27 January 2014 Shopping

I go all the way around the park listening to the Navy Lark. Our heroes are in trouble, again. Kenneth Williams uncover treachery in high places Priceless.

Drain looks okay tip shopping Co op, no boxes no Thermabloc

Scrabbletoday Marywinsbut gets under 400, Perhaps Iwill win tomorrow.

Obituary:

Gordon Tack, who has died aged 90, was a radio operator with SOE and was parachuted into enemy-occupied territory in France in 1944, and Burma and Malaya the following year.

Tack’s stepfather, George, a Leading Seaman on the armed merchant ship Rajputana, had been killed when the vessel was sunk by U-108 in April 1941, west of Reykjavik. Gordon was convinced that there was substance in reports at the time that the German submarine had surfaced after the sinking and machine-gunned the survivors in the lifeboats.

A French chateau near Châteauneuf was being used for “rest and recreation” by submarine crews from Brest and their French girlfriends. One night Tack, moving stealthily through the woods, got to within 200 yards of the chateau and was able to guide three RAF bombers on to the target with devastating accuracy. The attack went some way to assuaging his anger at his stepfather’s death.

In September, when they were overrun by the advancing Allied forces, they moved to Quimper and returned to Dartmouth by minesweeper. Tack was awarded a Military Medal.

Gordon Hugh Tack was born on November 21 1923 at Valletta, Malta, where his father was serving in the Royal Navy. The family returned to England shortly after he was born but his parents split up and when his mother married George Tack, young Gordon took his stepfather’s name.

He went to school in Plymouth but left aged 15 to become a boilermaker’s apprentice at Devonport dockyard. In 1941 he joined the RAF to train as a pilot but transferred to the Army the following year.

After returning from France, Tack volunteered for service with Force 136, the cover name for SOE’s operations in south-east Asia. Jungle training in Ceylon included instructions on cooking and serving curried lizard.

In March 1945 he and two comrades in Team Pig were dropped into the Pyu area of Burma to organise resistance groups. One night, as they moved across the country, they were betrayed by the driver of their bullock cart and surrounded by soldiers of the Indian National Army, which was under Japanese command.

After failing to negotiate their release, they shot their way out, killing or wounding five of their captors. Tack became separated from the others. He hid by day and moved only by night, using a compass, subsisting on water from the paddy fields, watching out for snakes and listening for the warning rustle of long columns of ants.

After six days he was found by a village headman and reunited with his comrades. When his group was overrun by the advancing 5th Indian Infantry Division, he hitched a ride with an American pilot to Chittagong and then went by ferry to Calcutta.

In July he was dropped into Selangor, Malaya. After the Japanese surrender, his team arranged for air drops of food and medical supplies for civilian internees at Bahau, Negeri Sembilan.

When SOE was disbanded, Tack was posted to the 25th Dragoons and was in India during the violence that followed Partition. In 1947 he returned to England and signed up for a 22-year engagement as a regular soldier. He was posted to the 3rd Caribiniers (Prince of Wales’s Dragoon Guards) in Germany and later served as regimental sergeant major with the Cheshire Yeomanry.

After retiring from the Army in 1969 as a WO1, he was a magistrate’s court official until 1974 and then worked on the security branch of British Rail until 1982.

Settled in Chandler’s Ford, Hampshire, his hobbies included DIY, reading and music. For many years, he was a boxing judge.

Gordon Tack married, in 1947, Monica Bridgid Schlesinger. She predeceased him and he is survived by their three sons and a daughter.

Gordon Tack, born November 21 1923, died December 24 2013

Guardian:

Is there a prospect of Paxman J interviewing Paxman G about the role of British embassies across the world in promoting the cause of British business with particular regard to where such businesses retail products that put the lives of children, women and men at risk all unbeknownst to those endorsing them (How government enlisted UK soldiers – and our man in Mexico – to help sell fake bomb detectors? 27 January)?
Gordon Mott
London

Great to read Decca Aitkenhead’s interview with Laura Bates (25 January). Dispiriting, as a so-called “third wave feminist”, to recognise the familiarity of experiences of harassment of what could be my granddaughter’s generation, but heartening to know that there is a worldwide resurgence of awareness that this is unacceptable. Then I see the interview with Mike Tyson (Sport, 25 January), in which is a reference to Tyson’s “distressing problems with women” (your words). These problems presumably include Tyson’s violence towards his first wife, Robin Givens, and his conviction in 1992 for the rape of Desiree Washington neither of which are mentioned in the text. Hard to believe that in the current climate of male media personalities being prosecuted on the grounds of historic sexual abuse, whatever the category of that abuse, the Guardian is still happy to publish four pages of hagiography about a convicted rapist in what is essentially a litany of his victimhood and free publicity for his new book.
Deb Steele
Beeston, Nottingham

Independent:

The Labour Party is the only political party that could implement Owen Jones’s inspiring “Agenda for Hope” (27 January), so we desperately need Labour to get elected in 2015.

But the trouble with Miliband and his glum frontbenchers is that they have no vision of what a rebuilt Britain could be like after the destructive Tory policies have ceased. They need to get a grip, to come up with detailed and comprehensive plans that will revitalise Britain, re-hearten their supporters and grab the imagination of the electorate. Not trivial ideas like breaking up the banks, or removing the deficit in five years, or a temporary tax of 50p, but plans to sweep away the worst of the Tories’ assault on the working class and to start to construct a fairer society.

After the collapse of the fantasies of Brown and the bankers in 2008, the Tories grabbed the chance to demolish the welfare state, privatise the NHS, sell off the national utilities, and reduce taxes on the wealthy. And to be as mean and nasty with the poor, the disabled, the unemployed, the sick and the elderly as only the Nasty Party knows how.

Labour would gain wholehearted support from all decent Britons if a Labour government was committed to rolling back the worst excesses of Tory policies. More positively, a commitment to have hundreds of thousands of new homes built at affordable prices would persuade many young people who feel that they have no reason to vote, to do so.

Tony Cheney

Ipswich, Suffolk

Owen Jones’ compelling rhetoric is simply that. For those who wish for a society where the state is involved in the lives of as few as possible, the Agenda for Hope is regulation-and-control socialism dressed up in “let’s all be nice to each other” verbosity.

“Democratic public ownership” and “allow all unions access to workplaces” would see professional activism led by the sort of profoundly undemocratic unions that purport to represent the very people Owen Jones wishes to  save; the agenda would be hard-left and Owen Jones must know that.

You don’t free the poor by imprisoning them in social housing and fostering a mentality that when you’re better off by your own enterprise and ambition the state will then take half your income to pursue nirvana.

Charles Foster

Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire

Lost in the big city

So “huge numbers of young adults move to London and never return home” (“UK regions hit by brain drain”, 27 January).

I have just started reading a novel by Ivan Turgenev written in 1859. One of its themes concerns talented young people who leave home and head for Europe’s capital cities. They end up feeling “superfluous” and lost, without a grounded place in the world.

There is every chance that Turgenev’s books will become a popular read for the lost souls who travel on the Tube.

Ivor Morgan

Lincoln

Westminster war on the oldest profession

Well said, Howard Jacobson (25 January). With the planned redevelopment of Walker’s Court being given the green light by Westminster, yet another slice of Soho’s history and culture is to be bulldozed, despite much local opposition – as if the Luftwaffe and Crossrail haven’t done enough between them already.

Soho Estates, Westminster and, with the recent police raids on sex workers’ premises, the powers that be, appear to be waging war on the oldest profession (also a local “core industry”). This will merely serve to drive activity elsewhere or underground, which can be very dangerous for sex workers.

Of course, the police must act to stamp out trafficking, pimping and other illegal nasties, but the oldest profession is legal and there will always be demand for the services of “artistes”, no matter what the law says. How much more Disneyfication and Starbucking can our precious and unique neighbourhood stand?

I have lived in and loved Soho for almost 30 years and it breaks my heart when I think of what has been lost already. Soho Estates maintain that they are not trying to sanitise Soho, but that is exactly what they are doing.

Margaret Bloomer

London W1

Saudi Arabia shuns Syria extremists

The false claims made in the article “Now it’s Middle Eastern regimes fighting al-Qa’ida” (6 January) about the Kingdom financing the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria are of the utmost seriousness. The Embassy refutes such implications and finds them an inaccurate and misleading account of the situation.

We would assume our attitude towards violent extremism is clear. In the light of the article, however, we would like to take this opportunity to again clarify our position and the imprecision of this accusation.

Saudi Arabia continues to show its support for the Free Syrian Army and the Syrian Opposition. Global hesitation to do the same, we believe, is acting as a large barrier in movement towards peace. It is only too easy to assign blame for indecisiveness and hesitation in the support of the Syrian Opposition to fear of indirectly enabling the involvement of al-Qaeda within Syria.

In reality, it is this lack of international involvement that is paving the way for terrorist-affiliated networks to breed within Syria. Saudi Arabia has unremittingly emphasised that provision of support to forces of moderation is the most effective manner in which to stunt the growth of forces of extremism within Syria.

The Kingdom continues through the Friends of Syria group to urge the international community to be more courageous in displaying their support for the coalition and the Free Syrian Army, who are in desperate need of international assistance.

Mohammed bin Nawaf  Al Saud

Ambassador, Embassy of Saudi Arabia, London W1

Costs of flooding in Somerset

R Horsington Graham’s letter on the Somerset flooding (14 January) only describes part of the problem. Since 2000, there have been seven flood events on the river Tone, three in the past two years. The Environment Agency has a policy to flood an area of some 15 square miles in times of heavy rainfall and pump the water into the river at a later date.

A number of us from our village did a cost-benefit analysis on the impact of this water and the cost to the taxpayer of the resultant pumping. Regardless of the damage done to businesses and private individuals, it quickly became apparent that the Environment Agency was wasting several million on pumping when dredging was cheaper for the taxpayer and far more beneficial for the local people.

When we pointed this out to the Government, they asked the Environment Agency to try to placate us. The EA didn’t dispute our figures; they couldn’t since we based the calculations on their costs, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

Tom Jeanes

North Curry, Somerset

Fetishists who run down the NHS

Vivienne Rendall praises the NHS service in Northumberland, and then adds that if standards were as high in the rest of the country, “there would be none of this constant carping at the NHS” (letter, 23 January).

I suspect that however good the NHS was, there would still be relentless “carping”, because Conservatives have a vested interest in denigrating it, so that they can then “justify” handing it, piece by piece, over to their private-sector chums.

Of course the NHS is far from perfect, but much of the endless denigration is politically motivated, and emanates primarily from free-market fetishists in the Conservative Party who are ideologically opposed to the public sector, and look for any excuse or example to criticise it.

Pete Dorey

Bath

Few private schools want to be academies

You report Lord Adonis’s assertion that up to 100 independent schools are poised to join the state sector (23 January). However, this was a throw-away comment at the Social Market Foundation and reflects the noble Lord’s political aspirations rather than any sense of reality.

Of the 15 private schools that have used the 2010 Act to convert to a free school or academy, most were struggling for numbers and a few used the opportunity to return to their direct-grant roots. All are now finding that the constraints of the state education sector, notably in funding, are eroding any sense of independence, with larger class sizes and reduction in extra-curricular activities among the many consequences.

Lord Adonis is quite wrong in suggesting that independent schools are queuing up to join the state sector, and the few exploring such a route only see it as a last resort.

Neil Roskilly

Chief Execu

Times:

Telegraph:

SIR – While I support Patrick Rump and his initiative for the rehabilitation of injured dancers, there are many existing physiotherapists striving to treat dancers appropriately and keep up to date with the latest advances in dance medicine.

SIR – As business leaders, we are concerned to see Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, and the Labour Party calling for higher taxes on businesses and business people.

SIR – The Government is blindly arrogant when it boasts that Britain still has the fourth largest defence budget in the world (report, January 17).

Irish Times:

Sir, – Last Thursday evening, I had to rush a relative of mine, who had been an internal patient there a few days previously, back to Mount Carmel Hospital. Once there, a young doctor and nurse ministered successfully to my relative for two hours and we were able to leave at midnight, to make further contact on Monday morning, January 27th. On phoning the hospital on Monday we were informed that my relative could no longer be treated there.

I understand that this appalling state of affairs has come about because Nama, owned by the taxpayer; one of the wealthiest property owners in Europe and one of the most cash rich bodies in Ireland, has withdrawn its financial support to Mount Carmel. Yet this same wealthy quango has no qualms about giving financial support to bankrupt hotels and golf clubs.

Where has the ideal of building a caring, cherishing nation gone? It is with our 1916 dead, in the grave. – Yours, etc,

GERRY HOGAN

Ballyroan Road,

Temploegue,

Dublin 16.

Sir, – The concerted attack on religious education, of which Ruairí Quinn’s comments are the latest example (Home News, January 27th), is not surprising in view of the endless revelations of the inherent dishonesty, corruption and general lack of integrity throughout the elite of the country.

In the circumstances, the better response must surely be to increase religious education in schools with particular attention to the ten commandments. Perhaps mandatory Leaving Cert in religion for office-holders would be preferable to one in Irish? – Yours, etc,

BILL BAILEY,

Ballineen,

Co Cork.

A chara, – Teachers in schools under religious patronage (Church of Ireland, Muslim, Catholic, etc) now have a dilemma. Teachers are contractually bound by their patron, who is their employer, to teach religion. The Minister for Education and Skills is their paymaster, and he says they should stop teaching religion in schools. If the Minister is serious about his suggestion, then the State must take full responsibility for education in all schools and fund them adequately. In the meantime, teachers will continue to serve God and mammon! – Is mise,

SEÁN Ó DÍOMASAIGH,

Principal,

Scoil an Chroí Ró Naofa Íosa,

Huntstown,

Mulhuddart,

Dublin 15.

A chara, – Regardless of whose feathers he ruffled, Ruairí­ Quinn was sensible to suggest that basic literacy and numeracy would be improved in primary schools by devoting less time to religion and more to maths and reading.

Buried deep in an ESRI report of January 2012, The Primary Classroom, is a table which analyses the proportions of time spent on different subject areas in our primary schools. It is troubling to note that when more classroom time is spent on religious education, the two subjects which suffer the most are maths and English.

It seems that our primary school educators have traded the three Rs for four. – Is mise,

NICK HILLIARD,

De Courcy Square,

Glasnevin, Dublin 9.

Sir, – I share the Association of Catholic Priests’ dismay at Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn’s latest outburst (Home News, January 27th). At the start of Catholic Schools Week, Mr Quinn promotes anarchy by suggesting that primary school teachers go against principals and boards of management and curtail the amount of time given to religious education.

Amazingly Mr Quinn refuses to examine the reality of Roman Catholic education in Northern Ireland (or in Britain) where, in research studies, Roman Catholic schools are shown to provide better results than socially and economically comparable secular schools even though Roman Catholic schools there devote a similar amount of curriculum time to sacramental preparation as Roman Catholic schools in the Republic do.

Interestingly although Mr Quinn continues to imply a relationship between Irish national school learners’ under-performance in maths and English and amount of time spent on sacramental preparation, he provides no evidence to support his claim.

If time is really an issue, then the obvious answer is to extend the school day or extend the school year in line with schools in Northern Ireland. – Yours, etc,

ALAN WHELAN,

Beaufort, Co Kerry.

Sir, – Gerry Brouder (January 24th) may be interested to know that we can already save on  costs associated with pylons, as the competition to design more elegant pylons has already been run.

The competition was organised by the Royal Institute of British Architects  on behalf of the British Department of Energy & Climate Change and UK National Grid in 2011.The six shortlisted designs (selected from more than 250 entries) were included in a public exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum that year, to coincide with the London Design Festival. Most importantly, one of those six designs was submitted by ESB International & Roughan O’Donovan and UK-based architecture practice Knight Architects. So, job done. No need for The Irish Times to run a competition. All we need is for someone to build them. – Yours, etc,

PAT MULLEN,

Kilkerley,

Dundalk, Co Louth.

Sir, – Your Science Page (January 23rd) presented just some of the major scientific advances that are possible when astronomers have access to the largest telescopes on Earth, and particularly those operated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO). However, Ireland is notable by its absence from the 15 member states that constitute this organisation. At a time when ESO is preparing to deal with one of the greatest technical challenges ever faced by astronomers – to construct the most powerful optical telescope ever built (with a mirror size approximately 1/7th the size of the pitch in the Aviva stadium) – Ireland’s absence from ESO deals the double blow of denying its astronomers the use of the best observatory on the planet, while also preventing Irish businesses from bidding for the ESO industrial contracts that will result from the construction of this new facility.

Globally, Ireland’s absence from ESO and indeed CERN is at odds with a country that seeks to position itself at the cutting edge of international scientific research. Areas of “blue skies” research – such as astronomy and particle physics, for example – are internationally recognised for their importance not only for what they tell us about the fundamental workings of the universe (eg dark energy, the Higgs boson), and in motivating the young to pursue careers in science and technology, but also for the role they play in driving the most advanced technological innovation.

As the Irish economic recovery continues to gather momentum, it is to be hoped that Ireland will recognise its responsibility to share the burden of scientific research with its international peers, by joining such organisations as CERN and ESO. Whatever about the price of joining, we can ill afford the long term damage of doing otherwise. – Yours, etc,
Prof PAUL CALLANAN, Chair (outgoing) Royal Irish Academy’s Committee for Astronomy and Space Sciences, (& Department of Physics, University College Cork); Prof PETER T GALLAGHER Co-Chair, RIA Committee for Astronomy and Space Sciences (& School of Physics, Trinity College Dublin); & Dr RAY BUTLER Secretary, Astronomical Science Group of Ireland (& School of Physics, NUI, Galway)

Sir, – Sean O Kiersey (January 25th) asks if he is “alone in thinking that canvassing inside the church doors in January for elections not due until May 1st is a bit much?” Surely this begs the question – if canvassing at any time, for any cause, inside the doors of a place of worship “is a bit much”?

Sacred space should be exactly that – not hijacked for the distribution of propaganda for any party. The very parties who argue for a separation of church and State. – Yours, etc,

MARY ROSE McCARTHY,

Richmond Court,

Bandon,

Co Cork.

Sir, – I welcome Noel Whelan’s support for marriage equality for gay women and men (Opinion, January 25th). I also support his view that we should not be afraid to let a conservative position be heard in this discussion.

However, not all language is acceptable in debate.   Mr Whelan describes a debate he organised in 1989, as auditor of the Commerce and Economics Society at UCD entitled “That Homosexuality is Perverse and should be Discouraged”. He explains that the title was chosen to be deliberately provocative. He found the debate entertaining. I found it anything but.   The atmosphere in UCD, as in Ireland generally, in the late 1980s was not a welcoming one for gay people. Decriminalisation did not occur until 1993.

Mr Whelan may not be aware that I, and other gay people who attended UCD at that time, found the language of such debate deeply threatening. The use of such a title suggests to many that a reasonable question is being posed, and that either answer may be acceptable. Several hundred attended the debate. Several thousand saw the numerous provocative posters. It made UCD an even more difficult place to be for a gay person.

The current debate is being listened to closely by many gay adolescents and young adults who are coming to terms with their sexuality. The language we use is likely to have profound implications for their future emotional and psychological health. We all need to remember this. – Yours, etc,

Dr DES McMAHON,

South Circular Road,

Dublin 8 .

Sir, – Noel Whelan (Opinion, January 25th) as a supporter of the “campaign for marriage equality”, suggests his fellow supporters who stifle debate (by unfairly using the label “homophobe”) do not serve their cause because the Irish people are suspicious of any proposal when they are not given an opportunity to debate it.

The irony of his position, however, is that the very use of the label “campaign for marriage equality” is itself a stifling of the debate. This campaign title at least implies that those who wish to preserve marriage as founded upon union between men and women are in favour of “marriage inequality”. An adult homosexual male or lesbian female enjoy the identical rights of a heterosexual person to marry a person of the opposite sex. While that may be an unwise and often an impossible right for a homosexual male or a lesbian female to exercise, they are not denied the exercise of that right by reason of inequality or discrimination on the part of the State but by their own sexual orientation.

A true debate is stifled by the inaccurate use of language. Whatever views any of us hold, we all must seek to truthfully call things what they are, to label things correctly, especially marriage. Has not every civilisation that has gone before us, which used the label marriage, meant it to refer to unions between men and women? This is truthfully the campaign for the re-definition of marriage. – Yours, etc,

PATRICK TREACY SC,

Stoneyford, Co Kilkenny.

Sir, – If I am correct that the intention of Noel Whelan’s article (Opinion, January 25th) is to communicate to the liberal and LGBT communities not to overuse accusations of homophobia in the marriage equality debate for fear of causing disaffection, then it is a wise suggestion.

These communities could be at risk of closing down the debate and disaffecting voters by assuming that the debate has been won. It hasn’t. However, this is a political analysis.

On another level it is incredibly difficult for the LGBT community to be dispassionate in the face of an opposition that appears to them to be homophobia masquerading as conservativism. The LGBT community has everything on the line in the marriage equality debate.

Minority stress (the concept that minorities become stressed from anti-minority messages in society) has been a key factor linked with having a negative impact on the mental health of LGBT people in a number of LGBT mental health surveys.

If this referendum passes it will be a stake in the vampiric heart of homophobia. At this level, this debate isn’t just about answering a political/ civil rights question, it is about one generation of the LGBT community trying to ensure that the next one doesn’t have to suffer their negative experiences.

While the LGBT community does have to be politically astute, it must be noted they have long suffered the effects of latent and visceral homophobia to understand better than any its appropriate application! – Yours, etc,

SEAN CASSIDY,

(Former Chair, DCU LGBTA

Society),

St Laurence’s Road,

A chara, – It is strange so much publicity has been given to An Post’s mistake in issuing a stamp with the wrong image of Capt Jack White, one of the founders of the Citizen Army (Home News, January 25th).  No historian seems to have noticed the wrong image on the stamp issued in November 2013 to commemorate the founding of the Irish Volunteers.  Instead of using one of the many pictures of the newly-formed Volunteers in 1913/early 1914, An Post chose to use a professionally uniformed group of Redmond’s National Volunteers, based in Waterford, a group who did not come into being until some time after the split in the Volunteer movement in autumn 1914.  The group of National Volunteers pictured also had a flag which was particular to that group, which did not exist when the Irish Volunteers were formed.

Perhaps these facts escaped the country’s historians as commemorative stamps are no longer sold at post offices, they can only be purchased at the philatelic shop in the GPO, thus ensuring that a huge section of the population never see these stamps.

Will An Post agree to issue another stamp to commemorate the founding of the Volunteers, as it may do for the founding of the Citizen  Army? – Is mise,

MARK DUGGAN,

Amiens Street,

Dublin 2.

A chara, – With regard to Kieran Forde’s letter (January 23rd), the respective son (my father) and daughter of Peadar and Micheal Mc Nulty (Company A, First Battalion of the Dublin Brigade, 1916-1921) are also still alive. Peadar and Micheal are both in the photograph of prisoners captured after the Rising on the balcony of E block in Stafford Prison as featured in your paper (Front page of Stories of the Rising supplement, January 17th).

Fortunately Peadar wrote an account of his experiences which is still in the family’s possession. His accounts are largely factual and while this is invaluable in itself, I share Kieran Forde’s view that the human and personal impact of these sacrifices needs to be recorded. The children of the veterans are uniquely placed to afford us these insights and I wish to add my voice to Mr Forde’s in calling for someone to undertake to record these memories. – Is mise,

UNA Mac NULTY,

Salisbury Avenue,

Belfast.

Sir, – “Fulsome”, that horrible word, is my suggestion for the chop. Where will its misuse end? The “fulsome Irish breakfast”, the “fulsome stop” or, perhaps, even the “fulsome Monty”? – Yours, etc,

AILISH O’FARRELL,

Clarina. Co Limerick.

Sir, – “Perfect” as for example used by a receptionist in response to my bank account details given in advance settlement of expensive dental treatment; or a tax payment. Perfect for them, perhaps! – Yours, etc,

ANNE CURRAN,

Dunmore East,

Co Waterford.

Sir, – Power outages. Please bring back our blackouts but not at the top of the hour. – Yours, etc,

JOHN MADDEN,

Carndonagh, Co Donegal.

Sir, – Stand out. Whatever happened to outstanding? – Yours, etc,

JIMMY O’DWYER,

Park Lodge,

Castleknock, Dublin 15.

Sir, – Kieran McHugh (January 25th) bemoans the “grammatically incorrect use” of the word “presently” as synonymous with “now”. According to that singularly authoritative record of the living, breathing English language, the Oxford English Dictionary, both usages he describes are more than acceptable. In fact, the “incorrect” usage dates back to the Middle Ages and is still heard, well, presently.

“Rant over”. – Yours, etc,

WILSON JOYCE,

Main Street,

Chapelizod, Dublin 20.

Sir, – As I see it. The acceptable face of government. It’s going to take time. In living memory. Has all the hallmarks. I can’t live without (usually make-up or a handbag!). A team-player. The glass ceiling. Am I alone in thinking?. Punching above their weight (Why?) . An ATM machine. Your PIN number. Your call is important to us. – Yours, etc.

HARRY BOND,

Killurin, Co Wexford.

