AS an occasional Europhile Brexiteer letter writer I feel I should declare my credentials.

As a wartime schoolboy I worked alongside German and Italian prisoners.

I later travelled most of Western Europe plus Malta and Cyprus as a student, trainee, family holiday maker and on business.

I travelled by car, train, ferry, plane, cheap Paris-Nice coach and in an Italian wine lorry.

I slept in pensions, inns, posh hotels, tents, private homes, cars, schools and on Riviera beaches.

I dealt with many different levels from an Italian big game hunting Count to a director of La Scala and a French village blacksmith fixing my car (I slept overnight in his nice warm forge).

I never felt out of place or uncomfortable but I believed then, as I do now, that Britain is a part of Europe but apart from it.

I loved Europe then and now but as distinctive peoples not the bland homogeneous porridge it has become.

A V Martin,

Westfield Close,

Wigginton, York

Farage is dancing to US tune on climate change

WITH the EU elections imminent and Nigel Farage at the fore, it is perhaps worth noting that Farage is a committed supporter of the fracking industry.

This means, if implemented, hundreds of fracking pads each as big as two football fields springing up in our beloved county and the pollution by the gas hydrogen sulphide of areas downwind of these sites.

Farage also claims total ignorance of the effect of CO2 on climate.

I have seen the satellite readouts showing the thermal trapping of CO2 and also methane as produced by fracking sites.

CO2 is a bit like putting a jersey on a child in summer. He gets slightly too warm. But then the next day you make him wear two jerseys, and then three. Then the poor mite collapses of heat stroke.

That is what we are doing on a planetary scale.

Mr Farage is dancing to the tune of the far right US lobby. He intends to take the UK out of the Paris Climate accords.

If none of this matters then vote Brexit.

Chris Clayton,

Hempland Drive,York

How can council’s ruling parties achieve success

Successful local government is achieved through compromise, pragmatism, mutual trust and most of all an abundance of common sense.

With their adherence to ideology and strict ‘party lines’, how are the Lib Dem/Green party politicians now in charge of York going to achieve success? Public contradictions, falling out, and proving themselves incapable of keeping promises pledged are in the future.

In the meantime, potholes grow larger, housing needs are neglected, tourism is penalised, the centre of York is devoid of business activity, but the council are proud to talk about carbon free air.

Peter Rickaby,

West Park, Selby

System of government needs to be updated

THAT those in charge of refurbishing the Palace of Westminster ought to have haggled better over the cost is beyond doubt. But why Christian Vassie (We need a modern Parliament, Letters, May 13) thinks remodelling the architecture, so symbolic of our nation’s heritage, will solve our current political problems I cannot understand.

What matters in the coming political storm is not what insulation gets used to keep MPs warm in winter, but the system by which we are governed. That’s where the cancer is and that is what needs to be updated.

Politicians prattle about parliamentary sovereignty, a concept brought in by Henry VIII to impose tyranny and which is totally void of any genuine democratic intention.

What’s needed is a proper written constitution and a directly-elected executive with the rights and privileges of both being clearly defined so no parliament may ever hold such an iron grip against the wishes of its own people again.

We should preserve our historic buildings and tear down the corrupt political system which is now totally incompatible with a modern, free and democratic people. This constitutional revolution has been put off for too long and now it needs to happen.

We have the right national mood with the current Brexit crisis to refurbish our constitution. All we lack is a leader daring enough to finish the work that Cromwell started.

Dr Scott Marmion,

Woodthorpe, York

Cycling’s campaign to make us part of France

Following the recent Tour de Yorkshire (should that not be Tour of Yorkshire, or even the Yorkshire Tour?) and the report about the Garbutt & Elliott ‘peloton’ (should that not be ‘group’?) from Leeds to York via Harrogate, it would seem that the attempt to make Great Britain the 51st state of America has now become a campaign to make us a subsidiary of France.

It is also noticeable that your editorial column (Better late than never, May 15) refers to the possibility of LNER increasing rail fares due the introduction of new Azuma trains, despite the full article saying that these trains will reduce fares. Perhaps we should wait and see.

R Hutchinson,

Sherwood Grove, York

Time for for a return of cycling profiency test

LOOK, no hands! Well, if common sense doesn’t prevail there is going to be no life.

On Wednesday, no doubt to the annoyance of the Fulford Broadway traffic behind me, I refused to overtake a hooded cyclist, who with a wire trailing from his ears to the phone he was fiddling with was wobblingly oblivious to vehicles a mere foot away. His idiocy isn’t isolated. I recently saw a numbskull father doing it with his young son cycling behind him. At one time there was such a thing as cycling proficiency tests undertaken at schools, where a smart metal badge and certificate could be gained. Are these still in existence?

Until the culprits are fined and sent on such a course, I won’t be overtaking them. I don’t want blood on my conscience. Cycles have handlebars for a reason. Please use them before a tragedy occurs that will make victims of us all.

Brian McCusker,

Hartoft Street, York

You don’t know what you are missing on reading

I totally agree with Malcolm Higgins (Bedtime story was a must for us, Letters, May 15). From when they are very young (ie babies) all children should have books, even if only to look at the pictures of animals, flowers, birds etc.

They need to learn the basics of words and spellings including their name before they go to school. It’s the parents’ responsibility if they expect them to do well. The ones who don’t read with their children or grandchildren don’t know what they are missing.

We did it with ours and our granddaughter and they never felt left behind. There is too much these days of giving your child a tablet or a mobile phone to look at, which is not recommended in the first few years and is nothing to do with education. Time will tell.

Frances Ruane,

Almsford Road, York