Tour policing costs claims need scrutiny

THE numbers suggested by the police and crime commissioner for North Yorkshire regarding policing costs for the Tour de France are astronomical (Yorkshire Post, September 5).

Is the commissioner saying that this is £500,000 extra cost? If so, then the Tour organisers need to look closely at the detail. A rough calculation would suggest that this amount of money would pay for about 1,000 policemen for two days, though I suspect that most of the police personnel will already be being paid for their existing duties and that the Tour work is mostly substitutional.

If the money is for extra police, where are they coming from? Or are the people at North Yorkshire including a charge for all the fixed costs of the force which have to be paid whether the Tour exists or not? It smacks of opportunism, against a background of cuts to budgets, of looking at ways of offsetting these with some extra income.

Already, we have our Sports Minister, normally anonymous, making accusations about the competence of the preparation of the bid, without seeing where the commissioner’s numbers come from. For the sake of everyone’s understanding, maybe the commissioner would care to publish how this £500,000 is calculated.

Stupid decision on shingles jab

From: Hugh Rogers, Messingham Road, Doncaster.

SHINGLES is a close relative of chickenpox. It affects mainly people in their 70s. Luckily, there is now a vaccine which will protect elderly folk from having to suffer from this nasty painful condition.

But there is a catch. From the NHS Department of Stupid Decisions has come the edict that only people who are 70 or 79 can have the vaccination. Anyone aged 71 to 78 will have to wait until they are 79 before the great and good at the NHS will allow you to be protected against shingles. Until then, tough, you will just have to fend for yourselves.

In my own case, my mother was inconsiderate enough to give birth to me six weeks too early, so I shall have to wait until July 2021 before I can have the jab. This being the case, I shall instruct my legal advisers to sue the NHS if I contract shingles any earlier.

Inquiry took place at school

From: AD Walter, Tranmere Park, Guiseley.

YOUR archive photograph (Yorkshire Post, September 4) showed the Aire Valley motorway inquiry at Shipley Town Hall in November 1975.

I remember this well but it was not at Shipley Town Hall, it was at Shipley Church of England Junior School opposite the Town Hall.

The protesters are in the school hall, facing the stage, with the large square box at the back being headmaster’s office. The school bell can just be seen in the top right of the photograph.

I did not attend this meeting but was a pupil at the school in the late 1960s.

Osborne out of touch on profits

From: Terry Duncan, Greame Road, Bridlington, East Yorkshire.

WHY, oh why, does George Osborne, the Westminster Chancellor of the Exchequer, conned by his advisers, make rash claims, as he did in Aberdeen on Tuesday, with his statements about the gas and oil industry in front of world-wide executives from the industry’s major companies?

Many who attended the conference did not have English accents, not even Scottish
ones, although the latter were those who provide the back-up for the industry with their
 skills.

If Mr Osborne had spoken to the delegates, he would have discovered that only a ‘puckle’ of the revenue finishes up in London’s coffers, but is distributed to the front line Scottish work force and Scottish entrepreneurs.

However, the majority goes to the tax-evading main multiples who drill for oil and gas, and bury their profits out of sight of the UK Treasury.

Another example of how the UK Chancellor is out of touch.

Not so Alex Salmond!

Cleaner way to dispose of flies

From: Michael J Robinson, Park Lane, Berry Brow, Huddersfield.

YOUR correspondent Trevor Anson asks for advice about dealing with flies (Yorkshire Post, September 4).

The trouble with spray is that the stuff is not exclusively sprayed on the fly. It messes up windows and furniture and the sprayer cannot be sure to have administered an effective hit.

I find that the best weapon is the hand-held vacuum.

The flies do not seem to recognise it as a danger and allow the vacuum snout to be moved right up to them to the point when they find that they are unable to resist the vacuum’s suction. They are quickly and cleanly taken out of circulation, and it remains your choice what you do next.

I usually release them from the vacuum away from the house, but I suppose it may be an option to fire the fly spray into the mouth of the vacuum with the aim of administering a quicker death in there than would be inflicted by just leaving them to perish eventually in the vacuum’s interior.

Try it. It’s quite extraordinary how it works so well.