Irish Independent:

* I attended the Reform Alliance conference in Dublin. However, I was disappointed that the topic of mental health wasn’t even mentioned by any of the speakers during the health discussion debate, in light of what I consider epidemic levels of suicide in this country.

Also in this section

Letters: Increased GP workload will hurt patients

Justice blind in one eye

The more things in this country change . . .

However, I was given the opportunity to put forward my reform when the discussion was opened up to the floor. I proposed the establishment of a separate ministry with responsibility for mental health and suicide prevention.

I also believe there should be a new body set up, focusing on research into and prevention of suicide. Dealing with the latter, a quick search in Google reveals the plethora of organisations providing help in this area. Leaving aside the obvious duplication of services, how is someone to know which organisation is best suited to help them?

The importance of research into the causes of suicide is vital as this dictates which path a person should follow in order to recover. At the moment, if a person is suicidal they must, to a certain extent, diagnose themselves. For instance, should they contact the Samaritans who offer a listening ear? Or should they contact an organisation like Pieta House which offers counselling sessions, albeit of short-term duration? Or should they contact the psychiatric services with their emphasis on the biomedical model as a means of recovery?

Can you imagine what it must be like for someone in this state of mind?

There is too much disjointed thinking in the area of suicide prevention, and a much more cohesive approach which offers a range of intervention techniques appropriate to the person’s needs with properly funded research would hopefully go some way into alleviating this problem.

THOMAS RODDY

SALTHILL, CO GALWAY

QUINN’S ANTI-THEISM

* The Labour Party’s apparent desire to separate not only church and State but also church and people took a turn for the ludicrous when Ruairi Quinn stated his desire to remove religion from the primary school curriculum, in favour of more reading and maths-based subjects.

Apart from the fact that the study of religion is by far one of the better ways to improve children’s reading skills, this bleeding-heart notion of maths and reading needing attention at the expense of religion should not be seen as anything more than a thin, politically correct veneer on yet another of Mr Quinn’s blatant displays of anti-theism.

The notion that children should be institutionally made ignorant of world religions, their histories, and their cultural impacts constitutes an act of educational vandalism on a par with Mr Quinn’s gunning for history at Junior Cert/Junior-Certificate-School-Award or whatever-it-is-today, level.

KILLIAN FOLEY-WALSH

KILKENNY CITY

EDUCATION SCAMMERS?

* I recently watched a programme about reformed criminals and their difficulty in securing employment and asking for a second chance in life – and it stirred some emotion in me.

I left school at 16 and by my late 20s had been diagnosed with cancer. As a non-smoker/drinker/drug user, to say this resulted in a bit of turmoil would be an understatement. On leaving hospital, I knew I could not go back to my life as it was. After much soul-searching, I decided I would try to address the biggest mistake of my life – that of leaving school uneducated.

I immersed myself in studying and, two years later, I sat my Leaving Cert. I enrolled in third-level education, completing a Bachelor of Arts degree and then completed a Master of Arts by research. And now, all my hard work has paid off. I work for less than €5 an hour four days a week. I apply to positions associated with what I have studied – to no avail.

Perhaps students, mature and younger, need to look outside the inward social institution that is education and find out if job/career opportunities actually exist once they finish rather than fall for the nonsense of education bosses trying to sell college places to those willing to buy their dream career.

NAME AND ADDRESS WITH EDITOR

PAYING THE PENALTY

* I would like to support fully the position set out in Dr Eugene O’Brien’s letter ‘The more things in this country change. . .’ in your Letters Page on January 25.

Basically he is proposing that organisations which receive public funds will be taxed at 95pc on other income if they exceed salary caps. He states further that if there is a challenge to this on legal grounds, let it be tested in the courts.

On the latter point, it seems that too many people, including the Government, back off if there is even the threat of legal action.

I would extend Dr O’Brien’s position to cover all organisations which have a monopolistic or dominant position protected by the State. Here the incentive would be the reduction of the degree of protection. Dr O’Brien’s letter forms the basis for a real reform where the Government would act – instead of being shocked, horrified, outraged etc at the continual “revelations”. And if the Government does not adopt a policy on these lines fairly smartly after this latest debacle, perhaps other parties or individual TDs of similar persuasion should push for this.

JOHN F JORDAN

KILLINEY, CO DUBLIN

DRAINING PENSION POTS

* We are constantly reminded when we see some of these exorbitant pensions to various members of state boards that it is not possible to reduce them for fear of the legal implications that would ensue.

Yet from January 1, 2014, the transition pension for all 65-year-olds was abolished and they were told that they could apply for jobseekers’ benefit. This changed entitlement criteria and resulted in a reduction in benefit for those who had worked all their lives for a meagre state pension.

This will effectively mean that approximately 14,500 65-year-olds will now be on jobseekers’ benefit provided they meet the criteria.

My point is that, at the stroke of a pen, the Government could change the conditions of eligibility for the majority of contributors with no fear of a challenge from the legal profession. I would also point out that no other political party has even raised this issue. If young people are not more vocal in the erosion of the quality of their lives as they progress to old age, this diminution of their entitlements will not stop.

FRANK CUMMINS

CLONDALKIN, DUBLIN 22

GILMORE’S HOLY SEESAW

* Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore’s reasons for re-opening the Irish Embassy in the Vatican are as intriguing as the ones for closing it. The move to close the Holy See Embassy, among the Republic’s first and one of its oldest missions, was widely criticised. It came at a time of a perceived low point in Vatican and Irish relationship.

The re-opening decision, however, was put down to the huge emphasis placed on poverty, development and human rights by the newly appointed Pope Francis. I believe Gilmore learned a great deal by simply seeing how Francis multiplied his popularity and increased his followers using and practising his theme of humility and poverty.

The new embassy will be a modest one-diplomat operation, devoid of former grandeur, but it is assured of efficiency and the positive aid focus already promised by Gilmore. All Ireland is happy!

JAMES GLEESON

THURLES, CO TIPPERARY

29 January 2014 Success
I go all the way around the park listening to the Navy Lark. Our heroes are in trouble, again. Mrs Povey demands  to be flown out to Montenegre to see if her husband is getting up to anything, at the Navy’s expense.  Priceless.
Boxes and Thermabloc arrive
Scrabble today Mary wins   and gets over 400, Perhaps I will win tomorrow.

Obituary:

Pete Seeger, who has died aged 94, was the protest singer and political activist variously described as “the Godfather of Folk” and “America’s tuning fork”.
Seeger was the first to concede that he was not the finest of singers, or even a great banjo player. Neither did he consider himself a particularly gifted songwriter; rather, he thought of himself as a facilitator of the tradition of radical songmaking. His great gift was as a communicator, and it was one that he used to maximum effect.
A major influence on Bob Dylan, Seeger was ubiquitous at folk festivals and political gatherings. Playing the five-string banjo, and singing from a vast repertoire of songs, he expounded ideas of justice and freedom in a strong, clear voice. Eventually Seeger’s appearances amounted to a roll-call of the human rights conflicts of the 20th century.
Having begun his performing career at fund-raisers for Depression-era economic migrants, he graduated to the integrated school movement of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King. He was central to the civil rights struggle, a passionate anti-Vietnam War protester and, in old age, a committed environmentalist.
He also supported a bewildering variety of less high-profile causes, was a co-founder of People’s Songs (an organisation to “create, promote and distribute songs of labour and the American people”) and helped to establish the Newport Folk Festival.
His political activism did not go unnoticed. In 1955 he was required, alongside Arthur Miller, to appear before the House Committee on un-American Activities to explain his “communist sympathies”. When he dramatically cited the First Amendment, he was jailed for contempt of Congress.
Although he was soon released, Seeger’s songs with folk group The Weavers were banned from the radio and many of his concerts cancelled. But he battled on, recording some of the most important protest ballads of the era, including Where Have All The Flowers Gone?, Turn, Turn, Turn, We Shall Overcome and If I Had A Hammer.
A prolific songwriter who collected and adapted poems, religious texts, passages from literature and traditional ballads, Seeger considered himself no more than “a link in a chain”, extending the oral tradition by travelling the country as a troubadour. His credo was: “If there’s a future, it won’t be because of big organisations, the church or movements, but tens of thousands of little miracles and little efforts.”
Peter Seeger was born in Patterson, New York, on May 3 1919. His parents taught at the Juilliard School of Music, though Pete and his musically-inclined siblings, Mike and Peggy, showed little interest in classical music.
He was educated at Avon Old Farms Boarding School in Connecticut, but his imagination was fired by a trip he made as a teenager to a square dance festival in North Carolina, where he “fell in love with the five-string banjo rippling out a rhythm to one fascinating song after another. I liked the melodies, time tested by generations of singers. Above all I liked the words… they seemed straightforward, honest.”
Nursing a desire to become a political journalist, he went to Harvard, but dropped out in his sophomore year. While working at the American Archive of Folk Song in New York, he taught himself the banjo; and the tall, slim balladeer became a familiar sight at protest rallies, county fairs and street parties.
On March 3 1940 he met Woody Guthrie at a “Grapes of Wrath” Californian migrant workers’ benefit concert. It was a date which, according to the singer Alan Lomax, could be described as “the birth of modern folk music”. Seeger became part of the loose collective called The Almanac Singers which included Guthrie, Lomax and, periodically, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee and Leadbelly. The Almanacs sang and recorded labour-oriented songs, such as The Talking Union Blues, and travelled the country, immersing themselves in folk traditions, allowing Seeger to learn “a little something from everyone”.
In 1942 he was drafted and “shipped out to the west Pacific and put in charge of hospital entertainment”. He was demobbed as a corporal in 1945.
Back in the United States he formed People’s Songs, a musicians’ union designed to bind folk singers and labour movements. But in the Cold War climate of fear and anti-communist paranoia, the labour unions were unwilling to be linked to radical folk singers. Although Seeger resigned his Communist Party membership in 1950, he observed 50 years later: “I still call myself a communist, because communism is no more what Russia made of it than Christianity is what the church made of it. But if communism had caught up with this country I would have been one of the first people thrown in jail.”
In 1948 he campaigned in the South alongside the Progressive Party presidential candidate Henry Wallace, an experience he found deeply depressing. The following year his car was attacked and his wife and child injured by shattered glass in the Peekskill Riot in New York.
Undeterred, Seeger formed The Weavers with Lee Hays (with whom he wrote the optimistic paean to social change If I Had A Hammer), Fred Hellerman and Ronnie Gilbert. They enjoyed immediate success, topping the charts with Goodnight Irene and Kisses Sweeter Than Wine, and established Woody Guthrie’s This Land Is Your Land as part of American culture. Despite traversing the country singing songs of protest, Seeger found time to establish the Newport Folk Festival and sell out Carnegie Hall as a solo performer.
But when Senator McCarthy began his anti-communist “witch hunts”, The Weavers were banned from appearing on radio, television and at countless venues. Still recording (by 1954 Seeger had recorded 29 albums for the Folkways Records label), he was called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities the following year. Being forced to discuss his views and expose his associates, he claimed, would be a violation of his rights under the First Amendment to the Constitution. When he was sentenced to a year’s jail for contempt of Congress, Seeger expressed his belief in the redemptive power of music and offered to play for the court — an offer that was refused. In the event, he served only four days, but his blacklisting lasted 12 years.
Although kept off the air, Seeger performed at fairs and festivals, in parks, on campuses and street corners — wherever a collection, however small, of like-minded radicals congregated. He also wrote the definitive book How To Play The 5-String Banjo. During the civil rights struggle of the 1960s his performance at the Carnegie Hall of We Shall Overcome — a song he had adapted from a Negro spiritual — not only announced the arrival of the movement in New York but also became its standard.
Having recorded the seminal Where Have All The Flowers Gone? and Turn, Turn, Turn (adapted from Ecclesiastes), Seeger found himself accorded God-like status among young Sixties radicals. The respect was not always returned, however. At the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, when Bob Dylan “went electric”, Seeger was horrified to hear music “so distorted you couldn’t hear the words” — and he shouted at the PA engineers to pull the plug. When they refused, the old radical shouted: “If I had an axe I’d cut the cable!”
But despite his concerns about the electrification of folk music and the generational divisions insisted on by the young, Seeger continued to perform regularly at rallies and demonstrations. A vocal anti-Vietnam War protester, he became a familiar figure alongside performers such as Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell, who had taught herself the ukulele from one of his records.
When his blacklisting was finally lifted, Seeger celebrated by singing an anti-war song, Waist Deep In Big Muddy — which was promptly censored by the CBS television network. But as a singer with a profound belief in the power of song (“I’d sing for the John Birch Society if they asked, which they haven’t”), Seeger travelled to Vietnam with his banjo to rally the troops’ morale.
As the Sixties drew to a close and optimism waned, Seeger began to devote his energies to the environment. Although he continued to appear at political gatherings, green issues — specifically the contamination of the Hudson River, alongside which he had built a wood cabin — became his primary concern.
In 1966 he had formed the Clearwater Organisation, three years later launching the Dutch sloop Clearwater, a 106ft craft which travelled the river raising funds and awareness. The organisation itself organised festivals, education programmes and sailing instruction.
After decades at the cutting edge of folk music and radical politics, Seeger had become an American institution. Having been awarded the Presidential Medal of the Arts and a Kennedy Center Award, in 1996 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and received the Harvard Arts Medal. The following year he won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album, for Pete. In all he recorded more than 100 albums.
In 1990 he described his life to his Harvard classmates as one in which he had “been a travelling, performing singer and songwriter for 50 years, in every state of the union and 35 foreign countries. Fortunate to have a family that stuck by me, even when I travelled too much, or got into political hot water. Life has been easier on me than any lazy person like myself has the right to expect.”
He bore no malice towards his political enemies, making light of his own struggle to get heard during the period when he was blacklisted.
In 2009, at President Obama’s Inauguration concert, Seeger joined Bruce Springsteen in leading the crowd in This Land Is Your Land.
Pete Seeger married, in 1943, Toshi-Aline Ohta. She died in 2013, and he is survived by their son and two daughters.

Guardian:

Teachers will have been given a much-needed lift by your story of Gove’s minions briefing the press against Michael Wilshaw, head of Ofsted, who is “spitting blood” about being undermined by the Tory right (Gove disowns rightwing campaign against Ofsted chief, 27 January). Staffrooms all over Britain will echo to the laughter of teachers recalling Wilshaw’s famous declaration that whenever he hears of low morale among teachers he knows he must be doing something right.
Lawrence Glover
Bootle, Merseyside
• We are all dismayed that targeting resources on disadvantaged pupils is having little effect on educational outcome (Pupil premium fails to close rich-poor performance gap, 28 January); but why are we surprised? This country’s remedial approach to economic and social inequality is fundamentally flawed, and has resulted in decades of expensive failure. Why not take a simpler approach: attack poverty, not its inevitable consequences.
Rob Davies
Pontesbury, Shropshire
• The humane efficiency shown by Preston register office (A day in our lives, Family, 25 January) is in marked contrast to that experienced by my sister some years ago when registering the death of our mother. Having taken the details, the receptionist picked up her phone and said to the registrar: “A death has just walked in off the street. Will you see it now?”
Ian Waller
St Albans, Hertfordshire
• Your report is grim (Malnutrition among Afghan children increases fears for country’s future, 27 January). One starving 19-year-old has just had her third malnourished baby. Is anyone helping with family planning as well as food?
Caroline Woodroffe
London
• Doc Who! Doc Martens! But who’s responsible for the trousers (BBC unveils Capaldi’s Time Lord costume, 28 January)? Mary Berry would disapprove.
Margaret Waddy
Cambridge
• So it’s claimed that Andy Coulson, over a breakfast of scrambled eggs, tried to poach Dan Evans (Report, 28 January). That’s hard-boiled journalism for you.
Roger Cooper
Sudbourne, Suffolk

Opposition to Labour’s proposal to restore the 50p tax rate says more about the views and values of opponents than the merits of the idea. According to Digby Jones, “the policy … constituted another attempt to ‘kick’ wealth creators” (Balls says 50p tax rate will be temporary, 27 January). Does he think the great majority of us who earn less than £150,000 a year are not wealth creators and make no contribution to the public good?
It would appear so, as he goes on to say that the wealth creators are the energy companies, housebuilders and bankers. Most of these have done more to siphon off money into their own pockets and trigger the worst economic disaster in decades. The combination of parasitic business practices and the super salaries and bonuses enjoyed by a small minority have created a massive imbalance in the economy and undermined real wealth creation. The best way to promote wealth creation in these times of austerity is to rebalance the economy away from an excessive reliance on finance and rising house prices and to create a society and economy in which everyone can hope to gain a fair reward for their work. Labour’s 50p tax rate supports this end. The squeals from the 1% who gain from the current model of wealth sequestration – not wealth creation – make that clear.
Cllr Steve Munby
Labour, Liverpool city council
•  Like Digby Jones, I too “learnt a long time ago not to believe what [people] say but to watch what they do”. I agree “it’s their behaviour that tells you what they really believe. I look at the “wealth creators” he and the other City mouthpieces defend – salaries, bonuses and pensions beyond avarice, tax avoidance, mis-selling, offshoring, zero-hours contracts, customer avoidance and all the other “entrepreneurial” business practices through which wealth is apparently created and accumulated in our society today. In addition to how wealth might be created, the question he and his fellow “wealth creator” apologists have to confront as our society drifts back to the middle ages is wealth creation for whom?
Malcolm Rogan
Nomansland, Wiltshire
•  Lord Myners, a former Labour City minister, says a 50% tax rate would take the party “back to old Labour and the politics of envy”. I’m left wondering about New Labour and the politics of laissez-faire, the Mandelson approach to the rich getting richer. No envy, Lord Myners, just anger at the trillion-plus debt your City/New Labour colleagues left us with. And a national blame game (also New Labour in origin) which hounds the weakest members of our society and traduces the NHS. Whether we reap £100m or more from the 50% rate, it is reasonable to expect that contribution to the national coffers.
Richard Clifford
Huddersfield, West Yorkshire
•  Describing Labour’s proposed 50% tax rate on incomes over £150k as “the politics of envy” is one way of looking at it. Another is to regard it as the politics of fairness as against the politics of greed. I suspect the people who depend on Newcastle’s eight food banks and seven “low cost” food centres, or who now have to pay £4 a week in council tax out of a jobseeker’s allowance of £71 a week thanks to the government’s changes in council tax support, would take the latter view.
Cllr Jeremy Beecham
Labour, House of Lords and Newcastle city council
• The Labour party and commentators such as Polly Toynbee (A 50p tax won’t kill business but this kleptocracy will, 28 January) would profitably separate “business” into the primarily non-value-adding but very highly paid chaps from Canary Wharf and the rest of us in the private sector who provide the majority of jobs, mostly value-adding. It’s been a difficult few years for us industrialists thanks to the failure of regulators and the antics of financial cowboys. We’re beginning to get back on our feet and many of the jobs that are being added are being created by us. Very few of us enjoy salaries that would attract the 50% rate, and any lucky enough to exceed that threshold wouldn’t begrudge the exchequer a few extra quid.
The banking industry isn’t serving the industrial sector well at present. Politicians should give serious thought to how they can build on the emerging recovery by making it easier for us to invest so that we can expand or create new businesses and new jobs. We also need more engineers and software developers, increased support for innovation, more help to take on apprentices, better partnerships with schools and colleges, improved infrastructure, more affordable housing and devolution to regional organisations to promote these.
Antony David
CEO, Solid State Logic, Oxford
• What seems to been drowned out by all the loud squealing of business leaders about Ed Balls’s modest proposal is that a 50p top rate of tax is still far below what we used to have. Jonathan Isaby, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said the 50p rate would be “an unmitigated disaster” for Britain. In 1971 the top rate of income tax on earned income was cut to 75%. In 1974, under Labour, that was partly reversed and the top rate was raised to 83%. Margaret Thatcher, who favoured indirect taxation, reduced personal income tax rates during the 1980s from 83% to 60%. So Balls’s proposal is still 10% less than the rate was under Thatcher. I don’t recall the rich fleeing the country when she was prime minister.
John Green
London
•  If those earning over £150,000 really think that paying a bit more tax is an unbearable and unfair burden in a country that already is one of the most unequal in the developed world, let them go elsewhere. Elsewhere is not a bottomless pit of job and business opportunities, and I want to live in a country that does not reward avarice and self-interest.
Trevor Rigg
Edinburgh
• How good to hear the pips squeaking.
Rev Peter Godfrey
King’s Stanley, Gloucestershire

The UK’s increasingly bottom-heavy economy and jobs market (The great migration south: four out of five private sector jobs now created in London, 27 January) demands policies that will benefit the whole of the country. It was to tackle this growing north-south divide while helping protect the environment that the Green New Deal Group recently published a National Plan for the UK. This calls for a £50bn-a-year green infrastructure programme, funded by a crackdown on tax-dodging and green quantitative easing, to make every building in the country energy-efficient and to build hundreds of thousands of new, affordable, sustainably sited, energy-efficient homes. Such a “jobs in every constituency” approach would create employment, business and investment opportunities in every city, town, village and hamlet in the country.Compare this with David Cameron’s efforts to scrape off so called green barnacles, such as finance for more energy efficient homes and his latest pitch to the Federation of Small Businesses to trash green building standards that allow reduced heating bills through renewable energy. Both are bad for the consumer and bad for small business since they will do nothing to reduce fuel costs, the drift south or generate sustainable jobs across the entire UK.
Colin Hines
Convenor, Green New Deal Group
• The north of England invented the industrial city; now it can lead another revolution by creating a multi-hub metropolis encompassing Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, Bradford, Hull and all points between. Put an international airport at each end, rapid transit systems between centres and common ticketing, all for much less that the cost of HS2. This super-region would give the UK another world city, already blessed with a dozen or more universities, an international broadcasting centre, world-famous sporting venues, and cultural powerhouses from concert halls to theatres to galleries to film-makers.
Roger Osborne
Scarborough, North Yorkshire
• There has been a stream of letters criticising the perceived London bias of your editorial policy and reporting (Open door, 27 January). Given modern technology, there is no reason why the paper could not move back to Manchester, which could support a move to fuller reporting of issues throughout Britain freom other perspectives than London’s.
I have tried to find out, through the internet, what proportion of Guardian journalists are private-school educated, male and have attended Oxford/Cambridge, but have been unsuccessful. The Guardian should publish these figures. Elites hang together and this makes them unwilling to criticise each other. The Guardian has become too London-centric and needs to fundamentally change this. Perhaps you could open up a wider debate.
Bruce Corlett
Glasgow
• Readers’ editor Chris Elliott writes about the Guardian being perceived as London-centric. In G2 (27 January), Hugh Muir quotes Simon Albury as saying that there is a problem in the BBC’s newsroom because the racial balance does not reflect the fact that 40% of the population of London is of black or minority ethnic origin. Perhaps the BBC’s newsroom does reflect the racial balance in the majority of the country, as befits a national media outlet. Approximately one in eight of the UK population live in London, which means that seven times as many don’t.
Peter Chadwick
Cirencester, Gloucestershire
• So your regional correspondent for the West Country covers disasters in the Midlands and flooding in Aberystwyth. Speaks volumes.
Richard Cleaves
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
While we can gladly celebrate the fact that European nations now recognise the importance of peaceful diplomacy, it is historically inaccurate and misleading to put this solely down to the European project (Comment, 28 January). Any historical analysis of postwar Europe must take into account the vital role of Nato, the cold war and the US in preserving peace. We should also note the dismal failure of the EU to prevent conflicts in the Balkans and the civil strife which the Union’s economic policies have created in the Mediterranean. The “criticism of Europe” that Frank-Walter Steinmeier attributes to nationalist rhetoric should not be so casually dismissed. The institutions of the EU remain opaque and unaccountable. Rather than turning their ire on those who complain about the lack of democracy in the EU, European leaders should accept the need for reform as an immediate priority.
Professor David Abulafia Gonville and Caius College Cambridge University, Dr David Starkey, Andrew Roberts, Professor Nigel Saul Royal Holloway, Dr Brian Young Christ Church, Oxford University, Dr Robert Crowcroft, University of Edinburgh, Dr Hannes Kleineke, Professor Robert Tombs St John’s College, Cambridge University, Dr Richard Rex Queens’ College, Cambridge University, Professor Jeremy Black University of Exeter
• What has generally ensured peace in Europe is the post-1945 development across Europe of normal democratic politics in almost every country. Democrats do not want to bash the daylights out of their neighbours. Let us never forget too that the principal aim of trans-Europeanism was to shackle Germany firmly into the community of nations for fear of German nationalism.
Michael Batchelor
Swansea
• The German foreign minister seems to have forgotten that in more recent wars the EU backed Nato’s attacks on Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, and that only Britain prevented an EU-Nato attack on Syria.
Will Podmore
London
When the folk singer Pete Seeger, who has just died (Report, 28 January) was hauled before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in August 1955, he resolutely refused to name individuals who he had associated with (the routine way in which witnesses were encouraged to become informers), but instead offered to sing some of his songs. He said to the chair: “I know many beautiful songs from your home county, Carbon, and Monroe, and I hitchhiked through there and stayed in the homes of miners.” Arthur Miller was another prominent witness who appeared before the committee around the same time, who also refused to name names; he was to become active in supporting the cause of persecuted writers worldwide, and not least in the communist dictatorships. However, as far as I know, none of the witnesses, including those considered to be hostile, was asked the question that was so recently put to the Guardian’s editor, whether they loved their country!
David Winnick MP
Labour, Walsall North

