Set us an inspiring example of what ‘British values’ mean

DAVID Cameron (Yorkshire Post, February 7) believes that we in the UK need a stronger sense of our common identity; that we must unite around common values.

I agree with him, but the problem is we don’t really know any more what it means to be British; what it is about our country that is supposed to inspire us.

If the Government want us to feel proud of our country, they have to show moral leadership at home and in the world. In the 19th century, it was the tireless campaigning of British parliamentarians, led by a Yorkshireman, William Wilberforce, for the liberation of slaves across the British Empire, that set a precedent for all the European powers to follow.

But in the 21st century, forced labour is still rife, and when British companies import gold and diamonds, chocolate, fruit, cheap clothes and footwear from overseas, they may be supporting bonded and child labour further down the production line.

Here in the UK, women and girls are forced into sex slavery in all our largest cities – their experiences are horrendous, but we hardly even know they exist.

If our modern leaders had the courage to take up the legacy of Wilberforce, and eradicate slavery at home and wherever we trade, then we might again – as a people – feel proud to be British.

From: Terry Palmer, South Lea Avenue, Hoyland, Barnsley.

DAVID Cameron tells us all what the majority have been saying for 30/40 years, that multiculturalism does not work and more importantly is seen not to work. Even the Labour Home Secretary David Blunkett admitted that “multiculturalism had failed”. Remember Gordon Brown saying “British jobs for British workers”?

One of the recurring lessons of history is that totalitarian regimes (and the forcible destruction of traditional Britain through mass immigration is as totalitarian as any) is that they are at their most vulnerable when their internal contradictions force their elites to admit some of their failings and to promote “controlled” debates about their reform, just as David Cameron is now doing.

But all he is doing is just that, promoting debate on the issue and he will do nothing more because he is running scared of the Muslim population of this country. And in any case why does the liberal elite want to force multiculturalism upon Britain while vigorously defending the right of the Third World to defend their own cultures?

From: Dave Hansell, Ralph Ellis Drive, Stocksbridge, Sheffield.

David Cameron’s speech at the Munich Security Conference laments the existence of an “extremist ideology” which has resulted in “segregated communities” with people in the UK living “separate lives”, “apart from each other”, “behaving in ways that run counter to our values” (Yorkshire Post, February 7).

Unfortunately, he and all those who share this flawed analysis are in denial in identifying the ideology at the heart of these problems; the extent to which it has permeated the cultural, political and social mainstream across the UK and the “Western world”; and the amount of devastation it continues to wreak on all the different communities we belong to and engage in.

For well over 30 years now the “cultural mainstream”, which David Cameron lays claim to, has been in the grip of a fundamentally flawed, dangerous, violent and extremist ideology which has resulted in a massive transfer of wealth, resources and power from the majority of citizens to a minority elite.

This ideology has been responsible for wrecking communities and devastating lives across the UK.

It has, and continues to do so, destroyed jobs; services and support – including social housing, local transport, local Post Offices, local libraries, our health service, legal aid, and much more – which are basic to the ability of local communities and individual people to survive, never mind thrive.