UK farmers are subsidised millions of pounds by the British taxpayer. Despite this there is no effective regulation or carrot-and-stick approach to prevent soil erosion, plant trees and manage rivers to properly manage river uplands and prevent downstream flooding. Promoting natural flood defences and flood plains is more cost-effective. The Govt needs to stop focusing only on last resort man-made flood defences and tackle the root causes of devastating flooding, addressing its own contradictory policies.

A strain of E.coli is now resistant to all known antibiotics. The way the resistance is held by the bacteria means that it will spread to many other types of bacteria. This will happen within five years and we will be reduced to watching our loved ones die from infections that have been treatable for the last 75 years. This is the end of the antibiotic era and few will realise the true horror of this until it is too late. Antibiotics are poor earners for drug companies and they will not spend their resources to develop new ones. Only governments have the means to fund these drugs and then control their use to keep them effective for us all. In 1924 the most powerful man in the world, President of the USA Calvin Coolidge had to watch his beloved 16 year son die from an infected blister caused by playing tennis with his brother. Please stop this from happening to us again in 2020.

Although the scientific community have understood the dangers we face in climate change this is only just beginning to filter into the general public. MPs seem to be very loath to understand the issues. People have been saying fracking is safe rather than understanding that it is another fossil fuel and will contribute to global warming. Its short term safety is irrelevant. Why not spend our time and energy cleverly to produce the gas for our carbon neutral future. Invest in the small because we understand the big picture. Who are the lobbyists that persuade our MPs to allow our landscape to be ransacked for something that will only encourage more extreme climate events? Biomass gas could be an income stream for our farmers and Councils while giving us a carbon neutral gas. Invest now in our long term future - not in a fossil fuel.

It's absolutly vital that all waterways are drained correctly and if the outfall being ditches or rivers are not clear and dredged fields flood and overwhelm the rivers causing them to breach their banks and flood defenses causing havoc and damage to property's, animal livelihood in flash floods and extra costs reinstating burst flood banks which could all be avoided if dredging of rivers and ditches were carried out yearly, it's such a simple process which could save massive costs in repairs and insurance claims.

During Channel 4’s leaders’ debate, a member of the audience asked what the Conservatives plan to do to get more disabled people into work. David Cameron replied that the culture of employers needs to change. I could not agree more. I am a visually impaired qualified business administrator who has also studied business studies seeking a new job in the administrative or marketing profession. I have been asked questions during interviews that would never be asked of a non-disabled candidate – such as how I use the telephone – despite evidence of my competencies and ability to do the job. According to the Labour Force Survey, disabled people remain significantly less likely to be in employment than non-disabled people. It is not enough to comply with disability discrimination legislation or to offer “guaranteed interviews” to disabled applicants. Employers fear that disabled employees will be a burden and so reject these candidates – on grounds such as lack of experience in an area of work not essential for the job – even when they perform well at interview. This is important to me as I am a disabled young individual who is desperate to find work, but to barriers which employers put I place, cannot get a job. This is very frustrating for me, as I want to give something back to the community as wellraising awareness that disabled people can work and are just as qualified as able bodied people

Locally elected councillors should be free to reflect the views of their local voters, to whom they are accountable, on how council money should be spent - or where it should not go. To prevent local councils from making decisions to reflect the views of their voters is profoundly anti-democratic and Un-British. Compelling councils to invest in the arms trade, or industries supportive of law-breaking foreign regimes, is high-handed and centralising. It makes a mockery of previous government statements about local democracy.

Call for landowners to stop upland heather burning as new research shows link to increased flood risk New research from Leeds University into the impacts of permitted heather burning on upland peat bog shows that for the 20% biggest storms, the flow of water over land is higher than in areas where the moorland has not been burnt. This will contribute to “flashy” river flows in the valleys below the moors, with the water level rising quickly and causing flooding. The researchers conclude, “We would expect these effects to have a larger impact on river flow as the proportion of the catchment that has undergone more recent burning increases (i.e. the shorter the prescribed burn rotation interval).” The likely causes of this increased overland water flow are that prescribed burning – the controlled, so-called “cool burning” that Natural England allows in winter on protected sites like Walshaw Moor Estate – removes the rough understorey of dense vegetation such as Sphagnum moss and also compacts the upper peat. So instead of slow moving water that sinks into the peat, during intense rainstorms, water runs off the peat and pours into streams and rivers. image - www.independant.co.uk info - www.energyroyd.org.uk

It is getting to the point where it becomes propaganda and dangerous to British society intentionally trying to sway the opinions of every day people(the electorate) to their (guardian) very own political agenda.this is a dangerous act that they are committing with almost 5 articles daily demonising corbyn. There's nothing impartial about this newspaper when it comes to politics,whilst other papers are accused of bias reporting I feel the guardian is most important with recent breaking stories such as the Edward Snowden release.

In short, privacy. As we have seen in the past, there is no such thing as privacy when hackers have become very skilled at accessing whatever they want or desire. End to end encryption adds a very large barrier to this snooping, and adding a backdoor for governments also adds a back door for hackers. The government should have no right in accessing anyone's encrypted communications. Not everyone is a terrorist and the people have the right to a level of privacy.

Uber has an estimated value of 33 billion in four years trading. In setting up in the uk it has appointed a friend of David Cameron as its head . At the same time it has registered its uk tax office in Amsterdam. According to an investigative tv programme (which I will not name incase its shut down) four existing London hackney cab drivers paid £23,500 in tax last year. Uber with its many drivers in London and other major Uk cities paid in total £2000 less. The Uk tax revenues will yet again be diminished even more as this corporation expands further. Where will these lost revenues for the NHS education and defence be replaced from. Who are the beneficiaries of this lost UK tax revenue.

Mark Kermode is a lover of film. His knowledge is encyclopaedic without holding personal agenda, he is not biased towards one genre against another and he has a great public rapport and sense of humour which comes across easily. He is able to communicate his enthusiasm for cinema to his audience. His views are informed and fun. He would be a great boost for the programme, the film industry and lovers of film both old and young.

The NHS Clayton Hospital site is already owned by the public so the first civic response should be to re-purpose the site for continued public use. It is official policy of The Department of Health that, where surplus NHS land is being considered for disposal, NHS Trusts should "provide the public with the opportunity to consider for themselves whether estate is being best used". The site was originally an 18th century garden built on for a 19th/20th-century hospital. None of the jumble of hospital buildings are listed for preservation and their complete demolition would considerably enhance the conservation area. It is a large central site and any in-filling with contemporary buildings would be extremely detrimental to the character of the whole conservation area. The site would be relatively inexpensive to landscape into a park/garden. The site retains many large trees within an existing stone boundary wall and ornate entrance ways. A park/garden would provide a much-needed open green leisure space within the city centre for all city centre users. The park/garden could provide many other amenities such as a terrace cafe, childrens play areas, dog walking area, etc. The site would create a spectacular public open space for the city which could be used for civic gatherings and events.