I really appreciated your juxtaposition of the two articles, Tax on meat ‘will cut methane buildup’, and Up to $1bn a year spent fighting action on climate change (3 January). The missing link is the fact that the greenhouse supergas methane is chemically identical to natural gas, which is the fossil-fuel industry’s favourite cure-all for climate change.
It’s possible that 3.6 billion farting livestock are producing more methane than the fossil-fuel industry is releasing by fracking, oil-well blowouts and pipeline leaks, but I’d like to see the numbers. Also I would like to see the percentages of those bovines being raised for meat and as milkers. Finally, the relevance of 9 billion farting human beings and their rotting compost.
In short, this discussion appears to have been launched as a diversionary tactic and I’m curious about where the funding for these “studies” originated. Cutting down on meat-eating is a good idea, but let’s focus on the valid reasons: the health of the consumers and the efficient use of our agricultural resources.
Dave Schmalz
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Importance of apprenticeships
Concerning your article on apprentices in Germany (3 January): I would like to harken back to the years 1957-59 when I was stationed in West Germany with Nato at a place called Iserlohn. I had purchased a Sunbeam Rapier delivered in Dusseldorf so I had to go there for servicing. The car had an elaborate electric gearshift that gave me a lot of trouble. When I would appear at the Rootes dealership I would be received by a master mechanic dressed in an immaculate white coat. He would settle himself down in the depth of the grease pit and summon his two apprentices: a pair of grubby little urchins, who handed him his wrenches etc with the accuracy of an operating room nurse, and if attention was lagging a sharp cuff across the ear would suffice.
The other apprentice experience I had was at the barber shop where the two apprentices there: a boy and a girl, would do the preliminary snipping and then the master would climb up on his little stool and complete the fine work.
Again, attention was demanded in no uncertain terms. No wonder West Germany recovered as quickly as it did.
Gordon Woollard
Emo, Ontario, Canada
Police must regain trust
The outrage resulting from the Mark Duggan trial verdict is entirely understandable and extremely worrying (Duggan family angry at inquest verdict, 17 January). There is a view that the Metropolitan police feels able to consider itself to be above the law and unaccountable to the public that it is paid to serve. We have a disturbing trail of controversial deaths at the hands of the police: some high-profile cases that spring to mind include Blair Peach, Ian Tomlinson and Jean Charles de Menezes. And there are, of course, many others.
The Metropolitan police urgently needs to understand the concern that its cavalier actions provoke and to work hard to understand what it has to do to improve its effectiveness and reputation and to gain the trust of the public. Continuing to deny the problems that its actions and attitudes are causing is not the way forward and will surely lead to ever-increasing strife and mistrust in the future.
Brian Sims
Bedford, UK
Australia’s refugee problem
The harsh and probably unlawful treatment of seaborne refugees by Australia’s Abbott government seems more a laboratory demonstration of rightwing psychopathology than a rational policy (Abbott defiant on asylum-seeker policy, 17 January). The automatic and indefinite detention of all seaborne refugees to Australia in impoverished New Guinea and on Nauru involves both huge expense and international disrepute.
An obsession with appearing “tough” in what they claim is the defence of Australia’s sovereignty against foreign, albeit helpless, invaders has an odd corollary in its unprecedented eagerness to surrender a serious piece of that sovereignty to multinationals in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement currently under negotiation. Power, whatever its source or nature, looks to be the Abbott government’s true love.
John Hayward
Weegena, Tasmania, Australia
Two kinds of boredom
Gaby Hinsliff didn’t really separate the two distinct types of boredom with which we are affected (17 January). Anyone can sympathise with people who struggle with the monotony of tedious and unchallenging work, but that is entirely different to the kind of boredom that average teenagers complain of when they claim to have nothing to do in the world of immediate gratification online through social media.
The skills that have been lost to this generation as a result of the internet age are those of contemplation, and with them, the emotional and sociological advantages to be had by knowing how to be content with having nothing to do. So it is not boredom that has “such a desirable image” according to your columnist, but the healthy mental state of mind that can be induced by use of imagination.
Society is losing sight of the simple tenet that to get something of quality, value and emotional depth requires patience, tolerance and effort. You just cannot Google How not to be bored and share it on Facebook. It’s harder than that.
Gary Laidlaw
Norwich, UK
Councils and fracking
It seems extraordinary that local councils would have a conflict of interest in dealing with the granting of local fracking permits (Fracking in the UK: “We’re going all out for shale”, says Cameron, 17 January). Surely this is an area we would expect local representatives to be extremely cautious about, given the uncertainties surrounding fracking.
But local councils are not what they used to be. The seat of power in local government now appears to rest with the operational staff, and not with councillors who are told their council’s financial viability is their first priority.
My council has become a quasi-corporation run by a CEO whose job is to ensure, no matter what, that the organisation’s accounts end the year in the black, even if this means boosting income or depleting services at the expense of residents.
Gone are the days when local council staff were humble public servants who patiently doffed their caps to residents. Having been constantly harassed as lazy and ineffective in the past, their newfound corporatism finds local officials in a position of power.
And this, unfortunately, is a position that does not always coincide with the interests of the community.
David Catchlove
Newport, NSW, Australia
Questioning beliefs
Thanks to Zoe Williams for her eloquent plea to respect the human rights of atheists (24 January). As an adopted Australian, I was unaware that my inherent right to that belief was protected. As a topic of conversation and potentially antagonistic dispute, my atheism comes second only to my equally strong disbelief in the merits of any known code of football, except perhaps as a necessary outlet for over-energetic teenagers.
Both subjects attract a stronger and more aggressive argument from their supporters than from us, the opposing side. Could this be due to the logical indefensibility of an unquestioning belief in both football and religion, which ensures that their more avid proponents huddle together for protection?
Infidels of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your anonymity. And possibly the Global Grail.
Noel Bird
Boreen Point, Queensland, Australia
Too little information
The article in News in Brief (10 January) regarding women in the UK having the 10th-highest rate in the world for cancers linked to a lack of physical activity raised several red flags. Women have been found to work more hours than men generally due to family and household responsibilities, often in addition to working outside the home, but according to this article they should be squeezing in a few more hours to go to the gym or out for a run!
Granted the article was brief, too brief to give significant information such as parameters of data collection, age of population studied, amount of exercise needed for prevention, age when cancer occurred, etc. It is news to me that bowel, breast and womb cancer can be prevented with physical exercise as for some time I have understood that genetic factors, chemical exposure, hormone use, tobacco use etc are more likely to be a causative factor in these cancers. This article leads women diagnosed with cancer to feel that they are responsible for it.
Billie London
St Augustine, Florida, US
Briefly
• In the UK, Belgium is often seen as a dull, backward country; yet in Belgium euthanasia has been legalised for about 10 years (10 January). It is no longer an issue, though many people consider palliative sedation an even better solution.
Hugo Claus, Belgium’s Nobel prize candidate for literature, feeling that his mind was beginning to flinch, decided that it was time to quit and in 2008 he asked his doctor to put an end to his life. He was admired for his courageous decision.
Some months ago the euthanasia law was even extended to children who suffer from an incurable illness. So who is backward here?
René Weemaels
Beersel, Belgium
• I couldn’t agree more with Charles Watson (Reply, 17 January). I use the King William’s Quiz for lighting the fire, or more pressing business. Surely you could find a more suitable use for the double page allotted to it – how about a proper old-fashioned Christmas Quiz, with questions within the scope of ordinary readers who possess an average amount of general knowledge?
Guy Johnston
Kirchhundem, UK
• May I offer a crumb of comfort to Charles Watson? To complete the King William’s Quiz and other quizzes, you just need access to information. To complete the Guardian and other good cryptic crosswords, you need an active brain.
David Barker
Bunbury, Western Australia

Independent:

I am no apologist for the Environment Agency, but I believe they are right when they say that the lack of dredging of rivers on the Somerset Levels has contributed relatively little to the current flooding problem. As they have pointed out, much of the Levels are at or below sea level, and this and the high tide range on the Severn estuary (the second highest in the world) contribute greatly to the problem.
But probably the most relevant feature of the area has so far has remained unmentioned – that the area of surrounding land draining into the Levels is four times that of the Levels themselves. This means that above-average rainfall in the surrounding areas has a disproportionate effect on flood risk on the Levels, compared to the East Anglian fens, for example, where the ratio is only two to one.
What happens in the surrounding land has as much if not more effect on flooding than activities on the Levels themselves. As elsewhere, the management of the agricultural land in these areas has no doubt intensified in recent years, resulting in reduced water-holding capacity due to increased soil compaction, intensification of grassland management (old pastures can hold up to five times the amount of water as intensively managed ones), and ploughing up of grassland.
Reinstating dredging in rivers such as the Parrett and Tone will no doubt help. But any plan to alleviate flooding must involve measures to increase the water-holding capacity of surrounding areas, including afforestation and measures to reduce soil compaction and surface run-off.
Francis Kirkham
Crediton, Devon
Owen Paterson, the Environment Secretary, is derided both in your Monday editorial and in a feature article by the Environment Editor for directing Defra’s departmental budget for flood control away from adaptation to climate change and towards managing flood risk.
Readers should be aware that this decision is entirely in accord with climate-change orthodoxy. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment reports, as well as its recent SREX report, which focused specifically on extreme events, grant a low level of confidence to there being an impact on flood magnitude and frequency from global warming. This accords with numerous data-based studies both in the UK and globally that fail to find a signal of change.
We should welcome that taxpayers’ money is directed to where there is evidence of threat.
Max Beran
East Hagbourne, Oxfordshire
Tom Bawden, your Environment Editor, should not be surprised that the Somerset villages of Muchelney and Thorney have become islands (“Minister caught in storm of anger from ‘abandoned’ flood victims”, 28 January). That is what the names mean – “Big Island” and “Thorn Island” – and that is what they were when the Anglo-Saxons named them.
Frank Donald
Edinburgh
Generate your own energy
What happens next in Britain’s energy story will set the tone for many other areas of our economy, where broken markets and monopolies are making it increasingly difficult for ordinary people to live well in Britain (“Miliband names Roosevelt as his unlikely political hero”, 20 January). Better regulation is part of the solution. But a true market will only be achieved if the next government creates an environment that supports grassroots energy initiatives.
There is a growing community energy industry in the UK, where neighbours are collaborating, creating jobs and growing their social capital as well as economic power. Recent research shows community energy could grow to 89 times its current size if existing barriers were lowered. There is much to learn from the way other countries are developing their own community energy and renewables at a fast pace, while the UK suffers.
The more the argument becomes polarised between government power and big business, the more ordinary people switch off and become further alienated from politics and the workings of the broader economy. There are genuine alternatives, and the party that understands and embraces them has nothing to lose and a great deal to gain.
Ramsay Dunning
Co-operative Energy
Theresa Burton, Buzzbnk
Andrew Croft, CAN
Celia Richardson
Social Economy Alliance
Peter Holbrook
Social Enterprise UK
London SE1
The future of interest rates
It appears that Mark Carney has been taking advantage of the clear mountain air of Davos to do some forward thinking on his “big idea” of forward guidance (“Carney pours cold water on imminent rise in interest rates”, 25 January).
His first attempt at forward guidance – an announced decision not to consider a change in interest rates until unemployment fell below  7 per cent  – passed its sell-buy date rather quicker than he anticipated.
One idea for forward guidance II is to get each member of the MPC to state where they think interest rates will be in two to three years’ time – fairly harmless, fairly costless and probably not much use.
The second is a “state-contingent” rule, in which reconsideration of interest rate decisions will depend on a set of explicit economic indicators – déjà vu and therefore lacking credibility?
The third is “time-contingent” guidance where you state a specific period over which interest rates are expected to remain constant (at ½ per cent) – isn’t this what we currently have?
Surely the latter can continue to be communicated effectively – even Jeremy Paxman was charmed into acquiescence by Carney’s storyline in Davos.
Keith Cuthbertson
Professor of Finance,  Cass Business School, London EC1
Not easy to be mediocre
For too long journalists have allowed mediocrity and sloppy generalisations to form their view of teachers. One sentence in your editorial of 24 January led me to write the above: “For too long, the teaching profession has allowed mediocrity, if not actual incompetence, to flourish unchecked”.
Is this seriously your view? Have you been in a school lately? Have you never heard of Ofsted; compulsory Continued Professional Development; peer review; assessment for Qualified Teacher Status; Maths, English and IT tests for teachers; rigorous vetting and assessment before promotion; Teach First; School Improvement assessments?
Oh, and then there’s comparative data of pupil achievement; learning targets; value added targets; parental consultation (with Parent Portals they can keep a constant, ongoing check on their child’s progress, not just a once-a-year 10-minute meeting); monitoring by heads and governors; and then there’s the most demanding assessment of all, the pupils.
If any “mediocre” and “incompetent” teacher can remain in the profession with all this it would be very surprising. Even Michael Gove himself gave “credit to the professionalism and hard work of teachers”.
John Daintith
Governor, Deputy Head (retired), Chew Magna, Somerset
France’s ‘comic’ anti-Semite
Many thanks for publishing, a first-rate article on Dieudonné (28 January). John Lichfield has got it spot on. I am most impressed that someone in the British press has at last taken the time and trouble to investigate this anti-Semite properly.
Dieudonné’s message  has now spread to the mainstream, as demonstrated at Sunday’s protest against “the system” of almost 20,000 here in Paris. In a YouTube clip, Jews are being told they are not wanted in France, a thing not heard of since 1930s  Germany. It is believed that the largest group of Jews residing in Europe live in France.
Lucille Grant
Paris
These shoes are bad for your health
I was pleased to read Yasmin Alibhai-Brown’s column on 27 January.  When I was at school I remember being told that high heels cause back pain and bunions, not to mention falling over more easily.
I have been amazed that even hospital managers walk in these obviously unhealthy shoes.
Alexandra Murrell
London SE17
Slow ‘fall’ of the Roman Empire
Steve Connor (“Return of the Black Death”, 28 January) credits the Justinian Plague of the 6th century AD with hastening “the final demise of the Roman Empire”
In fact the western empire had already fallen in the preceding century, and the eastern empire, Justinian’s realm, had another nine hundred years to go.
Cole Davis

Times:

Sir, As you say, most collisions between cyclists and pedestrians are caused by pedestrians stepping out in front of cyclists. You do not say how many cyclists are injured, or indeed killed, by pedestrians in this way (“Cyclists create an army of walking wounded”, Jan 27).
My own experience of cycling to work each day in Central London is that certain junctions are so dangerous to cyclists, with dozens of pedestrians clustered at the side of the road, and many of them choosing to cross before their lights turn green, that I now walk my bicycle across these junctions rather than risk injury to myself.
More generally, there has been an increased tone of hostility towards cyclists in recent years, from both pedestrians and motorists, because, I suspect, the former are alarmed by cyclists “appearing out of nowhere” when they haven’t taken the time to look for them before crossing, and the latter because cyclists “block up the road” by travelling at a slower speed than they do. These views seem to stem from an idea that cyclists are less deserving road users than others. The concept that cyclists have an equal right to use the road, and the benefits they bring by reducing pollution, noise, and cost to the NHS by being slimmer and fitter should be more widely appreciated.
Caroline Elliott
London N16
Sir, You do not compare like with like. The distance travelled by drivers includes significant mileage on motorways (cyclists not permitted) and main roads (very few cyclists). These roads have much lower injury and accident rates per billion km driven than town traffic.
The correct comparison would be accident and death rates/billion km travelled for urban travel. The cyclist rate would stay almost exactly the same while the driver rate would shoot up dramatically.
Michael Strelitz
London NW11
Sir, As a cyclist I note an increasing problem of pedestrians who wander into the road, texting away, with headphones attached. Many of them do not even glance at the road before stepping out. While pavement cycling is a problem in places, in 30 years of road riding I have only ever seen one collision between a cyclist and a pedestrian.
I also note with alarm the increase in pedestrians who seem to think that walking in the segregated cycle paths is appropriate. I wonder if any of these people understand that when they get back into their car why the cyclist now avoids the cyclepath? They complain about the rider in the road and angrily gesture towards the “facility”.
Yes, there is more that cyclists can do, but there is also far more that pedestrians and drivers can do to avoid pedestrian conflict.
D. J. Cook
Southampton
Sir, Last year I and Strider, my horse, travelled over 2,600 miles round England, mostly on roads, including going through the centres of 28 towns and cities. My experience of being passed by many thousands of cyclists is that fewer than one in 500 shows any sign of being aware that they can surprise a horse and thereby create a situation of serious danger to the horse, rider and others close by. The consequences of this ignorance can be deeply tragic for those involved when a horse is spooked.
william reddaway
Cheltenham, Glos

There are times when measures put in to promote ‘health and safety’ actually end up doing precisely the opposite
Sir, This week I arrived at work to find that fire doors had been fitted to nearly every room as a Health and Safety requirement — so they are closed unless wedged (illegally) open.
This feature may be important in the rare occurrence of a fire but, paradoxically, by increasing isolation between staff it adversely affects the health of both the staff and our patients rather than promote it.
Dr Derek Chase, FRCGP
King’s College Health Centre
London WC2

‘The premise that sex education should be compulsory “to teach boys to respect girls” confirms that parental influence has been abandoned’
Sir, The Children and Families Bill (letter, Jan 27) commendably aims to provide a safety net for children. Yet, it is a societal failure that schools are being saddled with the responsibility of providing information on sex and relationships because, unlike parents, they can be legislated and evaluated.
The premise that sex education should be compulsory “to teach boys to respect girls” confirms that parental influence has been abandoned. Parents are crucial to influencing the behaviour of both boys and girls. This includes monitoring access to pornography and having the determination to speak to their children about an uncomfortable subject. Perhaps it is parents that need educating on how to confront this subject with their children.
Denise Reynolds
Wiveliscombe, Somerset

There is very little regulation governing hedgerows, and what exists is there for the protection of the whole countryside
Sir, The Hedgerow Regulations, which you say David Cameron will scrap, are what stop our fields being turned into US-style prairies. The fewer than 20 pages of regulations can hardly be called red tape. If he goes ahead, Cameron’s lasting reputation will be as the prime minister who destroyed the British landscape with prairies and wind farms.
Dr Philip Sullivan
Frolesworth, Leics

Sir, The gagging law which was meant to prevent lobbyists from corrupting politicians has been peverted to gag free speech while doing very little to stop the problem of lobbying.
A huge number of charities including Royal British Legion, Oxfam and the RSPB have been campaigning against the Bill. It is currently going through the Commons and Lords, and despite the campaigning by charities the Bill is almost unchanged. In view of the power of lobbyists and the threat to their vested interests this is perhaps not surprising.
I have been one of many writing to my MP, who has been solidly voting for the bill as drafted. I have never written to my MP on any subject but this attack on freedom cannot be accepted. And how is it democracy of my MP continues to vote for it, despite the views of his constituents?
Cara Jocelyn
London, SW3

Telegraph:
SIR – Further to the controversy over apostrophes on street signs, why is that, on the London Underground, King’s Cross and Earl’s Court have apostrophes, but Barons Court does not?
Tony Lawson
Slough, Buckinghamshire
SIR – I support Cambridge City Council’s decision to remove apostrophes from street signs.
As a teacher, I notice that some children cant put them in the proper place. Others dont use them at all. Its my opinion that they shouldnt have been included in the English language in the first place.
Furthermore, punctuation is a hindrance to a childs ability to write. Commas semi colons hyphens speech marks where does it end a childs creativity should be free of the burden of punctuation
speling allso neads too be delt wiv i prepoze that orll speling rools shud be remuved our kids wud hav a briter fucha and it wud put the grate bak into britten.
Richard Townend
Selby, North Yorkshire

SIR – Classic FM’s complaint that Radio 3 is trying to muscle in on its audience by “dumbing down” comes from a station which perfected the art of dumbness from the moment it went on air, 22 years ago.
Radio 3 has changed, and inevitably those who believe classical music can only be enjoyed by listening to each work in its entirety rather than to selected movements probably don’t like it. But the station has become far more accessible without sacrificing standards. Programmes are still presented by people who are either musicians or who are knowledgeable about music rather than by cheery minor celebrities.
One can switch on Radio 3 and almost be guaranteed a new or unfamiliar piece. Switch on Classic FM, and it’s always Carmen.
Chris Rundle
Williton, Somerset
Related Articles
Labour’s spending plans demand more taxes than a 50p rate for the rich
28 Jan 2014
SIR – Over the years, I have witnessed many controllers of Radio 3 trying to increase the audience. None seems to have made a significant difference. It was, and always will be, radio for a minority.
However, the decline in Radio 3’s content seems unrelenting. We now have endless games filling the void, encouraging listeners to participate directly with the presenters, who chatter away pointlessly.
The recent series Sound of Cinema summed up much of the present decline perfectly – it was bland and undemanding musical wallpaper with minimal musical merit. And cribbed from Classic FM.
Denis Waugh
London SW17
SIR – Those, like myself, who are saddened by the BBC’s current dumbing down of Radio 3 to musical fragments and chat, should turn to the internet, and listen to the admirable Klassinen Musiikki from Yle Finnish radio.
Absolutely no knowledge of Finnish is required to enjoy continuous complete performances accompanied by a minimum of talking – although a Haydn symphony purist might find useful the Finnish numbers up to 106.
Dick Grindley
Balerno, Midlothian
Casting out the bishop
SIR – The Church Commissioners have spent £900,000 on a buying a new dwelling for the Bishop of Bath and Wells after deciding not to house the bishop in the medieval palace, as has happened for the past 800 years. Our benefice, Fosse Trinity, and three adjoining benefices are all in interregnum. Perhaps the Wells diocese could use this £900,000 to furnish our parishes with clergy. The commissioners need to put faith first.
Eleanor Yeoman
Little Pennard, Somerset
Fuse Samaritan
SIR – When my neighbour complained that her electricity had failed, she called on me to help her, even though I am 82 years old.
I reset a trip switch on the fuse box and power was restored. Surely, Samantha Cameron could have done the same thing?
Ruth Goldberg
London NW4
Not so full of beans
SIR – Tesco’s panna cotta mix contains Exhausted Vanilla Beans. Have they whipped too much cream?
Penny Wells
Sidcup, Kent
Power to the patients
SIR – After experiencing 40 years of missing, lost, mislaid, inaccurate and incomplete GP and hospital medical records, I recommend that patients ask for a copy of all correspondence and test results at the end of each consultation with any health care professional. Patients are entitled to this free of charge, excepting X-rays and scans, for which there is a small fee.
By this means, ready access can be had to a complete set of records for insurance purposes or when you are on holiday, attend A & E or seek second opinions.
Paul Staniforth FRCS (rtd)
Hove, East Sussex
SIR – In June 2013, Dorset Health Care took over the pain service from Dorset County Hospital (DCH) together with some 2,000 patients. As the patient records could not be relinquished by DCH, Dorset Health Care has had to borrow the patient files, scan and copy each patient record and then return the files to DCH. Six months on, patient records were still being copied. As a result, clinicians have not had access to patients’ notes at the time of consultation.
Recently, my wife had an appointment at a hospital some distance from our home, and on arrival the clinician asked why she was there. She explained that she was already being seen by another clinician with the pain service, and was sent on her way. Neither clinician had access to my wife’s records, so it was a waste of time for everyone. All patient records must be digitised urgently – lives may depend on it.
Peter Watson
Dorchester, Dorset
Salad in danger
SIR – Anthony Burnet asks why freezers don’t have lights. I have another question.
The NHS and the Food Standards Agency both advise: “Store raw meat and poultry in clean, sealed containers on the bottom shelf of the fridge, so they can’t touch or drip on to other food”. So why is the salad drawer at the bottom of the refrigerator?
Kieran O’Kelly
Andover, Hampshire
Enjoy!
SIR – Radio 4’s Farming Today reported yesterday that rabbits are “enjoying a return to our tables”. I am interested to know how they derive this enjoyment?
Andrew Mackenzie
Glasgow
Westminster ignores floods in distant Somerset
SIR – If parts of London had only been accessible by boat for the last three weeks, I’m sure that something would have been done about it by now.
Joanna Stevens
Glastonbury, Somerset
SIR – News of floods in remote parts of the world is, rightly, marked by national appeals for money to ease the sufferers’ burden and help them rebuild their lives.
We have all seen pictures of homes inundated in the West Country. This has made many people’s lives impossible. Yet there has been no national appeal.
Of course, charities such as the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Fund are doing their best, but much more could be done. Government agencies are, as usual, making excuses for their own ineptitude.
But we, who always give generously to world disasters, should be asked to help our own people. The response would also be generous.
T Graham Glasse
Lavenham, Suffolk
SIR – Areas have flooded largely because of a failure by the Environment Agency to maintain ditches and rivers. It might as well have done nothing. Then think of the savings to the taxpayer, and the wildlife.
Neil Green
York

