But nature can't produce the constant wind to do it. This is ignored by the Government. They say they are necessary to meet EU requirements and to provide us with power.

Don't you despair at the guile or gullibility of our elected representatives, both local and national?

Or is it that they are enthusiastic about these proposals and already salivating at the thought of the jobsworths they will insist are required to oversee the system?

Increasing wind assessment officer, decreasing wind assessment supervisor, increasing wind warning officer, decreasing wind warning officer, team co-ordinating supervisor, travelling teams of public awareness executives, their assistants and mobile units?

You name it, the bloated public sector will continue to bloat until it busts. The EU has spoken and must be obeyed.

What is ignored is that the 2,000 turbines already operating here still produce less electricity than one conventional power station because the wind is so intermittent and unpredictable that they operate at less than one third of their capacity. To meet EU demands, we would have to erect four turbines every working day for the next 12 years.

This is laughable when you consider the present inability of our planning and engineering teams to maintain roads and railways. Brunel and Stephenson never would have built bridges and railways with their attitude.

This is not the US with a philosophy of "let's get up and go" where construction teams work through the night to avoid public inconvenience. Many of our crews seem intent to prove who can do less in the longest possible time. So forget the possibility that we will meet the target of four turbines a day. And be grateful for it.

Not content with disfiguring our countryside with eco-towns, this government would despoil areas like ours with useless wind turbines. They hate the countryside. And I would like an assurance from the roof propeller man, David Cameron, that his government would build nuclear reactors, as has the French government where, as a result, they don't have an energy problem. It is our only hope.

Please ignore the modern campaigning eco-warriors. They were wrong about the bomb and they are wrong about these monstrous turbines.


Full life term is strong but humane justice

From: Roger M Dobson, Ash Street, Cross Hills.

SO, after more than two years, Neil Entwistle has been found guilty by jury in the United States of America of murdering his wife and child.

The sentence, under the law of Massachusetts, is life imprisonment with no hope of ever being offered parole.

I am not only sure, but absolutely positive, that if that was the sentence meted out to every person convicted of murder in this country, then all or most calls for the return of capital punishment would be forgotten, because basically all the people of Great Britain want
is strong but humane justice.

The only problem would be the lack of prison places for all the convicted murderers, but I am sure that the cost of building enough new prisons, put on income tax, would be gladly accepted by the people of
this country.


We should keep religion out of our schools


From: John G Davies,
Alma Terrace, East Morton, Keighley.

THE cards that Christina Odone (Yorkshire Post, June 30) plays to criticise Ed Balls's report on faith schools saying it is "selective and divisive" and "a distortion based on prejudice", are a bit rich seeing she is rather more Catholic than the Pope. "Highly damaging" the report may be.

In England, the Church has long played a significant role in "schooling" for fairly obvious reasons. A sizeable fraction of primary schools are still run by the Church of England. This is in spite of the continued decline in its congregation. A similar decline had been occurring in the Catholic Church, until the recent influx of Polish immigrants.

As well as these interests, the control of a number of academies has been given to bodies with overt religious intentions. The influence of churches and associated organisations in schools is increasing because of the biases of influential politicians, Tony Blair to name but one. It appears neither logical, nor democratic when public interest in religion is waning.

The Church's interest in schools is not entirely altruistic, church schools were created and continue to exist
to provide a continued membership, hence the overarching "ethos" found in these establishments.

Education and religion make strange bedfellows, you need to be "literate" to read the sacred texts; you need to develop a good memory to remember the doctrines and a set of skills to interpret the meaning of the holy texts, but you have to accept that everything has to be explained in these terms.

Education means leading out, a process of opening out the thought process, chiefly by looking for the answers to questions. This distinguishes it from indoctrination.

To prevent indoctrination at the public's expense, as in France and the United States, religion should be kept out of schools.