Saturday's Letters: Incompetent Defra simply cannot be trusted

I RECENTLY contacted the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs(Defra) over their policy of slaughtering badgers to prevent bovine TB.

Their correspondent quoted a figure of 63m as the cost of disposing of diseased cattle. It seems a lot of money, but when compared with the taxpayers' money Defra has wasted, it is a drop in the ocean.

How can we trust Defra with any task? Never mind one as controversial as the decision on the necessity to cull badgers.

The mess they have made with farm subsidy payments should be enough to convince anyone they have no right to take responsibility for any task beyond sorting paper clips.

The cost of the whole debacle is frightening: computer to process payments 37.4m; late payments costing farmers 25m in bank interest payments; 3,000 farmers still not paid for 2009 costs, 100m; UK fined 75m for late payment; the National Audit Office estimates final cost at 620m. The 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak cost the taxpayer 8bn and was caused by a greedy farmer feeding "untreated waste" to his animals. Then the outbreak was masterminded by Defra to further compound the felony.

As they excel at spreading chaos, in 2008 they caused further misery by starting their own outbreak at Pirbright research centre. They achieved this by flushing the foot-and-mouth virus down the drain into the surrounding countryside, costing the taxpayer further millions to contain the outbreak.

How can anyone seriously consider these incompetents capable of any task? When Defra staff report to work, they should be locked in and the phones disconnected. This would save the taxpayer millions as we would be free from their meddling.

Of course, it would save even more money if they were all sacked and the job given to a private company.

Union block votes are thing of past

From: JW Smith, Sutton-on-Sea, Lincolnshire.

FOLLOWING the Labour Party leadership election, I wondered how long it would be before the words "block vote" appeared on the letters page by someone who does not really know what he is talking about.

Alan Chapman (Yorkshire Post, September 29) claims the unions have found a puppet they can control but I have to advise him that Labour got rid of the block vote very many years ago. Votes of union members today are conducted independently; each member being sent a ballot form to their own home which they then post to the body conducting the ballot – not the union.

On the particular issue of the election of Ed Miliband, surely very many members voted for the other candidates and it was their alternative preference votes that swung the decision?

Too many people think this is a public versus private sector problem because the Con-Dem Government keeps saying they expect the private sector to lead the recovery. A large number of private sector workers are union members and will have voted because their jobs will very likely disappear as they rely on public sector contracts. Rather than leading the recovery, I feel there is more likely to be a significant increase in the unemployment figures.

It is a pity Mr Chapman did not take the trouble to listen to the speech by Mr Miliband making it clear he is his own man and will lead accordingly.

From: Don Burslam, Elm Road, Dewsbury Moor, Dewsbury.

DAVID Miliband is clearly a person of high ability and intelligence but is he still short of other qualities required for life at the top? I am thinking of judgment, strength of character and political acumen (Yorkshire Post, September 30).

He had earlier opportunities of standing for leader (and PM) and ducked them. If he had, he would no doubt have lost but would have put down a marker and stolen a march on his brother. His unwillingness to serve unless he got the top job leaves rather a bad impression. There are plenty of examples of others who have accepted defeat and carried on serving. Is rising to the post of Foreign Secretary not high enough? One has to say that while Ed may or may not get to Number 10, David has demonstrated his own deficiencies for that position.

Affluent education

From: Peter Asquith-Cowen, First Lane, Anlaby, Hull.

I REFER to the well-written article by Dan Lewis (Yorkshire Post, September 27). I couldn't agree more with his analysis, however I feel a point needs further clarification.

He praises Michael Gove (Education Secretary) for his attempts to "by-pass the education quangocracy and let parents set up their own schools".

It all sounds laudable and praiseworthy until you look at the finer detail. Mr Gove's plans are so seductively appealing: a dangerous experiment and a minefield of uncertainty.

Most, but by no means all, families are struggling to pay mortgages, pay off debts and remain in full-time employment.

Many families are living under the threat of redundancy. So, Dan, I expect your willing, enthusiastic, parents will be the usual upper-middle-class ladies, who run church

bazaars and have high-flying/salaried husbands,

who can afford the time to set up schools.

It's something straight out of The Archers.