SIR – According to Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, should Labour win the 2015 election all its spending (which he calls “investment”) is to be paid for by a proposed income tax increase of 5p on incomes over £150,000. Some plan!
It should be plain to anyone with their eyes open and brain engaged that the only way Labour can possibly pay for all the things it plans is to borrow more and increase taxes. Same old Labour.
Derek Beesley
President, Aberconwy Conservative Association
Llandudno, Conwy
SIR – William Hague and others are exercised about Labour’s proposed “anti-business, anti-job creation” imposition of a 50 per cent tax rate on the highest earners.
Yet the Government currently presides over marginal rates of more than 60 per cent, much further down the income scale. That is the effective rate for those earning just over £100,000 (through withdrawal of personal allowances). The Government has also introduced a similar rate for families with one earner in the £50,000 to £60,000 bracket (by withdrawing child benefit). Both these rates will rise above 70 per cent when the tuition tax works its way through.
Laurence Smith
Brimpton Common, Berkshire
SIR – Boris Johnson ponders the economically illiterate proposal by Labour to put the top rate of tax up to 50 per cent, in the face of incontrovertible evidence that doing so only reduces the amount of tax taken from the target group, leaving less money to spend on socially desirable things such as health, welfare and education, quite apart from increasing the deficit.
Is it, he wonders, pure ignorance, or a cynical appeal to the atavistic desires of the majority, who, ignorant of the Laffer curve, wish only to “stick it to the rich?”
May I suggest a more malicious reason? The recovery is the best chance the Tories have of gaining an absolute majority at the next election. Noting that business is sitting on a cash pile of £700 billion, waiting to see which way the economic wind is blowing, could Labour be deliberately making virulently anti-business noises to prevent that cash-pile being invested in Britain? Perhaps the object is to cause the recovery to stop dead, for which, of course the Coalition can be blamed. Having shot the Tories’ best fox, Labour is that much more likely to win the election.
John Hay-Heddle
Sawley, Derbyshire
SIR – The Government used to produce statistics which would have settled the present controversy over our standard of living. They were known as Real Personal Disposable Income, published quarterly. They charted cash in people’s pockets, after taking tax and inflation into account.
Their publication was stopped when Gordon Brown was chancellor.
Peter Smith
Ingatestone, Essex

Irish Times:

Sir, – I was deeply shocked at Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn’s suggestion, at the Irish Primary Principals’ Network meeting, that if more time was needed on the curriculum for literacy and numeracy, then the teacher might look at taking that time from religious education.
First, does the Minister think that in learning religious education, children are not learning literacy and numeracy at the same time? Second, is he seriously suggesting that the response to over crowding in the curriculum is for one subject to cannibalise another?
However, more worrying, is that the Minister’s remarks deliberately undermine the place of a curriculum subject.
Irrespective of his own personal desire, the Primary School Curriculum Introduction (1999) states that the curriculum is divided into seven areas, one of these is religious education. It is not an optional subject. The Introduction (a State document) gives a number of reasons for the inclusion. It says that in seeking to develop the full potential of the child, the curriculum takes into account the child’s affective, aesthetic, spiritual, moral and religious needs. It goes on to say: “The spiritual dimension is a fundamental aspect of individual experience, and its religious and cultural expression is an inextricable part of Irish culture and history. Religious education specifically enables the child to develop spiritual and moral values and to come to a knowledge of God” (58). It is up to each patron to write a programme that will best give expression to this aim.
The State requires the teaching of religious education in our schools. It is of serious concern when the Minister of Education advocates the undermining of one subject by another, particularly in an integrated curriculum. Such a suggestion by the Minister raises all sorts of questions as to his motive for the introduction of a new subject/programme (in an already overcrowded curriculum) into primary schools entitled “Education about Religions and Beliefs and Ethics” (ERB and Ethics).
Is it the case that the Minister’s own opinions are now driving the education agenda, rather than the carefully thought-out policies built on the bedrock of expert professional consensus? – Yours, etc,
Dr DANIEL O’CONNELL,
Faculty of Education,
Mary Immaculate College,
Limerick.
Sir, – Bill Bailey (January 28th), rightly highlights the systemic lack of integrity and honesty amongst the elite of the country. However, were one to reflect on the education received by the past and current generations of charlatans, one might hold off on recommending a greater influence by the religious orders.
The analysis of the conduct of various orders by Ryan, Murphy and others would show that the schooling in hypocrisy, secrecy and the protection of vested interests has been more than effective.
Or is there a spot of mental reservation afoot? – Yours, etc,
MARK McGRAIL,
Highland Avenue,
Cabinteely, Dublin 18.

Sir, – The recent assertion by Minister for Enterprise Richard Bruton that human rights activists “should get real” (Opinion, January 23th) is both insulting and disgusting.
Human rights activists are precisely those who see the world as it really is. They are moral exemplars who cannot and will not ignore murder and rape, torture and exploitation. They feel compelled to expose such atrocities and warn us all of rulers and regimes responsible for same. It is the Minister who needs to get real. Doing business with criminals is ultimately bad business. Collaborating with oppressive regimes is ultimately bad business. Mr Bruton’s version of “realism”, of “realpolitik”, is social Darwinism at its best.
The recent fate of RCSI exemplifies how an Irish multinational institution can fall foul of a brutal regime; profits are up and business is good, but the reputation of the college is tarnished permanently. Irish trained surgeon and RCSI alumni, Ali Alekri remains in jail in Bahrain. Medical facilities in Bahrain are militarised – including the RCSI King Hamad hospital. Another colleague, Ebrahim Demastani who was sentenced to three years for sending an injured man to hospital, has been tortured and denied medical treatment in a Bahrain jail. RCSI recently stated it was not for it to tell the regime how to run its country. Many other graduates and staff of RCSI Bahrain continue to suffer and feel abandoned by their college.
I have been to the UN Human Rights Council and to the International Criminal Court and I have learned that those organisations are not empowered to force change in the real world. Real change comes from a civil society informed by human rights.
Real change comes when people vote to remove from power those responsible for corruption and collaboration with corrupt regimes. In Minister for Enterprise Richard Bruton’s corporate world, the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many. In the real world, addressing the suffering of the many must outweigh the needs of the few. – Yours, etc,
Prof DAMIAN
Mc CORMACK,
Eccles Street, Dublin 1.

Sir, – Louise O’Keefe’s victory in the European Court of Human Rights is a victory for all institutionally abused children (Breaking News, January 28th). Her bravery and determination deserves the highest commendation.
The judgment drives a coach and horses through the Irish Government’s claim that it is not responsible for abuse in education, welfare and health bodies it regulated in law and/or paid for through the public purse. The excuse that abuse was the responsibility of the church bodies and organisations to whom the State handed over children is shown to be nonsense. For some years successive governments have used exposure of the abuse carried out by clergy and other individuals as a means of escaping responsibility. It was the State that put a sectarian system in place, behind which abuse occurred.
The judgment will give new hope to all of those abandoned by the State in various institutions. This includes misnamed mother and baby homes where so-called “illegitimate” children suffered appalling abuse, including death, under a regulatory regime that knew of but ignored their plight.
The former child residents of the Rathgar-based Bethany Home will welcome this judgment. Hundreds died in the 1930s and 1940s because the then deputy chief medical adviser explained, “illegitimate children are delicate and marasmic [starving]”. He explained also the State’s priority, that Roman Catholic and Protestant children be segregated. Properly functioning sectarian regulation would make welfare concerns and bad publicity go away, he contended. Go away they did while children suffered and died in silence.
Now those concerns are back where they should be, at the door of the Government. The Bethany residents, whose case for restitution was spurned by Minister for Justice Alan Shatter in 2013, and others are back knocking on that door. – Yours, etc,
NIALL MEEHAN,
Faculty Head,
Journalism & Media Griffith
College,
South Circular Road,
Dublin 8.

A chara, – Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan was not the only Commissioner to appear before an Oireachtas Committee last Thursday. The other commissioner appearing that day (Home News, January 24th) was the outgoing Irish language Ombudsman Seán Ó Cuirreáin who last month had announced his early departure from his post due to lack of Government support for his efforts to improve the provision of state services in Irish to the public. Mr Ó Cuirreáin had been invited before this Oireachtas sub-committee to give his assessment on the Government’s 20-Year Strategy for the Irish Language.
The commissioner’s comments on the present sorry state of that strategy made for sad reading. But it was even sadder to note the absence from the hearing of any representative from either of the Government parties. During his 10 years in the job Seán Ó Cuirreáin proved to be a committed and hard-working Coimisinéir Teanga, who won the trust of the Irish language community. Whether deliberate or otherwise, the absence of any Government representative from the meeting on Thursday was, in my view, a gross insult to this dedicated public servant. And it was also a gross insult to the great numbers of Irish citizens who still value the Irish language as an essential part of our cultural heritage. – Is mise,
JOHN GLENNON,
Hollywood, Co Wicklow.

Sir, – I am perplexed by reports that a bank levy may contravene EU state aid rules. The same EU as well as the ECB had no difficulty in compelling the State to aid unsecured bank bondholders a few short years ago. – Yours, etc,
VINCENT MURPHY,

A chara, – Fianna Fáil jobs spokesman Dara Calleary is critical of certain regions not getting their “fair share” of IDA jobs or site visits (Home News, January 20th). He appears to have no understanding of the factors influencing the locations chosen by new foreign firms coming to Ireland.
Back in the 1970s, when most new investment was in low-skill manufacturing, the IDA had little difficulty in spreading this investment around the country, as unskilled labour was ubiquitous. Nowadays, the types of jobs provided by foreign firms are much more highly-skilled, and mainly in services. These firms are attracted to larger urban centres, and especially Dublin, where adequate supplies of skilled workers and support services are available.
The National Spatial Strategy (NSS), launched in 2002, set out to develop a number of regional centres which could provide alternatives to Dublin in terms of availability of skills and service infrastructure. However, the NSS never got off the ground due, in large part, to a lack of effective support from the then Fianna Fáil government.
It was particularly undermined by Charlie McCreevy’s plans for the relocation of the central civil service, a cynical short-term vote-getting exercise which made no strategic or operational sense. Dara Calleary was a member of that government. – Is mise,
Dr PROINNSIAS
BREATHNACH,
Department of Geography,
National University of
Ireland Maynooth,
Sir, – Regarding next year’s same-sex marriage referendum, Sean Cassidy (January 28th) claims, “If this referendum passes it will be a stake in the vampiric heart of homophobia”. His letter comes as a part of a correspondence regarding the legitimacy of the term “homophobia”. I suggest that same-sex marriage will not be a stake in the heart of homophobia, or (to put it more accurately) an end to the accusations of homophobia.
Ever since our political and social discourse has become larded with accusations of various phobias or discriminations – sexism, racism, homophobia, and so forth – it has become obvious that there is no limit to these accusations, and they can proliferate endlessly. There are whole university departments and quangos dedicated to the detection of these various phobias, and when no obvious evidence can be found, they are simply “discovered” at a deeper, sublimated level. Even in everyday life, the never-ending spiral of ever-greater political correctness shows the same process at work. Does anyone seriously believe that the bandying about of the term “homophobia” would end, or would even diminish, if next year’s referendum were to pass?
A serious debate cannot concentrate upon the supposed motives of the participants, as it is the easiest thing in the world to seek to discredit your opponent by speculating upon his or her motives. It must concentrate upon the arguments. The word “homophobia” has no place in this debate. – Yours, etc,
MAOLSHEACHLANN
O CEALLAIGH,
Woodford Drive,
Clondalkin Dublin 22.
A chara, – Patrick Treacy argues that “every civilisation that has gone before us” has used the label marriage “to refer to unions between men and women”(January 28th). As such, he believes marriage equality is an inaccurate use of language when discussing the right for men to marry men and women to marry women. He describes it “truthfully” as a campaign for the re-definition of marriage.
While it may be true that most people assume marriage refers to the union between men and women, this is simply an interpretation established by so-called social norms. Our own Constitution does not describe marriage in these terms but rather uses the term “persons”.
That same Constitution states “all citizens shall, as human persons, be held equal before the law”. Marriage is a legal contract between two people and any loving couple should be able to access it based on the Constitution. So right now, I argue, the law is unconstitutional by discriminating against certain persons when it comes to marriage.
Denying marriage to gay couples sends out a message they are subhuman. Fundamentally, it prevents gay couples from financially protecting each other in the same way straight couples can. Marriage equality will come into effect in the UK from March. People in civil partnerships will have to dissolve their unions to marry, and many will do so because of access to greater rights under marriage. Mundane debates about language serve as unwelcome distractions from the heart of the matter. – Yours, etc,
NATASHA BROWNE,
Woodford New Road,
London, England.

A chara, – I am a tad confused by the Government euphoria at the birth of our newest baby in Quangoland, ie Irish Water . . . 1. Weren’t baby Quangos supposed to become an extinct species under Fine Gael/Labour? 2. Irish Water is clouded in secrecy but will be a shining example of Freedom of Information openness . . . soon. 3. It will be overstaffed by a factor of two, pay a fortune to consultants, have an admin to rival the HSE, but save us billions. 4. It must be the first company worldwide proposing voluntary redundancies before it becomes anywhere close to functional. 5. “The creation of Irish Water will knock 2 per cent of GDP off the national debt” as we hide the debt under the financial carpet. 6. Pat Rabbitte blames the troika, while I thought we celebrated its demise over a month ago. 7. “The economic argument for metering is questionable” but the leaks continue unabated. 8. Guess who’s going to pay for the rearing of this new baby? 9. When is the promised democratic revolution set to begin? Maybe this is it. – Is mise,
LIAM McGOWAN,
Woodland,
Letterkenny,

Sir, – Rosita Boland’s account of a visit to the Dublin Writers Museum on Parnell Square (Weekend Review, January 4th) is at odds with my experience of this wonderful cultural establishment. She paints a picture of a quaint museum out of touch with modern practice. Any visitors who have accompanied me to this museum have had their eyes and minds opened to the wonderful heritage of this city’s many writers. Its curator is a guide of excellent vision and breadth of knowledge concerning our writers. His store of knowledge on his topic is unrivalled and long may he continue in his post. The fee she mentions is worth every cent and compares favourably with museum prices both on the continent and in the Americas. – Yours, etc,
MARIA MURPHY,
Fontenoy Street,
Broadstone,

A chara, – Kudos to Hilary Wakeman (January 23rd) and D Flinter (January 25th) for their commitment to hippopotomonstrosesquipedalianism.
However, in this realm, my heart will always stay true to pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis . . . even though it never came up on any of my exams! – Is mise,
Dr HUGH ADLER,
Bloomfield Park,
Donnybrook, Dublin 4.

Sir, – Higher water charges. – Yours, etc,
RICHARD BROWNE,
Strand Road, Dublin 4.
Sir, – “I am absolutely passionate about . . .”, as used by artisan foodies and celebrity chefs, IT whizz kids, talent contest hopefuls, sports people and politicians. Leave the passion in the leaba! And who among us does not wish the roller-coaster, that excited contestants find themselves on, would just leave the rails every now and then? – Yours, etc,
DECLAN O’CONNELL,
Crookstown, Co Cork.
Sir, – Scientifically proven. – Yours, etc,
CHRIS COGGINS,
Stillorgan Wood,

Irish Independent:
The kindest interpretation of the Education Minister’s anti-religious comment at the recent Irish Primary Principals Network Conference is that having a cut at Catholic schools is always good for a few column inches.
Also in this section
Letters: A reform platform that ignores mental health
Letters: Increased GP workload will hurt patients
Justice blind in one eye
If he really meant what he is reported to have said, then we have reason to be worried. An Education Minister should be a little more conscious of the contribution of theistic faiths to metaphysics, science and culture. He should be aware of just how important a contribution they have made, through schools and universities, in delivering educational access to the poor and disadvantaged in Ireland and in poorer countries – especially in communities where political ideologies count for nothing.
Ruairi Quinn’s comments also demean what teachers – from primary school to third level – know to be the case: namely that all knowledge needs to be encompassed within life values that have to do with putting this knowledge at the service of the wider community. In Catholic schools this means the Gospel-based values of love, social justice and equality. That begins in primary school.
In any event, the notion that teachers can only find time for teaching other subjects at the expense of teaching faith values is, of course, a nonsense. The primary school curriculum is too crowded, the classes too big, the conditions of some buildings too poor and the teachers too pressurised.
Addressing any, or all, of these would make a far greater contribution to effective teaching than ‘crowding out’ faith values that celebrate milestones in young lives and help children make sense of life, relationships and work.
Coincidentally, I read Mr Quinn’s comments after having attended my daughter’s school Mass. Her school motto is ‘Veritas’ (truth) and its mission is ‘Finding truth through the education of the whole person’.
Now that’s education – and I wouldn’t want her or any young person to miss out on an understanding of either of these life-values.
PROFESSOR RAY KINSELLA
ASHFORD, CO WICKLOW
THE AULD RELIABLE
* Many years ago, Bob Dylan had a huge hit with ‘The Times They Are a Changin’, which captured the mood of that era .
Back then, ‘gay-rights’ was the opinion of the ‘Late Late Show’ host; a ‘top-up’ was what a friendly barman gave you at closing time; and ‘Irish Water’ was what you waded through during the summer.
An ‘escort-agency’ was your local Ford garage; a G-string was found on a guitar; ‘boxers’ fought in the Olympics and won bronze medals; and ‘divers’ wore skimpy togs and jumped off a high board.
A ‘whistleblower’ was the ref at the Sunday match; ‘Twitter’ was something your budgie did; an ‘iPad’ was used if they were bloodshot; a ‘disc’ was something that slipped in your back; a ‘tablet’ was what you took for the pain; and ‘ejaculations’ were short prayers the nuns taught you.
‘Mass murder’ was the church choir singing out of tune and the ‘missionary position’ was preaching the bible in Africa.
While ‘The Times’ they are a changin, thankfully ‘The Indo’ still reads the same.
SEAN KELLY
TRAMORE, CO WATERFORD
NO FAITH IN MINISTER
* I was deeply shocked with Education Minister Ruairi Quinn’s suggestion, at the Irish Primary Principals’ Network meeting that if more time was needed on the curriculum for literacy and numeracy, then teachers might look at taking that time from religious education. Firstly, let me ask, does the minister think that in learning religious education, children are not learning literacy and numeracy at the same time?
Secondly, is he seriously suggesting that the response to over- crowding in the curriculum is for one subject to cannibalise another?
However, more worryingly, the minister’s remarks deliberately undermine the place of a curriculum subject. Irrespective of his own personal desire, the ‘Primary School Curriculum Introduction (1999)’ states that the curriculum is divided into seven areas, one of these is religious education.
It is not an optional subject. ‘The Introduction’ (a state document) gives a number of reasons for the inclusion.
It says that in seeking to develop the full potential of the child, the curriculum takes into account the child’s aesthetic, spiritual, moral and religious needs.
It goes on to say that: “The spiritual dimension is a fundamental aspect of individual experience, and its religious and cultural expression is an inextricable part of Irish culture and history.
Religious education specifically enables the child to develop spiritual and moral values and to come to a knowledge of God.” It is up to each patron to write a programme that will best give expression to this aim.
The State requires the teaching of religious education in our schools.
It is of serious concern when the Education Minister advocates the undermining of one subject by another, particularly in an integrated curriculum.
Such a suggestion by the minister raises all sorts of questions as to his motive for the introduction of a new subject/programme (in an already overcrowded curriculum) into primary schools entitled Education about Religions and Beliefs and Ethics.
Is it the case that the minister’s own opinions are now driving the education agenda?
DR DANIEL O’CONNELL
FACULTY OF EDUCATION,
MARY IMMACULATE COLLEGE, LIMERICK
HOW NOT TO DO THINGS
* It should have been so straightforward. Hive off existing water departments from their councils, put them into a new, lean legal entity, start charging punters for their water and, once the new entity is trading profitably (how can it fail not to), flog it off to the private sector and pocket the proceeds.
What could possibly go wrong?
After all, clean water was already coming out of (most) people’s taps, the water departments were largely ring-fenced, self-contained units in local authorities, already said to be operating efficiently, Bord Gais would be able to provide the expertise and systems for billing consumers based on meter readings, and nothing significant needed to change to get the new company up and running quickly. And yet . . .
The somewhat hands-off Phil Hogan was given overall responsibility and a new chief executive was recruited with the Poolbeg incinerator fiasco on his CV; they employ consultants who sensed that there was a buck to be made.
The Finance Minister sees an opportunity for some creative accounting that would reduce the country’s debt; and local authorities spot a chance to pull a fast one and offload unnecessary extra staff (and their pension liabilities) onto the new company.
We should not be surprised should this scenario figure as a future case study for business schools around the world on how not to go about things.
R BLACKBURN
ABBEY HILL, NAUL, CO DUBLIN
* It is utterly disgraceful that the Government is on course to secure another agreement with the public-sector unions that will once more hit the hard-pressed Irish taxpayer.
I refer, of course, to the agreement to transfer thousands of surplus staff from county councils to the latest giant quango, Irish Water.
Why are our political leaders determined to repeat the same mistakes made at the time of the establishment of the HSE?
JOHN B REID
KNAPTON ROAD, MONKSTOWN, CO DUBLIN
Irish Independent

30 January 2014 Betty’s

I go all the way around the park listening to the Navy Lark. Our heroes are in trouble, again. Pertwee has to rescue a relative from Tangiers, as disguising him as a naval officer. Priceless.

Thermabloc in house with Peters help, off to Betty’s with Astrid and Michael

Scrabbletoday Iwinand get under 400, Perhaps Marywill win tomorrow.

Obituary:

Ahmed Fouad Negm, who has died aged 84, was a working-class hero of Egyptian letters but paid the price for his sarcastic attacks on authority, writing much of his poetry in prison.

Guardian:

In the course of showing us the “dark” side of Scandinavian life, Michael Booth writes that Finland is “burdened by taboos” about the civil war, second world war and cold war (The dark heart of Scandinavia, 28 January). Taboos? On the contrary. The same day’s edition of Helsingin Sanomat (the biggest Finnish newspaper) had two three-quarter page articles dealing with these subjects, one discussing the Finnish role in the Siege of Leningrad (they refused Nazi requests to attack the city) and one about recent research into the civil war of winter 1917-18, the terrible aftermath of Finnish independence from Lenin’s Russia. Since at least 1990, these painful subjects have been frequently discussed in Finnish media.

Independent:

“Lib Dems declare war on the rich” (front page headline, 28 January)? I don’t think so

Let’s put the £2bn which would be raised by the “mansion tax” against the billions that Royal Bank of Scotland has received from the taxpayer and uses to fund its payment of bonuses. Let’s compute how much certain people are being paid in order that they might benefit from tax relief on a million-pound pension contribution.

“War” would be an 80 per cent tax rate, a huge hike in death duties and a flat refusal to countenance any form of bonus payment in any business in which the taxpayer had a stake. But then “Lib Dems Tip-Toe Up On The Rich, Pull A Very Stern Face and Run Away Again” isn’t much of a headline, is it?

Alan Wilkinson, Durham

A Lib Dem “war on the rich”? After five years as part of a government which systematically wages war on the poor, it would at least make a change.

Mike Wright, Nuneaton, Warwickshire

Britain and Europe: decision time

In 2015 we may well have a referendum with a simple in/out option over the UK’s membership of the EU. It is generally assumed that if it goes to the “out” option, the UK would still want to enjoy the benefits of membership of the outer-ring of countries that enjoy a free trade relationship with the EU.  Norway and Switzerland spring to mind.

I understand that both Norway and Switzerland have had to accept many if not all of the “Brussels restrictions” on their local laws and practices. Some examples include the Working Time Drective, health and safety regulations in work and adherence to the authority of the European Court of Human Rights, so despised by the Tories and Ukip.

Obviously, members of this “outer circle” get no votes in Brussels, but conversely, as long as they adhere to the EU’s rules they can still trade and don’t have to pay a “membership fee”.

With the exception of the monies paid to the EU, would the strictures applied to the UK, so ranted about by the Eurosceptics, be much different?

Tim Brook, Bristol

It is time the other EU member states told the UK to stop whingeing  and leave.

I say this with much regret. I am a committed European and have worked for Europe all my life, but after hearing George Osborne’s recent speech I have to conclude that the gap is too wide to bridge.

The telling phrase is “The EU was sold to our country [as a European Economic Community]”. Nobody ever tried to sell the UK anything. It signed up voluntarily. But ever since it did, commentators have implied some kind of devious plot to trick the UK into becoming “European” against its will. Since the will is clearly not there, the UK should bow out.

It will be a relief to be free of all the silly scare stories about influxes of Romanians – 30 since the New Year – and the demise of the euro, which seems to be out-performing the pound at the moment. We will be spared the embarrassment of British politicians and MEPs offending their foreign counterparts – always in English, never in a foreign language. It will be fun watching the Brits queue for visas at Calais. And all those of us living abroad may have to go back “home”, placing extra burdens on the NHS – or whatever it will be called.

The tragedy is that if the UK had played an active and positive role right from the beginning, it might have helped create a union more to its liking. Instead, it has spent the last 40 years sniping from the sidelines. Everyone lost patience long ago. They should stop being so accommodating.

Dave Skinner, Tervuren, Belgium

Past and future of flooded Somerset

Once upon a time, though less than a thousand  years ago, the Somerset Levels were in their “natural” state.

That is, they were swampland, frequently flooded not only by rain but by seawater from the Bristol Channel, with people living just on “islands” (such as Muchelney), pasturing their animals on the low land in the summer if and when it dried out. Indeed, “Somerset” is thought to mean “Land of the summer people”.

Then mediaeval monks and, later on, others, thought it would be a good idea to drain this land, first to provide canals for transport and then to be able to grow things on it. This was done piecemeal, and over the centuries no one could decide the best way to carry out the  work, or who should pay for it. Many, many reports were written on the subject, and most  were shelved under the force of inertia.

Only under the pressure of the needs of defence in the Second World War was the last major work done, in 1940, when the artificial Huntspill River was created, providing a straight and wide drain to the sea. (Michael Williams’ 1970 Draining of the Somerset Levels – still in print – is a fascinating account of all this, and includes some valuable commentary on the situation these days.)

Once again we have delays, disagreements,  and squabbles over who should pay for drainage work on the Somerset Moors and Levels, to give them their proper name. Nothing new there.

And it’s only a question of time before sea level rising will mean that nature will win and put them back to their “natural” state.

I do hope that someone with the common sense of Cnut is drawing up a medium-term plan to ensure that the inevitable suffering there is to come may be minimised. But sadly politicians don’t think medium-term.

Venetia Caine, Glastonbury,  Somerset

Baffled by  butterflies

I am generally comfortable with Guy Keleny’s pedantry and his column is often one of my first reads. However, his final piece on 25 January does itself warrant correction.

Butterflies are neither born nor hatched. Schoolboy biology should have informed him that butterflies emerge from pupae, not eggs; they undergo metamorphosis when changing from their larval form. Their full life cycle is therefore egg, larva, pupa, imago.

Jonathan Colley, Rugby

Nothing silly about these Tories

Bang goes another myth. Here was I under the impression that serious Tories lacked a sense of humour, and then I read this in your article (28 January) about the goings on in Thirsk and Malton: “A prominent local told the Yorkshire Post that their MP is a ‘silly girl’ – when the constituency needs someone like Boris Johnson or Nigel Farage.”

Ray Black, Harrogate,  North Yorkshire

Protest against annoying jargon

I was delighted to see the photograph (29 January) of a woman displaying a religious picture at a demonstration in Kiev. A caption might combine two of the most used and most annoying words – it is “literally iconic”.

Pauline Grayson, Manchester

Dangerous bonfire of regulations

David Cameron trumpets his abolition of 800 or so supposedly unnecessary regulations in business and industry. If they are as useless as he makes out, it seems worthwhile to ask why they existed in the  first place.

Two so far identified are the removal of the need to obtain a poisons licence for oven cleaners and of the licence for food handling for childminders. Evidently Eton failed to teach Mr Cameron much science. Any mixture of cleaners applied to a heat source, such as an oven, carries the risk of producing highly noxious gases such as chlorine. It’s ironic that this danger should arise, effectively with official permission, in the centenary year of the first World War, in which chlorine gas claimed many lives.

Removing the need for childminders to obtain a food-handling licence ignores the troublingly frequent incidence in recent times of outbreaks of serious digestive illnesses such as E. coli. These outbreaks have occurred unduly often in nurseries and kindergartens.

A more short-sighted rush to deregulate is difficult to envisage. Health and safety concerns are completely overlooked. On this principle, perhaps it is just as well that one of Mr Cameron’s predecessors,  Mrs Thatcher, closed the mining industry. The Davy lamp might just as readily have been cast aside as a useless encumbrance to profit. Who else is to be sacrificed to this sort of ideology?

Michael Igoe, Esh Winning, Co Durham

Hedgerow Regulations, which reports say David Cameron will scrap, are what stop fields being turned into American-style prairies. The fewer than 20 pages of regulations can hardly be called red tape. If the scrapping goes ahead, Cameron’s lasting reputation will be as the prime minister who destroyed the British landscape with prairies and wind farms.

Dr Philip Sullivan, Frolesworth, Leicestershire

Times:

Telegraph:

SIR – The Bishop of Taunton and the diocese’s archdeacons have declared their opposition to the Church Commissioners’ decision to house the Bishop of Bath and Wells in a family home rather than the medieval palace. Instead, the commissioners have bought the Old Rectory in Croscombe for more than they sold it for seven years ago.

SIR – The vibrancy of creativity and entrepreneurialism in building the strength of small and medium-sized enterprises is essential to our economic vitality. It must be encouraged by incentives for investment and a supportive capital gains tax regime.

SIR – As a farmer on the edge of the Somerset Levels, I pay a yearly contribution to my local drainage board to help with the draining of my farmland. Some of this money goes to the Environment Agency to aid in the maintenance of the bigger rivers downstream from me.

Irish Times:

Sir, – The landmark judgment in the case of Louise O’Keeffe reflects similar rulings by the European Court of Human Rights that gives recognition to children’s rights. In the 1980s a series of cases were adjudicated in Strasbourg concerning corporal punishment in British schools under Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights which states that “no one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”. The same legal provision has now been applied successfully to include the sexual abuse of children. Although the O’Keeffe case dates back to the 1970s, it sends an important message to the Government today about its duty of care and the legal, as well as moral obligation, to not only protect minors against abuse but to put in place adequate safeguards and effective remedies.

The ruling also signals a cultural shift in Ireland concerning the status of children. Added to the findings in the Murphy, Ryan and Cloynes inquiries into clerical abuse, there is now clear validation that children have a right to be taught in a safe environment and that their physical integrity must be respected by teachers. This is in keeping with developments elsewhere, such as Scandinavia, which has been particularly vigorous in promoting child welfare and challenging inappropriate adult authority. The implications of this judicial review are that as a signatory to the European Convention, the Irish State and particularly the Department of Education, will similarly need to “raise its game” to ensure that existing and future generations of children are protected within the educational system. – Yours, etc,

MARIE

PARKER -JENKINS,

Professor of Education,

University of Limerick.

Sir, – I had a disturbing dream last night. It went something like this: The Taoiseach, in something of a sequel to his July 2012 Dáil speech following the Cloyne report, lashed out at the insensitive and overly legalistic statement of Catholic church spokesperson Bishop Ruairí Quinn following the European court ruling which found the Catholic Church in Ireland to be ultimately responsible for the sexual abuse suffered by Ms O’Keeffe while a primary school pupil. Asked if the church would apologise to Ms O’Keeffe, Bishop Quinn stated that while he sympathised with Ms O’Keeffe and her family he would have to study the ruling and take further legal advice before he could offer an apology. Thankfully it was only a dream! – Yours, etc,

Fr MARTIN DELANEY,

Rathdowney, Co Laois.

Sir, – Tuesday was one of those rare and great days when justice was done. In spite of bullying and intimidation again by the State, Louise O’Keeffe triumphed (Home News, January 29th). Thank God for Europe! – Yours, etc,

DAVID O’SULLIVAN,

Greenane,

Kenmare,

Co Kerry.

Sir, – A few years ago my wife and I happened to be in a park in Paris. I noticed a group of young children in the care of a couple of young teachers. They were all on their lunch-break. There was an obvious friendship, kindness and warmth between teachers and children. Being a mere man, I felt obliged to try to suppress the tears that were coming from joy at what I was seeing and from regret at what I was remembering.

I was remembering my own days at school when the fist, the cane and the strap were the principal teaching aids deployed. I was remembering a world of fear, helplessness and discouragement that degraded all concerned, including the teachers. I remember how during religious knowledge classes we were told what terrible sinners we were and what was in store for us if we did not sit up straight and do as we were told. I remember how the chance sight of a teacher during a weekend cast a shadow over the remaining hours of freedom to which every human is born.

Unlike Louise O’Keeffe, I was not sexually abused. But the brutal and uncontrolled exercise of power that constituted the relationship between teacher and pupil was in itself abusive in the same way that the relationship between master and slave is abusive.

And, as the saying goes, the dogs in the streets knew all about it. As if that ever makes much difference to those in charge of the leads.

But maybe the universe that informs the clear-eyed decision of the European Court of Human Rights is grounded in the same world that I encountered on that afternoon in the Parc Monceau. It is certainly a very long way from the world colonised by the occupants of the opposing fine buildings of Marlborough Street who have so arranged matters that neither can claim to be responsible for the infliction of so much suffering and waste. And to think that it was all done in the name of education. – Yours, etc,

PETER KENNY,

Hillside Drive,

Dublin 14.

Sir, – Might the decision in favour of Louise O’Keeffe suggest that, while the Irish High and Supreme Courts dispense law, the European Court of Human Rights dispenses justice?

Does it also call into question the constitutional wisdom of granting permanent immunity from legal challenge to any piece of legislation which has previously been referred to the Supreme Court by the President? – Yours, etc,

PETER MOLLOY,

Haddington Park,

Glenageary,

Co Dublin.

Sir, – It is with a great sense of sadness that I have learned of the death of Seán Flynn, Education Editor of this newspaper (Breaking News, January 29th).

Seán’s interest in education went far beyond what was required of him as a journalist. His interest in change and pursuit of new ideas kept him at the cutting edge of education news. Tuesday’s Irish Times was always compulsive reading. His passing will bring sadness to everyone involved in Irish education.

On behalf of the Irish Primary Principals’ Network, I offer our deepest sympathy to his family, colleagues and friends. – Yours, etc,

SEAN COTTRELL,

Executive Director,

Irish Primary Principals’

Network,

Glanmire, Glounthaune,

Sir, – Here on a plate is a ready-made finished project, tried, tested and staffed and urgently needed to help our stressed health system.

The cost to keep Mount Carmel hospital operating is a pittance compared with the endless millions wasted on countless projects and consultancies with no end product.

What are we waiting for? – Yours, etc,

TED O’KEEFFE,

Sandford Road,

Ranelagh, Dublin 6.

Sir, – Apart from the fallacy that religious indoctrination enhances literacy and numeracy, Dr Daniel O’Connell (January 29th) must be aware that there are parents who would not have their children in a religious class even if it were to guarantee them a PhD.

At the same time as he made his suggestion that religion should give way to basic literacy and numeracy teaching, the Minister for Education also disclosed that the divestment of schools by religious patrons is simply not happening, despite all the talks and consultations that have taken place. This means that there are still many parents who are in the invidious position of either marking their children as being apart from their peers by extracting them from religious instruction proper, or putting up with them being indoctrinated. This is to say nothing of the injustice that is the integrated curriculum, where religious dogma is presented, unquestioningly, in all other subjects throughout the school day, or the widespread religious iconography in the schools.

It is open to suggestion that those who insist on religious instruction at the expense of basic literacy and numeracy are afraid of the better informed and more rational adults that would result from teachers accepting the Minister’s suggestion. – Yours, etc,

SEAMUS McKENNA,

Farrenboley Park,

Windy Arbour,

Sir, – From an operational perspective, it is envisaged that local authorities will be engaged as agents of Irish Water up until January 2015 when this arrangement will end on a phased basis.

I had personal experience as a road maintenance engineer, of a similar changeover in the UK of water supply from local area water boards (similar to local authority control) in the early 1990s to a dozen water utility companies which have a monopoly in each area of the UK they serve.

Following the passing of the legislation for this changeover in control of water supply, responsibility for the design and completion of the final reinstatement of pavement surfacing works following water utility excavations was transferred from the local authority control to the water utility organisations.

Before the passing of the legislation, local authorities designed, supervised and completed these final reinstatement of pavement surfacing works. These works were mostly contracted to the medium and large road surfacing companies.

These works were usually completed to a very high standard.

The cost of these works were reimbursed to the local authorities by the local area water board organisations.

The local authorities were always in control of their road surfaces.

Following the changeover in 1991, there has been a serious deterioration in the standard of workmanship of final reinstatement works, which have been carried out by the water utility companies, which has led to a huge backlog and huge expense in trying to remedy the serious decline in the standard of highway road surfaces in the UK.

Reactive maintenance is so much more expensive than planned maintenance.

The former government-owned water utility companies have now become public limited companies, more responsible to their shareholders than to the public.

Local authorities in the UK have lost complete control of the standard of workmanship for the final reinstatement of the road pavement surfaces on “their” roads.

Before this happens in Ireland, possibly without any debate, surely there should be some discussion with all the stakeholders. (The County and City Managers’ Association (CCMA), NRA, Department of Transport, etc) before the same very costly mistake is made in Ireland as happened in the UK 20 years ago.

RORY O’CONNOR,

Broadwell Drive,

A chara, – Is it unfair to question the sincerity of the Roman Catholic Church’s claim to be against “unfair” discrimination against homosexuals?

In both 2010 and 2012, the Holy See opposed a United Nations resolution which stated that people should not be subject to summary executions or extrajudicial killings based on their “sexual orientation and gender identity”. While Vatican officials claimed to disapprove of violence against homosexuals, its representative Archbishop Silvano Tomasi said: “Such situations cannot be resolved by defining new categories, laws or policies that posit rights and privileges to special groups in society.”

The pretence the Catholic Church maintains that its teachings and actions do not perpetuate hatred and “unfair” discrimination against homosexuals is evidence of a duplicity that calls into question the entire moral foundation of the church hierarchy. – Is mise,

MARTIN G PADGETT,

(Former director of

communications,

Canadian Human Rights

Commission),

Charles Street East,

Sir, – The cross-Border funding scheme for deaf and disabled artists has recently been withdrawn. This budget was essential for my participation and professional development, as a disabled theatre-maker. Its withdrawal is of great concern to the deaf and disabled artistic community. This scheme should be reinstated.

The budget for the scheme was not large, at £526, 274, since the year 2000. Individual artists received £5,000 maximum, and were only eligible to apply every two or three years. While acknowledging the difficult context of the overall cuts in the arts sector, the withdrawal of the scheme does not seem to achieve much in terms of balancing budgets.

Mainstream opportunities in the arts aren’t always open to deaf and disabled artists. Venues don’t always have resources that are needed. This scheme enabled rehearsed readings, private mentoring, showcasing of our work and participation in residencies and other opportunities to network and meet key stakeholders within the artistic community in Ireland.

There was no consultation with deaf and disabled artists about the withdrawal of this funding. That would have helped explain the rationale for axing the fund, in the context of the overall 11 per cent cuts within the arts sector.

Deaf and disabled artists in the arts sector are often relegated to a “special” category, inferring our work does not have artistic “merit”. Cultural diversity and the deaf and disabled aesthetic adds to the richness of all areas of art and is reflective of the outsider’s experience. Therefore, the need to protect and safeguard targeted funding schemes, or to find some other avenues for supporting deaf and disabled artists, is essential.

Yes, we do want the choice of availing of mainstream funding; but allocated funding supported us in redressing the balance of exclusion and the barriers that have been built historically. Unfortunately, those barriers are deeply rooted in all areas of Irish society. By removing this funding scheme, the barriers are being reinforced.

We, as a community, don’t know what the current plans are. Lack of consultation isolates us further. Without this scheme, our work will not be made and our narratives will not be accounted for, in the context of artistic and cultural aesthetics. Actors, dancers, choreographers, directors, writers, visual artists, producers and technicians all gained from this scheme. Furthermore, the wider artistic community, in all its genres, benefited from co-working with deaf and disabled artists.

Over the years, this money has helped me to make my work. It allowed me to employ people to type up my plays. It was helpful in that I could use it to buy tickets to see other work. I used the money to have informal rehearsed readings of my plays.

Given the nature and importance of the scheme, it is hoped that the Arts Council might find alternative funding sources to support deaf and disabled artists and cover the specific additional costs to making our artistic work.

With disappointment and regret. – Yours, etc,

ROSALEEN McDONAGH,

Longboat Quay North,

Docklands, Dublin 2.

Sir, – Just a footnote to Diane Bartz’s informative commemorative piece on Pete Seeger (World News, January 29th).

Back in 1964 he gave a great concert to a crowded and enthusiastic Francis Xavier Hall audience in Dublin in late May/early June in 1964. His vibrant protest repertoire struck a chord with most of those present and, in my view, set some of the seeds for the 1960s student protest movement in general and the emerging anti-Vietnam war movement in particular.

It was a privilege to have been present on that occasion. – Yours, etc,

HARRY McCAULEY,

Maynooth Park,

Maynooth, Co Kildare.

Sir, – Valued Customer. We appreciate your call. All our operators are busy (=a sole operator, feet up, having a coffee). Thank you for your patience. – Yours, etc,

PADDY TERRY,

Rosemount Crescent,

Clonskeagh, Dublin 14 .

Sir, – “As and from” – should be “As from” – frequently appearing in your august columns, alas! “Mitigate against” – meaningless. “Militate against” is what is meant. – Yours, etc,

DAVID GRANT,

Mount Pleasant, Waterford.

Sir, – How about “those of us who”, often used by those of us who don’t belong, subscribe, suffer, enjoy or support, as a way of trying to appear as if we do belong, subscribe, suffer, enjoy or support, or are affected! – Yours, etc,

PAT QUINN,

Emmet Road, Dublin 8.

Sir, – “A small open economy”. – Yours, etc,

PN CORISH,

Oaklands Drive,

Rathgar, Dublin 6.

Sir, – “Irish Rail would like to apologise for…” and ”….have a pleasant and comfortable journey”. Unlikely, as I stand wedged between a bicycle and a toilet door. – Yours, etc,

FRANK NEENAN,

Tullow Road, Carlow.

Irish Independent:

* The single most serious illness infecting the body politic in Ireland, or elsewhere, is the philosophy – if one can call it that – which says “why bother voting, we can’t change anything”.

Also in this section

Letters: Quinn needs to educate himself on faiths

Letters: A reform platform that ignores mental health

Letters: Increased GP workload will hurt patients

Rubbish! As a certain Mr Obama would say ‘yes we can!’ and no better time than now.

Meaning? Junior minister Brian Hayes, and he is no worse than all the others, has just announced that he is to seek the Fine Gael nomination to stand for the European Parliament.

Bear in mind that as recently as 2011 he asked the electorate to give him a five-year contract to represent them in Dail Eireann.

Now he has the unmitigated gall, in my opinion, to ask them to facilitate him in walking out on that contract, not for their sake but for his own or his party’s sake.

The thing is, he is dead right. If they are fool enough to oblige, as so many voters have been over and over again, it’s hard to blame him. Rest assured, there will be many more like him.

So, is there nothing they can do? Can they not change anything? Of course they can. Adopt a simple policy. Make it clear that, irrespective of loyalty to a party or to the individual, you will not vote for sitting members of the Oireachtas who stand for the European Parliament or vice versa. No more playing ‘musical chairs’ with our seats.

BRENDAN CASSERLY

ABBEYBRIDGE, WATERFALL, NEAR CORK

DOING THE STATE A SERVICE

* It took a brave person in Louise O’Keeffe to finally succeed in holding the State to account for abuse that took place in one of our schools. I can only imagine the long and frustrating battles she went through in both High and Supreme Courts before eventually finding justice in the European Court of Human Rights.

When it comes to funding for the most vulnerable in our society or accepting accountability for those in its care, the State’s typical reaction is to abdicate responsibility, and it will do so by exhausting every legal option at its disposal.

Sadly, budgetary considerations for the Government take precedence over moral justice. Don’t be surprised if the Department of Education‘s response to this judgment amounts to little more than mealy-mouthed platitudes. Thanks to Louise O’Keeffe, the State can no longer shirk its responsibilities to school children under its care by hiding behind legal technicalities.

JOHN BELLEW

PAUGHANSTOWN, DUNLEER, CO LOUTH

A VERY COSTLY MISTAKE?

* From an operational perspective, it is envisaged that local authorities will be engaged as agents of Irish Water up until January 2015 when this arrangement will end on a phased basis. I had personal experience as a road maintenance engineer, of a similar changeover in the UK of water supply from local area water boards (similar to local authority control) in the early 1990s to a dozen water utility companies that have a monopoly in each area of the UK they serve.

Following the passing of the legislation for this changeover in control of water supply, responsibility for the design and completion of the final reinstatement of pavement surfacing works, following water utility excavations, was transferred from the local authority control to the water utility organisations.

Before the passing of the legislation, local authorities designed, supervised and completed these final reinstatement of pavement surfacing works. These works were mostly contracted to the medium and large road-surfacing companies.

These works were usually completed to a very high standard.

The cost of these works was reimbursed to the local authorities by the local area water board organisations. The local authorities were always in control of their road surfaces. Following the changeover in 1991, there has been a serious deterioration in the standard of workmanship of final reinstatement works, which have been carried out by the water utility companies, which has led to a huge backlog and huge expense in trying to remedy the serious decline in the standard of highway road surfaces in the UK.

Reactive maintenance is so much more expensive than planned maintenance. The former government-owned water utility companies have now become public limited companies, more responsible to their shareholders than to the public. Local authorities in the UK have lost complete control of the standard of workmanship for the final reinstatement of the road pavement surfaces on “their” roads.

Before this happens in Ireland, possibly without any debate, surely there should be some discussion with all the stakeholders. (The County and City Managers’ Association, The National Roads Authority, Department of Transport, etc) before the same very costly mistake is made in Ireland as to happened in the UK 20 years ago.

RORY O’CONNOR

LANCASHIRE, ENGLAND

A STATE’S PRIORITIES?

* I note with a degree of wry amusement that we have got our priorities right as usual.

In 2012, our Government, very wisely, closed the embassy to the Vatican. It may be a sovereign state but it is 0.7sqm in size, it has 800 citizens and the Irish Embassy to Italy is within a stone’s throw of it.

I could understand if the State were re-opening an embassy in a country where the sales of our goods might increase or where there is an increase in activity. Unfortunately, it is the very epitome of money being wasted – in that it is acknowledged that the number of Roman Catholics in this State is falling day by day.

I hardly think that re-opening that embassy is necessary when there is somebody who can attend to whatever minor matters might arise living within the same city where the Vatican is located.

I note, by contrast, that the State did not see fit to indemnify the estate of Marie Fleming in regard to the costs she incurred in endeavouring to litigate a matter of grave concern in regard to the status and rights of an individual. Given the revolting sums of money that have been thrown away in this State in recent years, from e-voting machines to pension top-ups, I would have thought that was small beer indeed.

JULIAN DEALE

MONKSTOWN, CO DUBLIN

HI-VIZ CYCLISTS

* I must disagree with columnist Ian O Doherty’s comment that cyclists being forced to wear hi-viz vests and helmets may be correct but is part of the nanny state. I despair at the number of cyclists I see on dark streets with no lights, dark clothing and no helmets. To suggest that it should be an individual choice implies that individuals, families and society do not bear the cost of serious accidents and deaths.

As a cyclist for more than 50 years, I resent the number of cyclists who have taken to the pavements on busy pedestrian streets and to cycling the wrong way on one-way streets, often on the pavement. While I am encouraged by the fact that there have been some prosecutions, I would welcome a few weeks of a garda blitz on cyclists. Maybe stopping errant cyclists and warning them in the first instance would be a start.

Maybe it is time to have a media debate on the best way to share the roads between motorists, cyclists, pedestrians and public transport. It is not a nanny state to want to protect our citizens.

And if minimal enforcement can save lives, as with seatbelts and the breathalyser, so be it. But, let’s enforce some legislation before too many cyclists get the idea that there are no rules of the road and the number of cyclists killed on the roads reaches the alarming numbers recently reported for London.

TOM MCCONALOGUE

DUBLIN 4

31 January 2014 Work Starts
I go all the way around the park listening to the Navy Lark. Our heroes are in trouble, again. Pertwee has to make an offer in a blind auction.   Priceless.
Thermabloc started to be put up
Scrabble today Mary wins, just.  and get under 400, Perhaps I will win tomorrow.

Obituary:

Mary Gilchrist, who has died aged 99, was among the last surviving operating theatre sisters to have served in London hospitals during the worst days of the Blitz.
She would later recall how, as bombs fell all around them, medical staff often had to rush to the roof of St John’s hospital in Balham, south London, in between operations carrying buckets of sand and water to extinguish pathfinder flares dropped by the Luftwaffe to direct bombers to their destinations.

But her defining recollection was of nursing dying soldiers returning from the BEF’s evacuation of Dunkirk, their uniforms burned into their flesh as a result of being immersed in a sea set alight by oil spills. It was an experience that haunted her to the end of her life: “We couldn’t separate their uniforms from their bodies,” she said. “We just had to give them as much morphine as they could take and hoped they would die free from as much pain as possible.”

