MP defends his record on expenses (From Wharfedale Observer)

MP defends his record on expenses

8:25am Thursday 11th June 2009

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Riaz Meer (Letters, May 28) asks how I can claim to have made a “loss” on my Parliamentary expenses for the year 2005-06. The short answer to his question is that I didn't claim that.

A number of weeks ago, at my own inititiative, I actually handed over every receipt and claim I had made since I was elected in 2005 to the Wharfedale & Airedale Observer’s sister paper, the Telegraph & Argus, and asked them to go through them all. I also invited them round to my one-bedroom flat in Lambeth where I stay when down in London to take internal and external photos to publish. They actually printed their report into this four weeks ago, and it was this report (which was repeated in the Observer) to which Mr Meer refers. It was the T&A that reported that I had made a “loss” (not me) after reviewing all my claims.

They went on to say: “Shipley MP Philip Davies deserves credit for revealing to readers the extent of his expenses. As far as we can tell, not only is he sticking to the rules but also to the spirit of the rules in claims relating to his London accommodation – which seems far from palatial.”

I have been just as outraged and dismayed by some of the recent revelations about MPs expenses in recent weeks and actually believe and hope that some of the worst cases are taken to court.

I hope Mr Meer feels reassured that I have tried to be as transparent as possible and have not abused the system, but if he or any of my constituents wish to discuss my expenses or MPs’ expenses more generally with me I am very happy to do so.

Philip Davies MP Hartlington Court Baildon Shipley

So sad to see beautiful park ruined by rubbish

On Sunday, May 31, I decided to travel to Otley and visit Wharfemeadows Park with my husband and was appalled by the state the park was in. The litter bins on the front of the park were full of smelly rubbish and were overflowing causing the litter to be blown all over the front of the park and into the river.

As I approached the children’s play area, I was confronted with yet more litter strewn all over the playground and safety surfaces and melted ice cream splattered over the benches. The bins were also very full in this area and had many wasps flying around them because of the litter in them and empty sugar sachets were also strewn all over the patio area located at the front of the café. The bin at the side of the café had been burnt out. As if this wasn’t enough, I was appalled by the sight I encountered when I got to the skateboard area in the park. Bottles (glass and plastic) were strewn all over the skateboard area and litter was strewn all over the place, too. How you can expect kids to skateboard in this area when the place is in such a mess is beyond me. What would happen if one of the kids were to fall and cut themselves on the glass bottles?

I noticed a flag in the entrance to the park near the bridge says it’s a quality park! I beg to differ when I saw the state it was in that day.

I don’t know whether the little park in front of the café and newsagents at the other side of the river is anything to do with Wharfemeadows Park but this was also a complete mess and the bins were overflowing with polystyrene fish and chip containers and one had been set on fire. I was told by a local that this is a regular thing in the summer months.

It’s really sad to see such a beautiful park ruined by unsightly rubbish and I don’t wish to be greeted with this situation again when I next visit the park.

Mrs I Rhodes Nelson Lancashire

Time for change anda more just society

I was interested to read Gordon Bradley’s letter re Pareto’s Law and the 20/0 split (May 21).

As someone who grew up in the Great Depression – the hungry 1920s – before benefits and tax credits were heard of, I have seen with dismay, decade after decade, the gap between rich and poor grow wider and wider. No political party appears to be able or seriously willing to reduce this gap. I never thought I would live to see that gap be the widest in 15 years under a Labour government!

Many years ago I came to the conclusion that it was built in to the financial system and only a radical change in the system would bring any change. Was it our first lady Prime Minister who said the bottom half of us benefited from the rich increasing their wealth because of the ‘trickle down’ effect? In other words, the crumbs from the rich man’s table!

In view of the financial fiasco of the past year, surely now is the time for a radical change in finance and trade to pave the way for a fairer and more just society at home and in the world and to ‘make poverty history’.

Also, is it not time to go back to the original purpose of money, that is, as a means of exchange of goods and services and not as it has become, a means of making more money?

S H Waddington Belling View Rawdon

Labour will pay the price in general election annihilation

Foreign Secretary David Miliband described the BNP’s success this week in Yorkshire as “damaging for Britain”. Like the Labour party hasn’t been? Have things ever been worse in this country? When Labour came to power they did so on the back of enormous mutual goodwill. They carried the hopes and dreams of a generation that prayed not just to do better themselves, but for a fairer and better society.

Instead, we’ve seen the Labour party slowly crush and suppress the working class into submission whilst they’ve rewarded the rich and nannied the feckless. They are completely oblivious to what people really think about every issue going and that is not the BNP or UKIP’s fault – it’s Labour’s failure.

They just cannot comprehend why the core working class Labour voter has turned against them and so will pay the price in a general election annihilation that will let the original and worst sleazeballs back in, ie, the Conservatives. This country on a day-to-day basis is not democratic because they turn a blind eye to illegal immigration that nobody voted for but spy relentlessly on their own people who are struggling along trying to mind their own business. They harass, punish and grind down hard-working couples and families to the point where the quality of life in Great Britain is non-existent. Is it any wonder we are full of alcoholics staggering around with cases of cheap supermarket lager? Is it any suprise that a significant percentage of young people under 21 smoke pot on a daily basis? This generation feel betrayed by Labour, the next one feel hopeless.

This country should be the best in Europe, if not the world, but it’s a pot-holed, gridlocked, over-populated, dysfunctional, fractured, stressed-out land that is rotten to the very core. There are many good and decent people in every village, town and city who just want to get on with their life and be supported by a competent government which protects and sustains the moral fabric of the nation. Is it too much to ask? Yes, it obviously is. The British people in general are not racist at all, it’s just a desperate Labour Party smear campaign from a bunch of despots on their way out of office. Labour has blown the best chance they ever had to change this country once and for all by looking after their own people. They’ve put everyone else first, including themselves and they will never be forgiven.

Dan Cooney Esholt

Green Party thanks voters

Please may I, through your pages, extend a personal thank you to the residents of North West Leeds and Otley who voted for the Green Party, and for me as the lead candidate, in the European Parliament election last week.

We know that our vote in the area was good, and if we could have spread this across the region, then I would have been the sixth candidate elected, and we would not be faced with the prospect of five years of BNP posturing, and the waste of opportunities to use our membership for the benefit of people of the region.

Over the next five years we will be building so that we can, once again, offer a positive alternative in Europe in 2014.

Martin Hemingway NW Leeds Green Party 15 St Chads Drive Headingley

Happy memories

I was delighted I was to see the photograph of the hockey team in 1946-47 showing the Ilkley Grammar School’s senior girls (Wharfedale Observer, May 28).

Vera Outterside (on the back row) went to Hamerton College in Cambridge the same years I attended in 1950 to 1952. She became a good friend. She knew me as Shirley Skelton, from Leeds.

I lost contact after we left to become teachers. This photograph of her brought back happy memories – many thanks.

Shirley M Parry Glendower Park Adel,Leeds

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