Letters to the Editor

SIR - Plans have been unveiled for a £6 million housing project (T&A May 7), a joint venture between Bradford Council and Methodist Homes Housing Association with the Department of Health contributing £2.8 million.

It offers, among other things, a 20-place day centre for older people still residing in their homes.

I appreciate this centre will help people with Alzheimer's and dementia for whom we have concerns. But I and other members of Bradford & District Senior Power (formerly FFOPP) feel these centres should be provided for elderly people in general.

Home Care is the new idea, an easy option when Council-owned nursing homes being closed. Being alone in a house with only the company of professional carers for short visits is a terrifying existence. That is why new day centres are important now!

In Bradford schools with land - Oakdale and Wellington Road - have been closed and should have been used to provide centres. Instead, they have been sold for housing.

This is a big money issue providing companies with more profits and Bradford Council with more revenue.

Let's have a pensioners champion with bite on Bradford Council and councillors who will stand up and be counted.

Jean Walker, Chairman BSP, Kentmere, Wrose.

Look to the past

SIR - One thing which alarms me is the number of people who say "I've always voted for so-and-so party and always will" without even considering its performance in government or what others have to offer.

I have usually voted the same way but not always. In this last election I did not need to read what New Labour had to offer. I just could not vote for supporters of a man who, in my opinion and that of millions, had blatantly lied and who has put John Prescott in charge of social abuse!

His first choice was Blunkett. What an administration.

P E Bird, Nab Wood Terrace, Shipley.

Our just deserts

SIR - Congratulations to Britain's voters. We have re-elected a Labour Government for an unprecedented third term.

That means we approve of violent crime running out of control, with a police force unable or unwilling to tackle the thugs and yobs who are taking over the country.

We accept motorists, householders and teachers will be targeted with the utmost severity while thieves, burglars and muggers will be treated with the utmost leniency.

We are content that half our gold reserves have been sold and approve of £5 billion being stolen from our pensions each year. We acknowledge these criminal acts will cause a pensions black hole leading to a future financial time bomb.

We are pleased that interest rates have risen five times during the last year and that taxes will have to be increased to cover the £10 billion deficit in Brown's plans.

We are ecstatic that revaluation will cause a massive rise in council tax and I haven't yet mentioned the lack of discipline in our failing schools, MRSA and our third world health service or the disaster of the asylum and immigration fiascos.

Congratulations Britain. We deserve everything we are going to get.

Malcolm Wood, Westercroft View, Northowram.

Political vandals

SIR - The defeat of Chris Leslie should remain a permanent stain on the consciences of those Labour supporters who switched to the Lib Dems to teach Tony Blair a lesson.

By voting for a bunch of shameless opportunists led by a bungling amateur incapable of explaining his own party's proposals on tax and spend, they have wrecked a promising ministerial career and given undeserved hope to the Conservatives.

What I find unforgivable, however, is the act of mindless political vandalism which brought our Labour Government near to disaster.

Their self-righteous anger and thirst for vengeance over Iraq made it more important for them to give the Prime Minster a bloody nose rather than think about the needs of ordinary working people.

The private pleasure of a few moments at the ballot box is a poor substitute for the satisfaction of ensuring the re-election of the only Government which is truly committed to improving the quality of health, education and welfare services for the many and not the few.

Brian Holmans, Langley Road, Bingley.

Big breakthrough

SIR - This election has doubled the number of British Muslim Pakistanis in the House of Commons from two to four.

Two - Mohammed Sarwar (Glasgow Central) and Khalid Mahmood (Perry Barr, Birmingham) - were re-elected, while Shahid Malik (Dewsbury) and Sadiq Khan (Tooting) were elected for the first time.

New ground has also been broken with the return of a black Conservative MP. Congratulations to them all on their achievements, as well as to 11 other ethnic minority members of parliament!

There is still a long way to go before the Houses of Parliament reflect the diversity of contemporary British society.

This breakthrough is, however, fantastic news for the British Muslim community, which is grossly underrepresented in many other areas including senior employment in the public, private and voluntary sectors.

Of course, these four MPs represent their local constituents of all backgrounds. However, their achievements demonstrate that, with hard work, determination and perseverance, it is possible to succeed in any walk of life.

As an organisation that campaigns for the educational, social and economic advancement of South Asians in the UK, we hope progress such as this inspires others to broaden their horizons and aspire to be successful.

Mohammed Ali OBE, Chief Executive, QED-UK.

Poor relations

SIR - Elaine Neal (T&A, May 9) was exactly right about the enormous manufacturing job losses resulting from our continued EU membership.

The latest enlargement of the EU, bringing in former Eastern Bloc states Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, plus the Baltic States, has opened the flood gates for work and jobs leaving the UK, particularly round Leeds and Bradford or in West Yorkshire generally.

Company after company, once household names here but now with foreign owners, close down all the time, with workers often losing their pensions as well as their jobs because UK workers have the least protection of all.

Countries in the EU once classed as relatively poor - like the Republic of Ireland, Spain and Portugal - are raking in billions from subsidies largely paid for by more prosperous nations like England.

They spend fortunes on new roads and public transport, yet ours are just rubbish in comparison.

Napoleon called us a 'nation of shopkeepers' - more like a nation of 'shop assistants' these days.

David Boyes, Rodley Lane, Bramley.

Licence answer

SIR - I think I can help with the question posed by D M Ryeland (T&A, May 10) where he doesn't understand how a person can have their driving licence endorsed when they don't have one in the first place.

What actually happens is that it is a sort of suspended endorsement. When that person eventually applies for a provisional licence they receive it with the endorsement on for the period originally specified by the courts.

Qaisar Khan, Garibaldi Street, Bradford.

Wonderful lads

SIR - I would like to thank two 'knights of the road' who helped me to get up after I had a fall in Springhead Road, Thornton, on Saturday.

Both lorry drivers stopped and one got some tissues from his cab to stop my burst lip from bleeding.

Both lads were 'Mr Wonderfuls'

Veronica Farnell, Market Street, Thornton.