In later life Mary Gilchrist undertook private nursing work, numbering showbusiness figures among her patients, and devoted much of her time to animal welfare.
She was born Mary Scott on September 12 1914 at Killearn, Stirlingshire, the eldest of 10 children of a tenant farmer. Life in rural Scotland just after the First World War was hard. Unemployment was high, and laid-off miners from the coal fields could often be seen tramping the lanes looking for work, sleeping in ditches and taking turnips from the fields to eat raw.
With money scarce, Mary would have to skin rabbits for pocket money to afford a trip to the cinema — “Aye, and catch them first,” she added. As the eldest child, she was expected to leave school at 14 to work on the farm. But she had other plans, having set her heart on a career in medicine. In those days, to train as a nurse in Edinburgh cost £50 — equivalent to the Scott family’s income in a year. Ever resourceful, Mary managed to enrol for nothing at the Quaker hospital in York, where she qualified as a midwife and psychiatric nurse before moving to London before the outbreak of the Second World War.
Like most young people living and working in the capital during the Blitz, Mary never forgot the excitement and intensity of the experience. Brushes with death were a frequent occurrence. On October 14 1940 a number 88 bus plunged into a massive bomb crater outside Balham tube station, which itself suffered a direct hit, killing 66 sheltering there and injuring many more. Mary escaped the devastation only because she had failed to catch the bus, having turned back at the last minute to collect some papers from the hospital. A photograph of the wrecked vehicle has become one of the most famous images of the city at war .
Mary Scott married James Gilchrist in November 1941, and the next day he travelled to Portsmouth to begin naval service as a signals officer on the North Atlantic convoys. He was later a liaison officer with the Free French Navy, and he and Mary did not see one another again for three years. Post-war he enjoyed a successful career as a gas engineer, and was in charge of converting to natural gas both Buckingham Palace and the Russian embassy in Kensington Palace Gardens — in the latter role he was approached by MI5 and asked to liaise with them over the layout of the embassy .
Always fiercely independent, Mary Gilchrist declined an invitation to serve in the desert during the North Africa campaign . A Whitehall recruiting officer had continually asked her how good her tennis was, how good her bridge, and other questions about her social life . “They seemed more interested in whether nurses would fit into the officers’ mess than their aptitude on the wards,” she would later complain.
After the war Mary Gilchrist was much in demand in private health care. For some time she was the constant nurse to the Forties screen and stage star Sally Gray, later the wife of the 4th Lord Oranmore and Browne. On one occasion the actress threatened to throw herself out of the window of her Belgravia flat, and it was Mary Gilchrist who persuaded her not to jump.
During the 1960s Mary Gilchrist worked with mentally handicapped children in London’s East End. She then moved to West Sussex, where she devoted herself to animal welfare. At the age of 85, at Shoreham, she joined the former model Celia Hammond on the front line of a demonstration against live animal exports, blocking lorries carrying sheep to the ships so they could not enter the port.
Police from Brighton were sent in to break up the demonstration and arrest protesters who refused to move. A kindly officer implored Mary Gilchrist to put down her placard, saying he did not want so venerable a lady to spend a night in the cells. At first she refused, offering her wrists for the handcuffs, but eventually relented — although she never dropped her opposition to the trade.
In 1990 she received an RSPCA Certificate of Honour for her devotion to the charity’s causes.
Her husband predeceased her, and she is survived by their son, Roderick.
Mary Gilchrist, born September 12 1914, died December 21 2013

Guardian:

Food waste will never be curtailed while retailers are allowed to open new supermarkets where there is already ample provision (Major grocers to follow Tesco in revealing amount of food wasted, 29 January). Every store, to compete, must carry a full range of goods, including perishables, which is bound to involve considerable surpluses. Disclosing the volume of food discarded or even sending less to landfill sites is merely paying lip service. It is time for government and local planners to acknowledge that unfettered expansion of the supermarket empire is behind this unacceptable waste of food and act accordingly.
Ruth Stephens
Perranporth, Cornwall
• The report of a prosecution for “stealing” food that had been thrown away (Report, 28 January) comes as no surprise to those of us with experience of defending cases in north London. Last year at the same court the police sought to prosecute a homeless man who had taken a cold shower in a changing room on playing fields with “theft of water”. They refused him bail and he was held in custody. Thankfully, the CPS discontinued that case too.
Greg Foxsmith (solicitor)
London
• Do the boys in blue and the boys in clover (RBS is ours. So let’s stop this annual festival of bribery, 29 January) share a sense of proportion? While we read about arrests for being discovered in “an enclosed area, namely Iceland, for an unlawful purpose, namely stealing food”, can we remind ourselves that in Reykjavik bankers were jailed after being discovered in an enclosed area, namely Iceland, for an unlawful purpose, namely destroying an entire economy.
Kevin Donovan
Birkenhead

Martin Woollacott points out that for a long time the UK was the most successful multinational state in Europe (Comment, 28 January). This is largely because Scottish national pride has not only been permitted, but nurtured; John Buchan was not alone in seeing Scottish nationalism as perfectly consistent with British patriotism. TM Devine notes in his recent book on the Scottish diaspora that Scots were enthusiastic and successful imperialists. The kilted regiments were the crack troops of the empire, widely admired and imitated. Outside the army, the contribution of Scots in developing British institutions and trading networks was enormous and fully acknowledged. For their part, the Scots gained much from participation in the imperial project.
Closer to home, minorities who find themselves less well integrated into a larger state look with admiration and envy at such institutions as Scottish and Welsh national football and rugby teams. Catalan friends display similar attitudes to the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (the oldest professional orchestra in Scotland) and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Scottish nationalism has always been acknowledged and even encouraged within the UK through many institutional arrangements such as these. Think too of the traditional connection of the royal family with Balmoral, where for close on two centuries they have symbolised the integration of Britishness with Scottish national pride. Perhaps, therefore, the current political initiative in Scotland is more accurately described as separatism. We need to distinguish the attitudes of the contemporary SNP from the proud nationalism of Scots like Buchan and his cultural descendants with which we have always been familiar.
Professor Lesley Milroy
Deddington, Oxfordshire
• Surely everything Mark Carney is saying about the implications for Scotland of a shared currency agreement after independence (Report, 30 January) applies just as much to the government based at Westminster at this point, or after a Scottish departure. In all cases, the relevant government hands over certain financial controls to a Bank of England.
Kevin McGrath
Harlow, Essex
Those who attack Maajid Nawaz’s cartoon of the prophet Muhammad and Jesus greeting each other for causing offence (Report, 29 January) should note the words of Lord Justice Sedley in Redmond-Bate v DPP [1999] (cited in the Lords recently): “Freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having.”
Dick Taverne
House of Lords
• One does not have to share the bizarre political and social views of Ukip donor Demetri Marchessini (Diary, 30 January) to agree with him that “homophobia” is a ridiculous word. Its recent coinage seems to stem from the widespread but mistaken belief that the homo- part of the word comes from the Latin for “man”. In fact it comes from the Greek for “same” (and therefore includes lesbians). Homophobia means, if it means anything, an unnatural hatred or fear of twins.
James Cox
Twickenham, Middlesex
• It is no wonder that Ukip is perceived as doing well (The joke’s not on Nigel Farage …, 29 January). The publicity it gets is unprecedented. It won’t be Ukip that might possibly “win” the European Union election, it will be the media, who daily tell us that Farage will win. Everyone wants to be on the winning ticket.
Janet Davies
Hartley Wintney, Hampshire
• I have noticed that many of the world’s perpetrators of war crimes (Letters, 24 January) received a considerable part of their higher education in this country and especially at Sandhurst. Would it be possible to see a recent syllabus?
Pete Lund
Bradford
•  It’s wrong to suggest that Finland has little interest in cricket (Letters, 30 January), as Tony Lurcock’s book No Particular Hurry: British Travellers in Finland 1830-1917 makes clear. And the late, great Harry Thompson’s Penguins Stopped Play shows how the universal game may be enjoyed in even colder climes.
Nick Smith
Oxford
• However metaphorically Mark Carney plonks one leg on either side of Hadrian’s Wall (Larry Elliott, 30 January), both legs will still be in England.
David Robinson
Kingston upon Thames, Surrey

As someone who lives near James Turner Street in a community that was also an entry in the Britain in Bloom competition (G2, 30 January), I know what pride they took in Channel 4 preparing a documentary about what they thought was the exemplary community spirit that exists in their area, going so far as to invite the film-makers to the ceremony where they received their award. Imagine their feeling of betrayal when they discovered, it seems to me, that the documentary makers were working to a preconceived script and were looking for instances to support their narrative of benefits abuse. That is maybe why the programme had a cast of only half a dozen characters from the couple of hundred residents who live in the street, filming the action around a small section of the street, where there were a couple of orphan settees. Surely a public broadcaster has a duty to tell the wider truth and its contractors a requirement not to get on by denigrating a whole community trying to get by?
Chris Vaughan
Birmingham

While the international community has spent billions of pounds in Afghanistan since the US-led military intervention in 2001, the majority has been spent on the war effort and a much smaller proportion on repairing the damage caused by that war and developing the country (Half of Afghan children suffer irreversible harm from malnutrition, 27 January).
The British charity Afghanaid has been working alongside Afghan men, women and children for the past 30 years. With the support of Britain’s Department for International Development and generous individual donors, we are building wells, micro-reservoirs and pipe systems to give people access to clean drinking water; installing toilets; to improve sanitation and educating children and adults in good hygiene. We are also helping rural communities to improve agriculture and livestock, developing micro-enterprises and strengthening their food security – so that households do not live in hunger or the fear of hunger.
Programmes such as Afghanaid’s help families keep their children healthy. However, it is critical that when British and other international troops withdraw from Afghanistan, the international community remains committed to providing the money that will enable agencies such as Afghanaid to respond to the frequent humanitarian emergencies and support the long-term sustainable development that will allow children to survive and thrive.
Charles Davy
Managing director, Afghanaid, Kabul
•  Emma Graham-Harrison’s graphic dispatch from Afghanistan draws attention to the evidence that early-life deficiencies in nutrition and healthcare can have lifelong, largely irreversible, impacts on learning achievement, physical stature and adult earning potential. And these in turn impact on longer-term national prosperity and growth.
But even in emerging market countries that have committed resources to tackle chronic problems of maternal and child health, a tremendous amount remains to be done in this area.
Evidence-based answers to these problems were revealed this month at a symposium on maternal and child health and nutrition in emerging markets at Green Templeton College, Oxford. New evidence allows us to specify optimal environments, health and nutrition regimes, and new criteria for measuring outcomes. The evidence allows us to say that under optimised conditions every child on Earth could have identical prospects for healthy, productive lives irrespective of ethnicity. And because it opens new pathways for human resource development it offers the prospect of healthier, more educable, more productive adult populations, without which long-term economic growth, cohesive societies and political stability cannot be achieved.
Governments around the world, particularly those in emerging market economies, need to accept these scientific findings and take a fresh, longer-term perspective on social investment in pre-conception, neonatal, child health and nutrition.
Professor George Alleyne Chancellor, University of the West Indies, Professor Ana Langer Harvard school of public health, Dr Sania Nishtar President, Heartfile, Pakistan, Professor Srinath Reddy President, Public Health Foundation of India, Professor David Watson Principal, Green Templeton College, Oxford, Shengman Zhang Chairman, Citi Asia Pacific
• Muhammed Muheisen’s images of the refugee Afghan children (Eyewitness, 29 January) in Islamabad were quite simply stunning. Every one told a story of suffering and trauma: the innocent faces of conflicts that destroy young lives, not just in Afghanistan but throughout the world. One can only hope that these displaced children will one day be able to return to a homeland that is free of war, and enjoy the childhood they deserve.
Martin Johnson
Congleton, Cheshire

Will economic recovery (Report, 29 January) and a shift from austerity to prosperity translate into improved pay and conditions at work, more investment in skills, enhanced job security and a better work-life balance? Don’t bet on it, especially if the coalition continues to push for a laissez-faire labour market and erodes people’s rights at work. As Zoe Williams rightly said (Comment, 29 January), “our workplaces are as family friendly as 19th-century mills”. She rightly highlights the way in which our zero-hours and low-pay economy undermines rights at work. But it goes deeper than that. Poor-quality work and a lack of voice in the workplace is a problem for the majority and reflects a transfer of power and wealth to executives on high pay. The Smith Institute, which has just launched a major inquiry into “making work better”, is calling for a new deal at work based on higher productivity and a better work-life balance, not a race to the bottom.
Paul Hackett
Director, Smith Institute
• Endless coverage of Labour’s 50p tax rate plan in the Guardian, but none at all of Labour’s announcement to create a small business administration to give small firms a voice at the heart of government, including more support to win procurement contracts. This clever, practical idea to focus the power of government on helping small firms thrive is one of the many reasons a Labour government will be so much better for enterprise than the current one. It would be nice if the Guardian noticed.
Ben Coleman
Labour’s Small Business Taskforce
• Your editorial (29 January) states that new growth will not be secure until Britain invests in its future. The chancellor, in the Times in July 2013, stressed the need to start investing in science and infrastructure around the country but, to date, investment in infrastructure has been mainly in London. Crossrail, for example, involves an expenditure of £15.9bn (2008 prices) and the King’s Cross redevelopment £810m. Professor Dorling in 2013 highlighted the increasing north-south divide; there is an ever-widening gap between house prices in London and other parts of the country and, on 27 January, you reported on 2009-12 net migration into London. It is time for the emphasis on infrastructure spending to shift towards the Midlands and the north.
The recent offer from the China Railway Group for the funding of a crossrail link from Peterborough to Rugby, Coventry, HS2 and Birmingham airport, and the (suppressed) government report recommending building several new garden cities, both offer interesting possibilities. One can envisage two or three really superb new garden suburbs built along a fast monorail line – together with a world-class science, technology and engineering college and associated business start-up facilities – specifically to concentrate on emerging technologies that will drive UK growth.
This is but one idea, but we urgently need to start investing to achieve secure growth and also address the problem of 1 million youngsters currently unemployed, not in education or training.
Robert Oak
Shrewsbury, Shropshire
• Let’s get this straight – the economy is growing and the fastest-growing sectors are utilities (electricity, gas etc) and business services and finance. Clearly, the government should actively encourage these sectors to take even more money from us, either by increasing their patently inadequate charges or via more bailouts (RSB), so that these sectors, and therefore the economy, will grow even faster.
Phil Taylor
Manchester
• It’s time the self-serving nonsense about wealth creators is exposed to the ridicule it deserves (Letters, 29 January). All wealth is created directly by someone’s labour or indirectly by the labour which produces the capital equipment used to produce that wealth. We could all stare at the bounties of nature forever but until someone gets their hands dirty no wealth would be created. Let’s try a thought experiment: if we placed any of these so-called wealth creators on a desert island (blessed with abundant natural resources) how much wealth do we think they would create? If anyone is still not sure, a look at the excellent 1957 film The Admirable Crichton will give the answer.
Brian Gibson
Rotherham, South Yorkshire

Independent:

After the visit of the Bank of England Governor no voter in the Scottish independence referendum can claim to be unaware of the serious currency problems involved in this leap in the dark. While the Canadian Mark Carney refused to be drawn into the politics, he left little doubt that Scotland can either be fully independent or stay with sterling, but not both.
The First Minister used to claim that joining the euro was a vote-winner, but even he now accepts “there is no prospect of an independent Scotland being a member of the euro”. Of course he could start his own currency using, say, the Bank of Airdrie as a central bank and track the pound as South American banana republics track the US dollar. But a tiny nation’s currency is at the mercy of markets unimpressed by Alex Salmond’s wishful thinking, leaving us exposed to hyper-inflation and other economic ills.
So it will not even require profligate Scottish bankers to create a situation similar to that which followed the failure of the Darien venture in 1700, with a bankrupt “Skintland” once again begging England to take it in.
Dr John Cameron, St Andrews
Carney translated:
Mr Salmond, you want to use the pound if your Scotland becomes an independent country. You cannot have full sovereignty with a currency union, because if you are lax with your taxation and spending you could become like Greece in the eurozone.
The Bank of England is “lender of last resort” to banks in trouble, but it is itself indemnified by the Treasury in Westminster. Scotland behaving badly financially could not rely on such support.
Ronald Rankin, Dalkeith

I am increasingly perplexed by the apparent absence of serious and regular debate on the forthcoming referendum on Scottish independence. The SNP reflects the threat posed by petty nationalism both in Europe and elsewhere.
The snake-oil panaceas of historical myth and anachronistic grievance are peddled by xenophobic politicians seeking to manufacture fiefdoms from the fragmentation of broader national entities, Yugoslavia being the obvious example.
Why the somnolent, almost fearful response of our own government to the opportunistic vagaries of Alex Salmond and the SNP? It is nonsense to say this is a matter solely for the Scots. It is about Great Britain as a whole. Our nation is a messy, at times incoherent but always wonderful confusion of race, religion and history, but it is a nation, robust, argumentative, self-critical.
The narrow parameters of the referendum, the gerrymandering of the voting age to 16, and the economic illiteracy and Hollywood historicism of the SNP need to be countered at a far more informative, widespread and effective level.
Christopher Dawes, London W11

Given the possibility of an independent Scotland, should we in England be withdrawing our support of Scottish banks, businesses and charities?
Anabel Curry, Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire

Bring london  down to size
It should come as no surprise to anyone that London exerts a massive draining force on talent and wealth in the UK (“Capital idea”, 28 January).
London is the political, financial, business, media, creative and cultural capital of the UK. The main national institutions of each of these sectors, their largest businesses and most high-profile figures are based in London. In the past the UK had strong industrial and manufacturing bases in the regions. Those bases are long gone.
Other countries have developed more geographically balanced economies. While Frankfurt is the financial capital of Germany, the political capital is Berlin. The USA has its political, financial, creative and technological centres split between Washington, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The BBC’s move to Salford was a step in the right direction, but more radical steps are required. One such step involves Parliament.
The Palace of Westminster requires a £1.5bn renovation. MPs and peers have often complained about the inadequate conditions. A new home for the UK Parliament could be built in a city other than London for substantially less money. It would help to revitalise a UK city, not just in the construction, but also through the businesses that would follow Parliament out of London.
Barry Richards, Cardiff

Energy market reforms under way
I am writing in response to your article “Ofgem told to control the ‘big six’ energy giants or face being cut off” (30 January).
We are taking radical action to shake up the energy market, hold companies to account and increase transparency. We take tough action where companies fail consumers, and since 2010 we have imposed over £75m in fines or redress on energy companies.
Our radical reforms to the energy market are under          way to make the energy market simpler, clearer and fairer. Consumers are already seeing simpler choices as a result of our reforms, and these are helping people switch more easily. November and December showed the highest switching rates ever, and these consumers will have found it far easier to find and switch to a better deal.
We are already delivering significant reforms to encourage more new entrants into the market to increase competitive pressure on prices.
Ofgem is committed to changing the energy market for the benefit for consumers. We have no political or financial agenda.
Andrew Wright, Chief Executive, Ofgem, London SW1

It has been a reasonably mild, if rather wet, winter so far, which may adversely affect the profits of the energy companies. Therefore, we should be prepared for them to use milder temperatures as an excuse for hiking their tariffs in the near future to balance their books.
Consumers are damned if it’s warm and damned if it’s freezing, but it’s a win-win situation for the energy companies.
Dave Keeley, Hornchurch, Essex

Living with difficult old relations
Martin London (letter, 27 January) paints an agreeable, idealised picture of “living in supportive three-generation family groups”.
Early in the National Health Service I worked in a psychiatric hospital and observed the steadily increasing numbers of aged patients being admitted, as the general public became aware that full-time residential care might be available for their troublesome relatives. A somewhat cynical view was taken of this.
A few years later I worked in the community as a county mental welfare officer and saw the other side of the picture. I saw families torn apart and destroyed by the highly emotive problems and perceived injustices relating to much-loved parents and grandparents becoming confused, aggressive, unpredictable and unmanageable.
It seems to me that Martin London`s solution to the problems he foresees would simply take us back to the unsatisfactory state of affairs which existed before the NHS.
Judith Woodford, Bozeat, Northamptonshire

Capaldi doesn’t make it as a mod
I think Stephen Bayley has his youth subcultures mixed up in his article “Mod man with a box” (29 January). In the picture Peter Capaldi is dressed more like a teddy boy than a mod: velvet-collared mid-thigh coat, drainpipe trouser and thick-soled shoes (Doc Martens more than brothel creepers, admittedly).
While some mods might have worn Crombies, the iconic outerwear for mods was the ex-US army issue parka, much better on a scooter. Crombies were worn by skinheads and then to the knee, not mid-thigh, together with 18-hole Doc Martens and bleached-out jeans stopping at the top of the boot.
All this is very trivial in a troubled world, but as any mod would say, the devil is in the detail.
Keith Simmonds, London N12

Gender bias  cuts both ways
Chris Blackhurst’s piece “While men are in charge, gender quotas are the only way to increase the number of women in boardrooms” (29 January) raises interesting questions.
Why does nobody in industry, media, or government seem at all concerned with the lack of men in equally key professions?
There is frequent hand-wringing over the lack of women in engineering and science, but there seems to be a blithe ignorance of the impact on society of a teaching cohort of 60-70 per cent women, or how increasingly female-dominated the medical profession is becoming. Both impact on the life chances of men and boys.
John Moore, Northampton

Times:

Sir, Lester May is right that the balance of effort in the UK needs correction (letter, Jan 23), but wrong to advocate disbanding the RAF. Now is not the time to waste angst and management effort on such argument, but our US colleagues, and others, are right when they express concern at the shrinkage of the Royal Navy. Once withdrawal from Afghanistan is complete it will be upon the Royal Navy that the support for security, diplomacy and trade will depend; the UK should not be found wanting. In Future Force 2020, with only one operational aircraft carrier and 19 escorts, there will be insufficient resource to fulfil such roles. It is here where the Army and RAF are relatively impotent and must be scaled accordingly. The Prime Minister is disingenuous to suggest that all is well in defence — it blatantly is not.
Chris Palmer
Commodore RN
Havant, Hants
Sir, As Mr May suggests, there are questions about the appropriateness of maintaining independent air forces on both sides of the Atlantic. My research on nearly a century’s experience suggests that independent air forces create two big problems. First, they erect bureaucratic walls between missions, such that soldiers in need of air support often can’t get the help they need. To remedy this the US Army and Marine Corps created their own air forces.
Second, independent air forces create lobbying organisations for parochial approaches to warfighting and procurement, approaches that do not necessarily contribute to the pursuit of national security. The USAF, for example, has consistently advocated for air power-centric escalation of diplomatic disputes, and has often argued for the procurement of sophisticated-but-mission-challenged fighter and bombers and for the retirement of much-beloved attack aircraft, such as the A-10 Warthog.
I believe that it would be beneficial for the UK and the US alike to reconsider the organisation of their military air power.
Dr Robert M. Farley
Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce,
University of Kentucky
Sir, As a former Royal Naval officer it is hardly surprising that Lester May favours his old service over the RAF but his wish to see its assets split between the other two services would not result in the “huge cost and manpower savings” to which he refers. The aircraft would still require the personnel to operate and maintain them, the airfields with their supporting staff would still be needed to house them, no matter what colour of uniform they wore. Administration and headquarters would still be needed to run the organisation, unless Mr May believes that there is excess capacity currently within the Army and the Navy to carry out these functions?
While he is correct that for a maritime nation the Royal Navy is of critical importance and has been badly treated in recent defence cuts, he should not forget that the RAF is much more than just a few combat jets. He makes no mention of its air transport, helicopter support, air-to-air refuelling, intelligence gathering assets or remotely piloted aircraft.
Each of the three services performs an essential role in safeguarding this country and its interests. Abolishing the RAF would neither make us safer nor save the money that Mr Lester says it would.
Phil Mobbs
West Hanney, Oxon

While a mass wedding in Mumbai may seem extraordinary to us, it is not unknown for the same thing to occur here
Sir, I was reminded by your picture of a mass wedding in Mumbai (Jan 29) of my grandfather who was vicar of St Matthew’s Custom House in the early 1900s. Concerned about the lack of weddings, he found that his parishioners could not afford the wedding fees and suggested a mass wedding. The day arrived and the couples lined up along the communion rail. When it came to the last couple the groom said, “But she ain’t my girl.” My grandfather was horrified but said he had already married the girl to the other man. “Don’t worry,” said the groom, “we’ll try it as it is.”
History does not relate if they lived happily ever after, but at the next mass wedding my grandfather got the couples to tie their wrists together.
Judith Rosheuvel
London SW2

There are some things you really don’t expect while training for a fell race in Cumbria
Sir, Last Saturday (Jan 25) my friend Karen Ogle was bitten by a snake, presumably an adder, while training for a fell race at High Cup Nick near Dufton, Cumbria.
It must be extremely unusual to be bitten by a snake in the UK in January.
Reg Ord
Rowlands Gill, Tyne & Wear

Sir, So, the Scots want independence but also have a desire to continue using sterling. Under such a currency union it is possible in the future that we (the rest of the current UK) may have to bail out an independent Scotland (or even possibly, they us).
This being the case, don’t we get any say in this at all? The Scots are entitled to vote on their national independence, but currency union would affect both Scotland and the remaining UK members, and so I should have thought that the proposal that Scotland adopt sterling as its currency cannot reasonably be their decision alone.
Rowel Samuels
Bushey, Herts

From literary agents to poets laureate, there are kindly and productive ways of letting young authors down
Sir, T. S. Eliot was not the only poet who could be tactfully dismissive (“Litotes”, letter, Jan 29).
With the presumption of a 14-year-old, I sent my schoolboy verses to the then Poet Laureate, John Masefield. He honoured me with a four-page handwritten reply, beginning with the sentence: “Forgive me if I say little about your poems: youth writes with happiness and ease.”
He then went on to give me a succession of valuable tips — a remarkably generous put-down.
David A. E. Hunt
Newton-in-Cartmel, Cumbria

Proof that education, rather than supposed safety measures, is the key to ensuring that school children are protected from fire?
Sir, The letter from Dr Chase (Jan 29) reminds me of one you printed many years ago, from the headmaster of a primary school in Lincolnshire (I think). He said that since the introduction of compulsory primary education in the 19th century not one single Lincolnshire schoolchild had been so much as singed in a fire at school, but as soon as fire doors had been fitted, his school alone was sending to hospital a couple of children a week because their fingers had been trapped in the doors.
Richard Channon
Stoke by Nayland, Suffolk
Sir, Dr Chase omitted to mention that fire doors are by long tradition propped open with fire extinguishers.
Nick Parmée
London SW11

