovereignty away to Brussels in the first place, thus allowing them to fine us, this just proves how utterly futile it is to going to be to try and reason with the EU.

Cameron has also showed his hand to the EU, by stating that he “does not want to leave the EU” meaning that he is going to be at the table in a very poor bargaining position indeed, that is if you believe he is even going to be at the table at all.

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury

Well done, councillor

9:51am Thursday 31st January 2013 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus

 

SIR – It is not often I give praise to councillors from the old parties, but credit where credit is due to Anne Hawkesworth.

Coun Hawkesworth has been vocal over her government’s policy of allowing developers to concrete over our green belt, going as far as to resign from Bradford’s Conservative group. You don’t see a lot of principle these days from the old parties’ representatives, but hats off to her for this stance.

This is becoming an extremely toxic local issue for the Conservatives in their ‘safe’ areas. I feel the Conservative claim that ‘a dog with a blue rosette’ would get elected in these areas no longer applies
As a party we are not going to stand by and allow our green belt to be soiled by the Conservative councillors. We want to see local people having a vote on local planning developments, and local people are behind us!

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford Chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury

Promises, promises

9:05am Wednesday 30th January 2013 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus

 

SIR – David Cameron finally made his EU speech. In case you missed it, Cameron “promised” he would offer the people a referendum on the returning of unspecified powers to the UK.

This is, of course, if the Tories get re-elected, which is looking pretty unlikely, and providing the Tories can renegotiate any return of powers, any renegotiation would have to have the agreement of other EU states, and France and Germany have already said this is not going to happen, so this looks unlikely at best.

Even if these unlikely scenarios happened, then you have to believe Cameron’s “promise”.

Remember he gave us a “cast-iron” promise of referenda on the EU Lisbon treaty/constitution which he never honored. Last year he stated he did not believe in an in/out referenda and now he does. Who knows what Cameron’s stance will be next week – one thing is for sure though, he wants us to stay in the EU!

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford Chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury