Taking a step back to understand humanity

Alan CLEAVER

Whitehaven

SIR – I read Pat Capstick’s letter (The Whitehaven News September 3rd 2015) and whilst I appreciate their plight and feel sorry for them I have to agree with the letter entirely – it is all well and good for these woolly-headed do-gooders to want to have everybody living on this island, but it doesn’t work in the real world. 

We cannot sustain the rate of influx and I predict it will lead to social dislocation, especially when taxpayers here are denied benefits, housing and medical (NHS) facilities due to these being given to migrants/refugees who have not contributed but expect these things for free. 

The media portray them as the “huddled masses” to pull at the heartstrings and evoke pity but they soon turn nasty when they don’t get what they want immediately. 

Even the presumably sensible councillor Mr Knowles, (as Pat Capstick so eloquently put it), must realise that this is a situation that cannot carry on for long – the time has come when we cannot take anymore. 

This island is now the most densely populated in Europe and further huge influxes will cause social unrest and the situation has to be resolved at source, as Mr Cameron said taking more and more migrants and refugees in does not solve the problem, it just exacerbates it. 

There will be more deaths and tragedy unless the problem is solved at source and these people fight for their own country. 

If these migrants/refugees can afford such large sums of money (however they obtain it) then they should use it to build a future in their own country. 

So Mr Knowles, how are you going to house, feed and look after these people? By using our taxes? Perhaps if they camped on your doorstep and you paid out of your pocket for the things you are happy to squander our taxes on it might be a different story. 

Ask Yvette Cooper how many of the 10,000 is she happy to put up in her house or around it? Ask the Cardinal Vincent Nichols how many is he happy to house in his churches and cathedrals or around his home? Taking in more and more refugees is not the solution! 

I repeat that it has to stop somewhere as we cannot keep taking in huge numbers ad infinitum. 

The infrastructure will not stand the strain and as it breaks down (as it is already) there could be a serious backlash. 

The police force in this country are already not fit for purpose, unable and unwilling to maintain law and order, this would be exacerbated with a huge influx of immigrants which cannot be absorbed or integrated in time. 

We have enough problems looking after our own with finding work and paying their way. 

Local councils at all levels cannot even afford the services they have now and are withdrawing from all sorts of funding and spending and the NHS is in a crisis as well as the police, so where have the government, you and the local councils suddenly managed to find all this money to pay for an even bigger influx of migrants and refugees.

If these people really care about their country then they would and should be fighting for it just as we did in times past even if we were invaded by Romans, Anglo Saxons, Vikings, Normans, etc. 

Nick FORD

UKIP

PARLIAMENT

SIR – Might I, through your paper, write an open letter to Jamie Reed MP, with regards the debate this coming Friday on assisted suicide?

Dear Mr Reed, I am writing this to urge you to vote against this abominal law they are trying to pass. 

As you have been quoted as describing yourself as a ‘good methodist’, this bill must then scream against all your Christian values? 

It is extremely obvious, except to the most stupid among us, that this bill will open the door to all kinds of horror stories. 

The 1967 abortion act allows for exceptions to the illegality of abortion. 

Now, less than 50 years later, we have the murder of approx 200,000 unborn infants each year. 

No sane person could ever try and make the argument that all of these women satisfy the criteria required in that law, and so it will be with this one. 

I spoke with a friend recently who told me they had contacted you about this matter and your response was to tell them you would listen to the arguments on the day before deciding how to vote. 

May I say it’s good you are actually going to turn up for it, I’m sure many MP’s will be absent. 

However, clearly if you are undecided, then it can only mean you don’t have a strong view on this diabolical subject. 

May I suggest then that you listen to the many, many Christian voices that I know have contacted you urging you to vote against it, the people who you are paid to represent.

I will end by quoting your colleague, Stephen Timms, on the official labour website: “As a party we remain committed to listening to and learning from those who make up our faith communities.” 

I sincerely hope so Mr Reed. You are an elected MP, not God. 

Mary BUTLER 

Whitehaven

NUCLEAR

SIR – It was interesting to hear Professor Cherry Tweed (Chief Scientific Advisor to the NDA) on BBC Radio Cumbria explaining to the interviewer that, without wanting to pre-empt the national geological screening exercise, that “some parts of Cumbria would be suitable for a Geological Nuclear Waste Repository” and then to set that in the context of “volunteerism”. 

During the last failed attempt the MRWS geologist Dr Dearlove, was honest enough to explain which parts of West Cumbria might be suitable – the Solway Plain and the Ennerdale and Eskdale granites – but even he thought their prospects were low. 

Set in the context of “volunteerism” we all know what the communities in the Solway and Ennerdale thought of that prospect.

I could be wrong, in that new areas which Dr Dearlove didn’t think worth exploring are now deemed to be suitable. 

Who knows? If the areas to which Cherry Tweed refers to are the same as those identified by Dr Dearlove it is to be hoped the notion of what constitutes a community isn’t the ability for your neighbour to volunteer the land you live on.

Finding a politically, environmentally and ethical solution for radioactive waste going forward isn’t hard, unless of course you are wedded to the principle of burying nuclear waste in West Cumbria with its known complex geology. The IAEA guidelines are for simple and predictable geology. 

The NIREX inspector said in the summing up of his report after the failed £400m Longlands Farm debacle “... it would be better to look elsewhere”. 

The geology hasn’t changed! Internationally the only geological disposal facility that used to accept waste was the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) at Carlsbad in New Mexico. 

That facility is now closed for at least three years due to an accident when a canister burst and leaked radiation into the atmosphere. 

The reason given for the burst canister was that it, and presumably a few hundred more still at risk of bursting, were filled with the wrong type of “cat litter” – human error, not poor geology. 

To arrive at a policy that genuinely encompasses “volunteerism” it is necessary to put safety first and that isn’t difficult. 

It means finding simple and predictable geology so that we have the knowledge going forward that if nuclear waste is to be buried then only those areas with known, simple and predictable geology are allowed to volunteer. 

Now at this point you might think we are stuck between a rock and a hard place – geological puns excluded – with Copeland shouldering the risk and no solution in sight. 

Sellafield’s risk to Copeland and beyond must be reduced to one which the everybody accepts is acceptable and while the NDA are working hard to achieve that objective but many argue that surface stores exposed to the elements and, by implication, not out of harms way from those who would seek to us harm are far from an ideal solution. 

I take the same view. As a part of reducing the “intolerable risk” Copeland finds itself under, consideration should be given to a near surface moniterable and retrievable store which isolates the waste for at least 100 years (The Dutch position) and coupled to that a community compensation package for doing so while simultaneously progressing the search for a GDF in known simple predictable geology elsewhere. 

But you cannot do that until society begins to engage with and trust the industry going forward. 

To take that crucial step the process of radioactive waste management has to be totally transparent going forward. It is disheartening, therefore, to receive pages of redacted material in response to FOI questions on safety. 

In parallel, scientific and technological effort should be directed towards helping those scientists and engineers whose research is focused towards reprocessing waste with the intent of using it subsequently as fuel in fuel cycles where waste is short lived, then we will have much less of it to bury, if indeed any at all. 

Colin WALES 

Sedbergh