Telegraph:

SIR – An Environment Agency spokesman defends the lack of river dredging, saying: “If you lower the beds you increase storage in the river, but that’s tiny compared with the flood plain… so lowering the beds often does little”.
Rivers, unlike flood plains, reservoirs and lakes, are not storage facilities; they are transit facilities. By dredging a river, you increase its capacity to move water. If more water moves from land to sea during and after heavy rain, flooding may be prevented or reduced.
Mac Cox
Hook, Hampshire
GPs’ heavy workload
SIR – You report that the number of patients per family doctor has fallen by 11 per cent since 2002. This figure masks a complicated picture: the number of consultations per GP has increased from 8,471 in 2004-05, to 9,672 in 2011-12. General practice is increasingly complex, as we tackle the challenges of an ageing population, a baby boom and more patients with mental health problems.
GPs work exceptionally hard for their patients but are drowning under the weight of spiralling workloads. We hope that the Government will ensure that general practice receives 11 per cent of the NHS budget by 2017.
Dr Maureen Baker
Chairman, Royal College of GPs
London NW1
Freezing point
SIR – Why no lights in freezers? Why freezers at all, when maybe 20 million homes are within a 10-minute drive of fresh food?
Michael Halpern
Stanmore, Middlesex
Minister for the elderly
SIR – As the number of older people living in Britain increases, the social care funding gap becomes more critical. The fact that elderly people are forced into A&E proves that the support system is showing some cracks. We need to see evidence of services prioritising prevention rather than managing crises.
More than two years ago, a petition was handed to No 10 with 137,000 signatures calling for a minister for older people at Cabinet level, who would ensure that different government departments work together to deal with the challenges that come with demographic change. In 2012, MPs voted in favour of a motion calling on the Government to consider making such an appointment, yet we still lack one person in Cabinet responsible for looking at older people’s issues.
It is likely that many of us will need good quality care in the years ahead and we need the Government to take a more joined-up approach to help those older people already falling through the gaps, as well as to protect the generations to come.
Jane Ashcroft
Chief Executive, Anchor
Birmingham
Economics of 50p rate
SIR – It was interesting to read Sir Victor Blank’s wisdom on the effect of the 50p tax rate. Wasn’t it he who agreed the Lloyds Bank, HBOS merger/takeover while chairman of Lloyds Bank?
Many longstanding Lloyds Bank shareholders may question the economic advice offered by Sir Victor.
David Parsonage
Derby
Empty properties
SIR – London is not the only area that has a problem with homes being acquired purely as an investment, and then left unoccupied. Towns and villages in the South West are blighted by the second-home syndrome.
My street is typical of many in coastal villages: 13 properties stand empty for most of the year. It is not pleasant on a dark winter’s evening to be surrounded by empty, unlit properties and, of course, it is not good for local businesses.
A possible answer to the problem is to levy multiple rates on empty dwellings.
Bernard Maskell
Croyde, Devon
It’s war!
SIR – Clive Petty is unhappy that the Imperial War Museum is closed until July, when most organisations connected with the First World War are looking to commemorate the start of the conflict. However, the war didn’t break out until late July 1914, with Britain’s declaration occurring on August 4.
The museum’s scheduled reopening in July, after major refurbishment to allow construction and preparation of new Great War galleries, is timely and appropriate.
Nigel Searle
Woking, Surrey
No bloomers
SIR – The accuracy of shorthand-typing as opposed to the bloomers of modern spell-check computers is ensured by the phonetic nature of Pitman shorthand.
An error, whereby a solicitor received a letter saying his clients were ready to “copulate”, would have been virtually impossible had the typist taken notes in Pitman shorthand.
Linda Bos
Midhurst, West Sussex
Bright students have special learning needs, too
SIR – Why are there special needs classes to try to raise the academically weakest to a minimum standard, but none to encourage the strongest to achieve the highest standards?
It could be argued that it is more effective to have special classes for our cleverest students; the difference between gaining 10 D grades at GCSE, as opposed to Es, will have less impact on a child’s life than the difference between gaining 10 A grades to Bs.
Richard Reynolds
Sheriff Hutton, North Yorkshire
SIR – Helping bright children to fulfil their potential is just as challenging as assisting those who have not done well.
It takes more than the teacher-as-facilitator approach that Martin Stephen, former High Master of St Paul’s, proffers, otherwise the divergent thinking of children is rarely harnessed into collaborative learning. The development of necessary mentoring and metacognitive skills is still too rare in teacher training.
Dr Stephen is right to highlight the dangers of overlooking the needs of the gifted in schools, but the problem doesn’t lie at the door of Ofsted, as he suggests.
Neil Roskilly
CEO, Independent Schools Association
Saffron Walden, Essex

SIR – We must support the precious heritage of cathedral music, but state funding is not the answer. How would a government decide how much to give and to whom?
It is up to those of us who sing and worship with them, and cathedral chapters, to find the ways of doing it. We should support the Faith Church Ministries and the Royal School of Church Music in their efforts to help by joining and supporting these organisations. The participation of girls is crucial for the development of this music.
However we must be careful – mixing girls with boys in the soprano line drives out the boys over time, and mixing girls with women drives out the girls.
Geoff Shaw
St Davids, Pembrokeshire
SIR – While I agree with the concern for cathedral music expressed by David Lawson (Letters, January 27), I can assure him that music at Lincoln is not in trouble.
Related Articles
MPs are in no position to lecture the Royal Household on prudence
30 Jan 2014
The choir at Lincoln Cathedral is in good heart and voice, and well-supported by the energetic efforts of those who work to raise the necessary funds. Recruitment is strong, both for children and adults. The music offered day-by-day in worship befits the tradition fostered by William Byrd, organist here from 1563 to 1572.
Very Rev Philip Buckler
Dean of Lincoln
SIR – We need to appreciate the intrinsic musical, educational and cultural value that cathedral choirs provide in Britain.
The standard of singing in this country is second to none because of the training and high expectations of cathedral choirs in all areas such as sight-singing, intonation, discipline, difficulty of repertoire and deportment.
Our choirs owe their excellence to the Church of England, which provides children from all backgrounds with the opportunity to develop these highly prized technical and personal skills.
Professor Jeremy Dibble
Music Department, Durham University

SIR – That MPs on the Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) accuse the Queen’s advisers of failing to control finances and carry out maintenance is beyond belief. At least she has held £1 million in reserve.
The MPs want her courtiers to take “money-saving tips from the Treasury”. Someone should remind Margaret Hodge, the Labour chairman of the PAC, that her party is responsible for the majority of our national debt. And that the Treasury has wasted billions of pounds on scrapped computer systems and countless other vanity projects.
As for maintenance, our roads are full of pot holes, large swathes of the country have been under water for weeks, and the Palace of Westminster is in need of repair. How can MPs feel qualified to lecture others on being prudent?
Stefan Reszczynski
Margate, Kent
Related Articles
Singing the praises of British cathedral choirs
30 Jan 2014
SIR – Suggestions from MPs that Buckingham Palace should increase visitor numbers and be more commercially focused are arrogant and hypocritical. The gains for the nation from tourism and heritage to which the Queen and Royal family contribute far outweigh anything that an MP might attract.
I can’t recall any suggestions by Margaret Hodge for attracting income through letting out the chamber of the House of Commons to businesses and other organisations.
This is a shame, as the long period of the year when it is vacant, during to the excessive number of holidays Parliament seems to have, a tidy sum could be earned towards reducing the deficit.
John Ross
Crewe, Cheshire
SIR – Contrary to what the PAC would have us believe, the Crown does not receive one penny from the taxpayer. Last year the Crown Estate, which manages property on behalf of the Queen, made a profit of £240 million, of which the Queen received just £31 million.
Incredibly, Conservative MPs outnumber Labour MPs on the PAC, but if the Tory MPs let themselves be railroaded by Margaret Hodge, even where the monarchy is concerned, what is the point of electing them in the first place?
Patrick Nicholls
Hemyock, Devon
SIR – Listening to Margaret Hodge on the Today programme criticising the senior staff of Buckingham Palace for financial mismanagement was interesting. Carefully courteous as she may have been, has it not occurred to her or her colleagues that the chronic underinvestment in the historic palaces, which are so significant to our national life and identity, is the result of persistent underfunding of the monarchy by Parliament itself?
Oliver Lodge
London SW16
SIR – We are told that the monarchy has received £36 million on the same day that we are told the Environment Agency has spent £31 million on a bird sanctuary in an area suffering flooding.
I rest my case.
John Castley
Peterborough

Irish Times:
Sir, – As someone with a modicum of legal knowledge, I am amazed at the Department of Education’s assertion that it had no responsibility whatever in the Louise O’Keeffe (and similar) cases. I’m even more amazed that our senior courts upheld that assertion (now overturned by the ECoHR). Responsibility cannot be devolved in such cases. Duties and tasks yes, but ultimate responsibility, no. Not entirely at least. On the other hand it seems to me, though I haven’t read the ECoHR findings, that others must also have had co-responsibility, not least the perpetrator of the abuse; but also the parish priest as “patron”, the board of management of the school and to a lesser extent the parents.
If compensation is to be paid, then will all those listed above, but most especially the church authorities, be asked to cough up, or are they to walk free, again? Or is it to be yet another burden on the unfortunate taxpayer. After all the government has no funds out of which to pay compensation except what we, the taxpayers give them! And we are not only entirely innocent of this crime, some of us are victims too! Yours, etc,
WILLIAM F (LIAM)
O’MAHONY,
Barrow Lane,
Graiguenamanagh,
Co Kilkenny.
Sir, – The news that Louise O’Keeffe has won her case against Ireland in the European Court of Human Rights finally rips away the last pretence of generations of Irish governments to evade responsibility for their negligence in protecting children in Irish schools. All Irish people should feel a sense of shame that it took a European court to lance this festering Irish boil.
The Irish legal system comes out of this whole affair more than slightly soiled. The courts always turned down Louise O’Keeffe’s case because they accepted the plea of the executive – even though the State paid for Irish education, it gave a free hand to the Roman Catholic Church to run the schools. It was a grubby quid pro quo – the church got control of the minds and lives of the young and did not make trouble for the State. The State paid up and everything was hunky-dory. Mistreatment? Cruelty? Sexual abuse? Not a chance. The church would not and could not countenance such a travesty. We all know what happened when that can of worms was opened in the past 20 years or so.
The amount of compensation payable now to the living victims of this abuse is almost immaterial. The State fighting to the last gasp when justice demanded a generous approach shows the real attitude of our governments. Money and political power counts – justice is just a word to be trotted out to impress people when the need arises, like an election. Otherwise it’s the always open-to-interpretation law that rules the day.
Tuesday, January 28th, 2014 was a great day for Louise O’Keeffe and the other abused children of this country. But it was a day of shame for successive Irish governments, the Irish legal system, the Roman Catholic Church and all those patriots, big and small, who heard no evil, saw no evil and, therefore, did not speak up when they should have.
If this State does not abide by the true principles of truth and justice this tragic type of events will happen again and again. When will we learn our lesson? – Yours, etc,
LIAM COOKE,
Greencastle Avenue,
Dublin 17.
Sir, – It seems to me the debate surrounding the recognition of same-sex marriage is a waste of time and energy. Should the State not exit the marriage battlefield entirely, abandoning it to religious communities and interested social groupings?
The State is primarily concerned with the legal and civil rights aspects of marriage, and these could be met by two people of any sex signing a comprehensive legal agreement. What we now call “divorce” would become another, formal, legal construct resulting in the dissolution of the agreement that constituted the union. If people want a public wedding with or without a State-recognised legal agreement, let them go to a church or civil association that is prepared to perform some sort of ceremony, even if that entails forming a new body. This would leave organisations such as the Catholic Church free to prescribe or proscribe anything they like about marriage; couples could still have their day out, and the State need not introduce legislation for “marriage equality”. – Yours, etc,
KEVIN BUTLER,
Philipsburgh Avenue,
Fairview, Dublin 3.

A chara, – In the case of many recent massive pay-offs and pensions, legal constraints have had to be taken into consideration.
I am a PAYE worker who took a stand on principle not to pay the household tax and lo and behold the Revenue took it out of my wages without even informing me. No legal constraints to take into consideration there. I assume it will be the same for the water tax.
There have also been cuts to social welfare, the introduction of universal social tax and too many other cuts and proxy taxes; but no legal constraints to take into consideration there either.
So I have come to the conclusion that the laws are for the guidance of the rich and the obedience of the poor and lower paid. There seem to be legal constraints to be taken into consideration when dealing with wealthy and well-connected people and none when dealing with poor or lower paid unconnected people. – Is mise,
BEN DUGGAN,
Brown Street,
Portlaw,
Co Waterford.

Sir, – While our public health system struggles, the cost of private health insurance increases, again. Our health ministers need to realise the damage their levies are doing to both systems.The higher the price of private health insurance, demand for such reduces; the less demand, the lower the income to the State from the levies. This reduces public funding to provide public services and will result in higher taxes for everyone.
The Government should be incentivising people to procure private health rather than forcing people into a distressed public system; and balancing the levies so as to attract people back into private health. – Yours, etc,
JONATHAN WORMALD,
Strand Road,
Sutton, Dublin 13.

Sir, – Irish Water acknowledges that the company, in taking over existing water services staff, will be overstaffed. The ESRI estimates this will add €65 to the average household water bill. If one applies logic and rational reasoning to this issue – Irish Water’s decision is removing the cost of these staff from the local authorities therefore the Local Property Tax (which funds the local authorities) should also reduce by €65 so the taxpayer will not be out of pocket.
Minister for the Environment, Phil Hogan, please confirm. – Yours, etc,
SEÁN MURRAY,
Barna,
Co Galway.

Sir, – Martyn Turner provided the perfect image for the Sochi Games (Opinion, January 29th). The Olympics are meant to represent such values as respect, fair play and friendship. Vladimir Putin, however, has demonstrated his contempt for such values. He is moving Russia towards becoming an authoritarian society again. The 1932 Games did not change the Nazi regime. The 1980 Games did not change the Soviet Union. The 2008 Games did not change the dictatorship that controls China. The Sochi Games will not deter Putin from his attacks on democracy and justice within Russia.
The Olympic Games, and all other major international sports and cultural events, should only be held in nations that are democracies. To do otherwise is to mock and undermine the essential moral values associated with such events. – Yours, etc,
DAN DONOVAN,
Shandon Street,
Dungarvan, Co Waterford.

Sir, – I think everyone agrees with Minister for Jobs, Richard Bruton that job creation is the most important issue facing this country (Opinion, January 14th) and that the object of trade missions is simply that. And of course, it is important to do business and maintain friendly relations with all governments in all parts of the world.
However, we question the Minister’s assertion that human rights cannot be raised on trade missions. Nobody expects, as he implied, “human rights (to) be a central part of discussions with political leaders on trade missions”. However, if, as he says, human rights are part of our values and principles as a nation and we must build on our strong record of human rights, then we cannot ignore the issue – even while on trade missions.
A discussion on human rights need not be a confrontation – the message can be delivered without offence, informally, or by building on what may have been raised already through the normal channels. Governments have thick skins – they know they are not perfect and know that they are accountable on human rights issues – that by being members of the UN, it is part of their responsibilities.
What is inexcusable and is an affront to our values as Irish people, is to undermine human rights by not even mentioning violations of human rights and the rule of law when in very repressive countries. Business and human rights do not exist in mutually exclusive spheres. Business depends on the rule of law and respect for basic principles of justice – as do human rights defenders.
We work for the protection of human rights defenders at risk, people who work, non-violently, for any or all of the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). When Ireland became a member of the UN Human Rights Council, it gave a priority to protecting human rights defenders internationally.
In Saudi Arabia, Raif Badawi, a human rights blogger, was sentenced to 600 lashes and seen years imprisonment for documenting various abuses by the national religious and morality police on his website. Wajeha Al-Huwaider and Fawzia Al-Oyouni were sentenced to ten months imprisonment for speaking out for women’s rights. And in the UAE Dr Mohammed Al-Roken, a leading human rights lawyer, has been in prison without trial since 2012, for providing legal assistance to victims of human rights abuses.
It would have been great if the Government had used the opportunity of the recent trade mission to ask a question about these extraordinarily brave human rights defenders privately and informally and to express their concern.
Is there any evidence to suggest that raising individual cases on a micro level in politically sensitive countries will negate potential gains? Is it a fear, is it grounded in reality or is it just a convenient excuse to dodge the issue? – Yours, etc,
MARY LAWLOR,
Executive Director,
Front Line Defenders,
Temple Road,
Blackrock, Co Dublin.

Sir, – Dr Peter Prendergast, referred to as trained in cardiothoracic surgery and who performs “‘aesthetic surgery” including “vaginal lifts”, states that he would like to see regulation and “formal training” introduced in Ireland (Life, January 27th).
The Irish Association of Plastic Surgeons (IAPS), of which Dr Prendergast is not a member, would like to assure the public that rigorous and lengthy formal training is available to those who wish to qualify in the speciality of “plastic, reconstructive and aesthetic surgery”. Only after surgeons have completed extensive higher surgical training (six years), specialist examination and in-service assessments by the Royal College of Surgeons are they eligible to be entered onto the Irish Medical Council’s specialist register.
Members of the public should always check to see if their doctor is qualified to perform plastic surgery as your readers will be surprised to learn that any doctor in Ireland can undertake any cosmetic procedure, and even operate on patients, without such training and qualification. These doctors often refer to themselves as “cosmetic surgeons”, a term not regulated by the Medical Council, or any other body.
In other European countries, such as France and Denmark, there are clear legal guidelines that state what type of surgery can be performed and which practitioners can offer what type of services. These were developed, in the interest of patient safety, after years of misleading advertising, inaccurate website claims and unsubstantiated claims of success by non-specialist doctors and commercial clinics in those countries.
IAPS has made numerous calls in the past on the government and the health authorities to regulate plastic surgery far more stringently. We wish to reiterate this call. – Yours, etc,
Dr PATRICIA EADIE,
FRCSI (Plast),
President, Irish Association
of Plastic Surgeons,
St Stephen’s Green,

Sir, – The most remarkable thing about the theft of papal blood for satanic purposes is that it was reported “by an Italian consumer rights lobby” (World News, January 27th) Presumably the Consumers’ Association of Ireland and your own Conor Pope are keeping a close eye on Irish satanists to ensure that the conduct of black Masses in Ireland is up to standard.  – Yours, etc,
NIALL McARDLE,
Wellington Street,
Eganville,
Ontario, Canada.
Sir, – You report (Home News, January 27th) that every Irish-born first World War soldier awarded the Victoria Cross is to have a “paving stone laid in his honour, paid for by the British government” in his home town. The list will doubtless include Inchigeela-born Michael O’Leary VC (see entry in Dictionary of Irish Biography) who was featured at the time in a recruiting poster jingle, racy of the soil: “Yerra, glory, Mike O’Leary, you’re the hero of Macroom/ Oh glory, Mike O’Leary, sure you spelt the Kaiser’s doom!”
To personalise the colourful local endorsement, the hero’s father, Daniel O’Leary, was invited to speak from the recruiting platform in the Macroom town square. According to the version long cherished in the local tradition, he ringingly exhorted his listeners to enlist “because if the Germans come over here, they’ll be a lot worse than the English, bad and all as they were”. He was dropped from the team forthwith.
I assume the laying of a paving stone will be a public and “reconciliatory” ceremony. I look forward to the occasion with great interest, and no little glee. – Yours, etc,
JOHN A MURPHY,
Douglas Road, Cork.

Sir, – Connoisseurs of long words were distraught when Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz became obsolete due to the abolition of Germany’s law for the delegation of monitoring beef labelling, but welcomed back Austria’s Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitänwitwe (widow of a Danube steamship company captain) as a contender for the title of Europe’s most protracted locution. – Yours, etc,
Dr JOHN DOHERTY
Operngasse, Vienna,

Sir, – “Begs the question” means using an assumption as a fact. It’s sloppy to use it as a form of “Raises the question”. It also raises the question, what do we say now when we want to say “Begs the question”? – Yours, etc,
ADRIAN KENNY,
Kingsland Parade,
Portobello,
Dublin 8 .
Sir, – “Undergrounding”. – Yours, etc,
KEVIN GORMAN,
Parklands Court,
Maynooth, Co Kildare.
Sir, – “Working longer hours”. All hours are of 60 minutes duration, no shorter or longer. – Yours,etc,
OLIVER DUFFY,
Fremont Drive,
Melbourn Estate,
Cork.
Sir, – “Absolutely” instead of “Yes”, and “I personally” or “me personally” as opposed to “I someone else” or “me someone else”. – Yours, etc,
NIAL MOLONEY,
Cranmer Lane,
Dublin 4.

Irish Independent:

* Paul O’Connell and Rob Kearney are calling for more vociferous and energetic support for the Irish rugby team at the Aviva Stadium. Alan Quinlan has also taken umbrage with the poor performance of the Irish supporters in the Aviva.
Also in this section
Brian Hayes – a contract with Irish voters?
Letters: Quinn needs to educate himself on faiths
Letters: A reform platform that ignores mental health
I have been attending Aviva and the old Lansdowne Road stadia for decades and have to agree with the main thrust of the comments. We go to these games to support the players we have an affinity with and we get particularly exercised when these players are ‘heroes’ to us.
But two contrasting articles in this paper have caused me to question this call to arms. A week ago you reported “IRFU smash pay structure with bumper €1.5m Heaslip contract”.
This after the former Irish captain and current vice-captain had been the subject of interest from French clubs, boosting his contract value and resulting in a ‘bumper’ pay deal. All well within his rights in what is, we are told, a professional game.
Earlier this week we learned that the Welsh captain, Sam Warburton, had signed a contract to stay in Wales, surrendering an uplift in contract value to go to France according to his agent. He went on to explain Warburton’s motivation; “Sam has decided to accept the very generous and fair offer from the WRU because he is currently Wales captain… he is honoured every time he pulls on the red jersey of Wales and he loves his country.”
I will be attending the Aviva next month with my sons to see the Ireland v Wales game and I will explain to them that although the game is now professional, there is still room for sporting heroes. And these heroes should be supported – with gusto. Hopefully all of them will happen to be wearing the green jersey.
KEVIN FIELDING
MONKSTOWN, CO CORK
THE LAST CHANCE
* (Written for a Cystic Fibrosis sufferer)
Oxygen-dependant and failing scarred lungs, the waiting game ticks slowly days to months, tubes and machines part of every day life, the strong smell of sterility and hospital now in your home. A laboured breath as you struggle to finish what you have to say and I wish I hadn’t asked.
The look in your eyes, the despair and acceptance that life is not what was planned for you.
The ‘game over’ signal is drawing near and nobody talks about it, plastering a cheery smile that says isn’t life great.
The ambulance screamed noisily the whole journey, nobody knew what to say or do.
Bloods, tissue matches, hours of assessments as three potential recipients lay sterile and prepped for surgery.
No pair of lungs for everyone in the audience, but you are in the last chance saloon. New dawning, unknown chance, you are wheeled into the operating theatre.
The ventilated game over from this morning’s car accident offers you this unintentional gift.
LOUISE HARTY
ADDRESS WITH EDITOR
RESPECT FOR GABRIEL
* One of our greatest actors, Gabriel Byrne, in Kirsty Blake Knox’s article (Saturday, January 25) said he was not surprised by the recent dreadful charity scandals and spoke many truths about Irish life, past and present, which are worth repeating:
* He called for more transparency in all aspects of public life.
* He urged people to challenge individuals who claimed to be in positions of power – they are the servants of the people.
* Ireland of the past was a place of repression and secrecy, ruled with a rod of iron by church and state.
Being around the same age as Gabriel, I can fully relate to all his outspoken and forthright opinions. It can do nothing but good if more courageous people like Gabriel speak out in this country, and tell it as it was and is, both past and present.
People like this deserve our highest respect.
BRIAN MCDEVITT
GLENTIES, CO DONEGAL
FAREWELL TO THE BANKERS
* I am very much looking forward to those bankers claiming that their talents are grossly undervalued in Ireland and proving it by gaining employment with other banks outside Ireland.
If pushed, I would be more than willing to organise a ‘wake’ in celebration of their departure from Irish life.
LIAM POWER
BALLINA, CO MAYO
SOCIETY FOR TAXPAYERS
* As the decades rolled by I have watched the never-ending dance where the partners change but the music is the same.
The merry smiles and the jingle of the coins in the pockets of The Entitled does not stop – it merely moves around to a new set of dancers.
But anger and frustration are bad for the soul and no good for the blood pressure.
Big business has its lobby; public workers have their union but the ordinary taxpayer has only the privilege of putting a pencil cross on a piece of paper every few years. This seems to be a very small input from those who pay the piper.
Perhaps we need an organisation independent of politics, business, unions and all vested interests to fight our corner. A sort of Taxpayers Protection Society. Any takers?
GERARD PALMER
DUNDRUM, DUBLIN 14
WILL CHURCH COUGH UP?
* If compensation is to be paid then will the church authorities be asked to cough up or are they to walk free, again? Or is it to be yet another burden on the unfortunate taxpayer? After all the Government has no funds out of which to pay compensation except what we, the taxpayers give them! And we are not only entirely innocent of this crime, some of us are victims too!
LIAM O’MAHONY
GRAIGUENAMANAGH, CO KILKENNY
MIRACLE OF MEDICINE
* The announcement of a new stem-cell laboratory in Galway brings us closer to the reality of genetic revolution. We have reached a critical point in our history. We have become capable of manipulating genes. We can now, with all the right ingredients, concoct genetic soup.
As the genetic links become clearer, we will be able to foresee who will be prone to alcoholism, to cancer, cystic fibrosis, which is wonderful.
We are now experimentally treating diseases like cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy with gene therapy. Modern medicine is creating miracles on a daily basis, as science probes further, and further into the origins of life. In just a short period of time, we have made astounding progress. One wonders what medical miracles lie on the horizon?
ANTHONY WOODS
ENNIS, CO CLARE
THE NUCLEAR ROAD
* As Ross-0′Carroll-Kelly would say, “this pylon issue is a complete ‘mare dude!”.
Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte has come to the end of the ‘easy road’ of the non-nuclear, wind-power generation option.
Politicos like people generally prefer routes marked ‘easy road’ to those marked ‘hard road’. Nuclear power was always going to be a hard sell, politically. The wind-power plan has begun to unravel.
Might I suggest, that after dealing with the headaches now thrown up by the pylon issues, the minister and his colleagues in Government might give pro-nuclear proponents a fair hearing and give due consideration to the nuclear power option? Sometimes in life, as in politics, the easy road becomes the hard road and vice versa.
MICHAEL DOHENY
PARLIAMENT STREET, WATERFORD
Irish Independent

1 February  2014 Work Continues
I go all the way around the park listening to the Navy Lark. Our heroes are in trouble, again. Captain Povey has decided on a divide and rule policy.   Priceless.
Thermabloc started to be put up progress made more boxes come
Scrabble today Mary wins,   and gets  exactly 400, Perhaps I will win tomorrow.

