Fuel payments matter more than killer pirates

YOUR correspondent Tom Richmond (Yorkshire Post, October 29) failed to mention that from the aid budget, Somalia will receive a sum of some £250m in 2015.

This is the same Somalia that is responsible for numerous hostage takings, piracy and murder.

The aid budget is being realised from taxpayers and cuts to the elderly in this country as our Prime Minister deems it necessary to reduce the winter fuel allowance for old people from £400 to £300.

My father-in-law, aged 86, spent over two years fighting for this country in the Second World War without once setting foot back on British soil.

Fortunately, for him and my mother in law, we as a family take care of them.

Mr Cameron may wish to wash his hands of the older generation who gave so much to ensure the freedom of the United Kingdom’s citizens, but personally, I find it totally offensive and distasteful, that these people who have fought, worked hard and paid taxes throughout their lives, are less important to his government than murdering pirates.

From: John Fisher, Harrogate.

DAVID Cameron’s defence of our bloated overseas aid budget rings hollow in a country where doctors are having to prescribe water in order to keep elderly patients alive in some of our hospitals. If giving large amounts of money to countries like Pakistan could prevent terrorism, why are we in the UK threatened by home-grown terrorism?

Could the answer be that for the last 40 years successive government have allowed parts of our inner cities to decline until today they would not be out of place in countries that are now receiving huge sums of overseas aid?

I suggest that Mr Cameron reduces our overseas aid by a substantial amount.