Obituary:

Miklós Jancsó, who has died aged 92, was the most distinctive Hungarian film-maker of his generation, with an instantly identifiable visual style that won him wide international recognition in the Sixties and Seventies.
Jancsó (pronounced “Yancho”) specialised in historical subjects, ranging from the Kossuth rebellion of 1848 to the communists’ rise to power in Hungary a century later. For Italian television, he ventured into aspects of ancient Roman history, though these projects were less successful.
His fame rested less on the content of his films than on their idiosyncratic treatment. He spun variations on a small number of recurring themes and images: horses snorting and galloping on the great Hungarian plain (the puszta); soldiers marching in formation; naked women dancing with scarlet ribbons; horsemen cracking whips; burning hay ricks.
He filmed these scenes with a constantly prowling camera, the characters weaving in and out of the frame while the camera itself performed intricate arabesques. He pushed the long take to its limits, as Hitchcock had done in Rope and the Greek director Theo Angelopoulos, imitating, would do later.
One Jancsó film consisted of only 12 shots, changes of angle and perspective being achieved through the moving camera. This technique required extensive rehearsals with cameraman and actors, though the players were spared the need to be word perfect — during the shot, they mouthed the lines, which were dubbed in later.
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Critics and audiences were at first spellbound by this approach. When he experimented with colour and widescreen in such works as The Confrontation (1969), it was as if he had discovered a new way of making films that rendered others obsolete. Yet his very originality contained the seeds of future doubts and reservations.
As Jancsó used this technique again and again, questions were increasingly raised about the content of his work. His scripts, usually written by Gyula Hernádi, were found to be too abstract, the characters mere symbols on which to hang Jancsó’s preoccupations and visual obsessions.
While The Round-Up (1965), the film which brought him international renown, was a powerful drama with characters with whom audiences could identify, later works such as Agnus Dei (1970) and Red Psalm (1972) were almost entirely allegorical. However ravishing to look at, they barely communicated at a human level.
The backlash against Jancsó focused particularly on a film about Attila the Hun which he made for Italian television in 1971. Called Technique and Rite, it seemed in its very title to underline the ritualistic, virtuoso aspects of his work which many had come to consider its principal limitation.
Jancsó’s style could not be sustained for long. Theo Angelopoulos, the director most conspicuously in his debt, was able in the Eighties and Nineties to modify it and take it in new directions, which Jancsó proved unable to do. He failed to find new themes and techniques, and his later work was little seen outside Hungary. It was a sad end, for in his prime he achieved what all artists strive for — a perfect fusion of form and content.
Born at Vác, a village near Budapest, on September 27 1921, Miklós Jancsó studied Law and Ethnography in Romania, took his degree in 1944 and was briefly a soldier and a prisoner of war. After the liberation, he returned to Budapest and enrolled in the Academy of Drama and Film Arts. He and his fellow students were ardent socialists and welcomed the communist victory in 1947.
He graduated in 1950 and began to work on newsreels and shorts of a conventional propagandist nature celebrating May Day, harvest time on cooperative farms and visits by Soviet agricultural delegations. Jancsó later admitted that his early shorts were made on the Zhdanov principle that cinema’s sole function was to reflect the prevailing party line.
His first feature film, The Bells Have Gone to Rome (1958), was a stolid Second World War drama indistinguishable from other Hungarian films of the time. Cantata (1962) was little better, but in 1964 he began to attract favourable notice with My Way Home, which deals with a young Hungarian soldier caught between the German retreat and the Soviet advance in the last stages of the war. Its elliptical narrative, expressive use of barren landscapes and emphasis on the moving camera rather than editing were all early manifestations of Jancsó’s mature style.
In Britain it was released after the extraordinary impact of his next film, The Round-Up (1965). Set in the aftermath of the 19th-century Kossuth rebellion, it depicts the efforts of the police in a remote prison on the great plain to pinpoint the rebels among the many in captivity. Playing one prisoner off against another and planning every move like a chess game, they spring their trap and the revolt is snuffed out. Cold, brutal and harrowing, it was immediately hailed as the work of a brilliant stylist.
The Red and the White (1967), a Hungarian-Soviet co-production made to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, developed his choreographic style still further. The CinemaScope screen was used in a formalised way to underline the striking compositions — diagonals, horizontals and circular patterns echoing the contours of the landscape itself.
Torture, nakedness and ritualised atrocities became vivid illustrations of the breakdown in humanity during the fighting between the Whites and the Reds in Russia in 1918. Both sides were shown as equally culpable – hence the film was never released in the Soviet Union.
Elsewhere, Jancsó was the man of the moment. Silence and Cry, his 1968 film, was a change of pace — a chamber piece rather than epic in scale, but no less impressive. Set, like The Round-Up, on the great plain, it was an intense drama of lust, betrayal and murder on a remote farm in 1919.
It was followed by The Confrontation (1969), Jancsó’s most audacious film to date. Though set in 1947, it was seen as an oblique comment on the student riots in Budapest in 1968-69. Jancsó’s first colour film, it dramatises the conflict between Roman Catholic and Marxist educational theories in the early days of the Hungarian communist state. There are songs, slogans and dances, escalating to book-burning and violence, with the camera and the students performing an almost balletic illustration of the dialectics.
The Confrontation was not universally admired, but neither of its successors was much liked by anyone. Winter Wind (1969), about a gang of Croat terrorists in 1930s Chicago plotting to assassinate King Alexander II of Yugoslavia, was too cryptic for many tastes. The reduction of the film to only 12 sequence shots was considered self-indulgent and attention-seeking.
Agnus Dei (1970), though one of Jancsó’s personal favourites, was even more esoteric. Handsomely shot and full of nightmarish images of torture and nudity, it was so nationalistic as to be virtually impenetrable to non-Hungarians. Even critics who had hailed the originality of his early films felt that he had ploughed his furrow once too often, and was sacrificing ideas and characterisation to sterile display.
A two-year break in Italy seemed to confirm this. The Pacifist (1970), intended as a radical departure and his first contemporary subject, turned out a hollow pastiche of Michelangelo Antonioni, starring his favourite actress, Monica Vitti. By the time of Technique and Rite, it seemed he was plumbing the depths of self-parody, transporting Jancsó’s regular Hungarian motifs to the inappropriate context of ancient Rome.
He returned, however, with two striking pictures. Red Psalm (1972), though featuring his familiar trade marks, found a new simplicity in dramatic construction, elevating a tale of peasants, landowners and military intervention on the puszta to a kind of epic poem. All agreed that it looked stunning. His Marxist version of Elektra (1975), had the triumphant Elektra and Orestes ascending in the end in a flame-red helicopter .
This proved the high water mark of Jancsó’s fame. Artistically, his subsequent work disappointed. Private Vices, Public Virtues (1976) abandoned the long sequences that had become his signature in favour of an explicitly erotic reinterpretation of the Mayerling affair. Hungarian Rhapsody and Allegro Barbaro (both 1978) formed the first two parts of an uncompleted trilogy on the life of a nationalist executed in 1944 for his involvement in an anti-Hitler plot. Both were judged too parochial to travel abroad.
His last films included an uncharacteristic Renaissance costume piece, The Tyrant’s Heart (1981); a Franco-Israeli co-production called Dawn (1986); Season of Monsters (1987); and God Runs Backwards (1990). They passed almost unnoticed outside Hungary.
In later years, Jancsó was more active in the theatre. He directed a notorious production about the life of Mata Hari and a still more scandalous Jack the Ripper (1977), in which the Limehouse serial killer was finally unmasked as Queen Victoria. In 1980 he staged Verdi’s Otello in Florence.
Between 1999 and 2006, he made six films about the adventures of Kapa and Pepe, two comical anti-heroes .
Miklós Jancsó married first, in 1949, Katalin Wowesny, with whom he had a son and a daughter. He married secondly, in 1958, the film director Márta Mészáros; their son Miklós Jancsó Jr is a cameraman. With his third wife, Zsuzsa Csákány, whom he married in 1981, he had another son; she and his four children survive him.
Miklós Jancsó, born September 27 1921, died January 31 2014

Guardian:

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett (Comment, 28 January) is absolutely right about the need for real sex education in schools. Unfortunately most schools aren’t up to delivering it. I have taught at a number of schools and recently retired from a boys comp, where I taught science. Part of my remit was to teach reproduction, but not sex education, to year 7 pupils and it was obvious that many boys had been watching porn by the questions they asked. Though I was confident about delivering this topic, I feel I would struggle to deliver effective lessons covering pornography with all its ramifications. Some of the older science teachers struggled to teach even reproduction effectively. What is needed is an outside agency that employs teachers, actors or other suitable persons who can come into schools and deliver, in the right language, theatre or talks that engage pupils and encourage discussion about a topic that is damaging their ability to judge what are normal relationships.
Jake Beckett
London

In the many fine and valid tributes to Pete Seeger (Obituary, 29 January), insufficient attention is paid to what a superb musician and charismatic performer he was. His initial popularity and stature were based on the bedrock of this musicianship, and developed from there. In his early years as a performer he was compelling and exciting: fast, clean rhythmic banjo playing, strong, high voice, lots of body movement, and audience participation. In concerts with others, the audience would wait patiently through other very good performers, and erupt when he took over. Same at Weavers concerts, where the numbers he led were always the highlights of their shows. Union meetings where he was booked drew far greater attendances than regular union hall meetings. I imagine most current scribes never saw him perform in 1940s and 50s America. I did. He was great.
Joe Locker
London
• In 1962, when I was two, my family moved from London to the US for a year. We returned to London with Pete Seeger’s album We Shall Overcome: The Complete Carnegie Hall Concert. I sang these songs in the school playground while other children sang English nursery rhymes. I loved the melodies, but it wasn’t until I reached my teens that I began to understand the lyrics. Of all the childhood, pop and folk songs I have heard, Seeger’s have made the greatest impression. There is a quality to his voice that hits the heart, tear ducts and vocal chords. I have sung Guantanamera in Cuba, marched to We Shall Overcome at demonstrations, and cried to Where Have all the Flowers Gone at the celebration of a life lost.
Sian Williams
London
• Shame on Billy Bragg (Seeger taught that songs are more than just records, 29 January) for not knowing the English version of This Land is Your Land. In the late 1940s Princess Elizabeth could be heard singing this lullaby to baby Charles: This land is your land, this land is my land, From Devon and Cornwall to the Canvey Island, From the Kielder Forest to the Romney Marshes, This land was made for you and me.
Peter Taylor
Tynemouth, Tyne and Wear
• Billy Bragg uses “working class” in relation to Pete Seegers’ sad passing in the context of an exclusive club. Seeger came from anything but a working class family. And he went to Harvard. He was proud of both. I’m not working class and enjoy both Seeger and Bragg – Is that all right, Billy? Is that allowed? Thank God we Irish don’t have a strict class system.
Peter Fitz Gerald
Bandon, West Cork, Ireland

Melissa Kite’s assertion (Comment, 31 January) that “you can build 300,000 houses a year but you can’t stop those homes putting on value to a point where the people for whom they were built can’t afford them” is true only if they are built for sale. The answer is to build social housing to rent.
Jeremy Beecham
Labour, House of Lords
• So Ukip supporter Demetri Marchessini believes the word homophobic “cannot be found in any dictionary, nor does it have any meaning” (Ukip donor attacks pro-gay columnist, 29 January). Well, it’s in mine (Chambers, 10th edition) along with a definition. As is the word “delusional”.
Charlotte Hofton
Ryde, Isle of Wight
• In dealing with my late brother’s estate, Inverclyde district council has so far taken the biscuit for crassness. A letter arrived addressed to him stating that his housing benefit was terminated due to death, and informing him of how to appeal. Presumably if he just walked into the office, he might receive the same response as Mr Waller did (Letters, 29 January), but appropriately this time.
Ralph Houston
Dunoon, Argyll and Bute
• Harry Shearer (Nixon was way to the left of Obama, G2, 30 January) says “if any band could get the celebration of their 30th anniversary chronologically wrong, it would be Spinal Tap”. True, I’m sure, but they’re not the only ones. In 2000 I attended Hawkwind’s 30th anniversary celebrations at Brixton Academy, 31 years after their founding.
Greg Hughes
Leeds
• Having a large torso but less than long legs, I’m shorter than average when standing up, yet taller than average when sitting down (Size isn’t everything, 30 January). I find this gives me a rare and enviable sense of proportion about body size, so I’m unbearably pompous and aggressive for only half the time.
Jon Griffith
Hastings, East Sussex
• I haven’t read any egg pun letters for a few days. Are they ova?
Adrian Willson
Bath
Simon Jenkins is so, so right (Germany, I’m sorry. This is the British at their worst, 31 January). Comparing Michael Gove to Vladimir Putin in the misuse of history is a masterstroke. The only thing Jenkins fails to do is answer his own question: “Can we really not do history without war?” So long as modern prime ministers and their cabinets see preparations for, and the engagement in, warlike actions as necessary policies for their own survival – even at the expense of other people’s lives – so they must glorify what they see as national victories, and the heroic sacrifices of our ancestors, in previous wars.
In 2014, David Cameron has other motives for recalling the politicians’ war of 1914, as Gove so brilliantly exposed. If it is counted as the moment when the UK was at its best, commemorating it can be utilised both in a political campaign to defeat the Scottish Nationalists in their referendum and the Labour party in the run-up to a general election in 2015. Brand all opponents as lefties and anti-British and you win hands down. As Jenkins so admirably demonstrates, there is a vast weight of public sentiment already primed through the mass media and school syllabuses to take the view that we won and they lost because we were the goodies and they were the baddies.
Paul Anderton
Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire
• Niall Ferguson (Report, 30 January) would objectively probably be quite correct in saying that strategically Britain may well have done better to stay out of the conflict until it was more ready to intervene on the basis of finance and naval power. However, the government at that time was facing a number of extremely difficult issues at home. Throughout 1913 and 1914, there had been a massive wave of national strikes in key industries, which looked set to resume, the windows were still crashing everywhere from the women’s suffrage campaign, and civil war in Ireland was threatening with Carson on the march in Ulster to prevent the Irish Home Rule Act from coming into force.
Asquith’s government must have been relieved to be able to declare war on Germany in order to put the country into a state of national emergency, to stop the strikes by recruiting the workers into the army to shoot the German workers; to persuade the women to leave their demands until after the war; to put the Home Rule Act into abeyance and to call on the ultra-patriotic Ulstermen to do their duty and defend the King. I think the government jumped at the chance of war with very little idea about how a continental conflict against Germany would actually be fought.
Rinaldo Frezzato
London
• The flaw in Niall Ferguson’s argument that Britain should have kept out of the first world war is that whereas Napoleon and Hitler were brought down by their defeats in Russia, Germany actually defeated Russia in the first world war. It is difficult to see how Britain could have dealt with a victorious Germany at a later stage without the help of a large continental ally like Russia – all Britain’s successful military interventions in continental Europe have been achieved with the help of grand coalitions. It is also not clear how Britain could have built up the tough professional army required to defeat Germany without actually participating in the war.
Incidentally, the peace treaty imposed on Russia by Germany at Brest-Litovsk in March 1918 gives a flavour of what a German-dominated Europe would have been like – large swaths of eastern Europe would have been handed over to Germany or German-controlled vassal states, had it won on the western front, to create Lebensraum for the Greater German Reich, a policy very similar to Hitler’s in the second world war.
Hugh Wellesley-Smith
Leeds
• I agree with Niall Ferguson that the first world war should never have happened. But his reasoning is faulty. The war was fought not because of German expansionism, but because all the major European empires were in conflict with one another. The rapid process of colonisation that began with the scramble for Africa and ended in 1914 was the cause of greater imperial rivalry than anything seen before. Germany had less access to colonies in Africa and elsewhere than France or Britain, or to the far eastern ports that the Russian empire controlled. At stake was who would control not just Europe but large parts of the world. Britain’s increased spending on its navy before 1914 was to protect the empire. It succeeded temporarily, but at terrible human cost.
Lindsey German
Convenor, Stop the War Coalition
• Like Simon Jenkins, I have been concerned that only one side of the first world war will be discussed. That is why I have started a petition to have Edith Cavell on a £2 coin as a counterbalance to the Kitchener coin. Hers was a small voice of reason who saw duty as being to all soldiers. A woman of principle.
Sioned-Mair Richards
Sheffield
• Simon Jenkins might like to append the French to his apology to the Germans for our aggrandisement of military victory. Next year it will be 200 years since Waterloo, and 600 since Agincourt. C’est formidable, non?
Dan Adler
Farnham, Surrey
• This year offers anniversaries other than that of the first world war. February marks 40 years since Tory premier Ted Heath called a general election on the back of a miners’ strike. He asked the electorate “who governs Britain?” and they decided, narrowly, that the answer was Labour and the trade unions. The miners won a 30% pay rise. Those kind of days are worth remembering.
Keith Flett
London

Independent:

It is difficult not to see the similarity between our Government’s slow response to the flooding of the Somerset Levels and George Bush’s slow response to the disaster in New Orleans.
What we are witnessing is right-wing ideology in (in)action.
The state is being minimalised, many services are being privatised, and government is everywhere being slimmed.
As the inhabitants of these Somerset villages depend on boats to continue their lives, the Government sits on its hands, waiting for the private sector to manage our rivers.
I hope these voters who have been enjoying the floods in their homes for nearly a month are appreciating these political niceties – in the knowledge that their taxes should be as low as possible, that our economy is keenly competitive, and that the Environment Secretary, Owen Paterson, with his broad experience gained in his family’s leather business, will bring help without further delay.
Dennis Leachman
Reading
The decision this week to call in the Army to tackle flooding in Somerset focuses on the need to find the right long-term solution for this catastrophic problem. The Landscape Institute has been campaigning for sustainable drainage for a long time as a cost-effective, green and sustainable solution.
Sustainable drainage mimics nature by absorbing water into vegetated surfaces. It slows down water and prevents flooding, as well as supporting biodiversity.
Sustainable drainage is one of a range of measures in the flooding toolkit, but countries such as Australia, the US, Sweden and Japan have all embraced this approach as an economical and sustainable way of protecting against the human and environmental costs of flooding.
We desperately need Government, local councils, the Environment Agency and water companies each to play their part in incentivising and funding the necessary changes.
The joy of soft, green, sustainable drainage is that it is relatively quick to implement, and we start to see the benefit, however small, as soon as it is built. At present there is a culture of everyone blaming everyone else for the problems and delays. We need a single focus on the outcome, and a positive attitude to problem-solving if we want this to happen quickly and effectively.
Do we want to spend our money putting back together people’s homes, lives and businesses every time we have major storms – or in preventing the problems happening in the first place?
Sue Illman
President, Landscape Institute, London WC1

Golden rice is no instant panacea
The theory that GM “golden rice” is a major humanitarian success story (“Greenpeace has blood of millions of children on its hands, says co-founder”, 31 January) is based on a number of misconceptions, the main two being that “golden rice” is available now, and that better alternatives don’t exist.
Over 20 years after this GM research project began, the developers of “golden rice” in the Philippines expect research to continue for at least two more years before it becomes available, if ever. Meanwhile, Helen Keller International, the organisation leading the fight against vitamin A deficiency (VAD), details six proven vitamin A strategies that are working now.
The World Bank has found vitamin A supplementation programmes to be “among the most cost-effective of all health interventions”, and VAD is already dropping so rapidly in the Philippines that it may cease to be a significant problem before “golden rice” comes on to the market.
Dr Doug Parr
Chief Scientist
Greenpeace UK
London N1

‘Fish oil’ from plants  a major step forward
The letter from Ben Martin (25 January) concerning the properties of flax (linseed) oil, as well as those of other plant sources, recounts a canard that is understandable but scientifically invalid.
There is no current plant source, other than the GM oilseeds like those produced at Rothamsted, which produces the long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids found in fish oils.
The major fatty acid in linseed is alpha-linolenic acid, for which there is no compelling clinical evidence for significant health benefits compared with other oils from plant sources such as olive oil.
Nutritionists value fish oils for the special effect of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), the major lipid of human brain tissue, and well documented for health effects. Given the dwindling stocks of oily fish, Rothamsted’s plant-based “fish oil” is a major step forward. It will provide a terrestrial source of these oils and reduce pressure on the marine environment.
Professor Maurice Moloney
Commonwealth Science and Industry Research Organisation, North Ryde, New South Wales, Australia

Medical data and fears over privacy
Dr Kevan Tucker’s letter (15 January) was misleading, as it confused pseudonymised data and identifiable data.
Since the 1980s, the NHS has been collating information about hospital admissions. This is used to assess the safety of hospitals, compare quality of care, and help plan new health services. At the moment, we are missing this type of information for much of the care outside hospital.
Later this year, the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) will begin collecting this missing information. The HSCIC uses a combination of the NHS number, postcode, gender and date of birth to link a patient’s details. Once a patient’s record has been matched, these identifiers are removed and a reference number for the record is allocated instead.
The HSCIC makes information available in a variety of formats, each of which is protected by a different suite of privacy safeguards, as specified by the Information Commissioner. No identifiable data will be made available to organisations outside the NHS unless there is a legal basis to do so.
Dr Geraint Lewis
Chief Data Officer
NHS England
London SE1

In your report “Patients will be identifiable when firms are given access to confidential NHS data, experts warn” (20 January) you say: “The information for sale to profit-making firms will contain NHS numbers, date of birth, postcode, ethnicity and gender.”
As a psychiatric medical records administrator with responsibility for the integrity of a large database of patient details, I can identify anybody in the country in less than 10 seconds, with just their date of birth and NHS number. This will also provide me with their full name and last recorded address.
Truly anonymous data can be useful for trying to analyse statistical trends about patterns of illness and so forth, but there can be no excuse whatever for a gross violation of privacy.
Michael Richards
Southampton
Leave prison problems to the professionals
Having worked as a professional psychologist and adviser to the Home Office and Ministry of Justice, and being a magistrate, I couldn’t let Mary Dejevsky (30 January) go uncorrected.
She, Vicky Pryce, Denis MacShane and Chris Huhne aren’t qualified to comment with authority on the state of prisons in this country, either by virtue of being a columnist or by spending a few weeks in a low-security prison.
And when criminals reoffend, it isn’t the fault of the prisons. It is the fault of the criminals. The rehabilitation programmes in British jails are among the best in the world.
To conclude that the “whole system needs to be rethought from the ground up” shows how ignorant Dejevsky appears to be of that system. Her view seems grounded in the arrogant presumptions of what she refers to as “well-educated, middle-class” people who have been convicted of crimes.
The Ministry of Justice is staffed with well-educated, middle-class (and non-middle-class) professionals who know what they’re doing. Whatever challenges they face will be far better addressed by the staff in prisons who know what they’re talking about.
Dr Eric Cullen
Winslow, Buckinghamshire

Mary Dejevsky’s lionising of her jailbird acquaintances Denis MacShane, Vicky Pryce and Chris Huhne would have been less irritating if any of the quartet had showed any acceptance of the trio’s wrongdoing.
Professor Chris Barton
Longton, Stoke-on-Trent
Record use of one newspaper?
Is this a record? On 21 January, my daughter took my copy of The Independent (which I had already skim-read) on a bus journey from London to Ghent. She read it cover to cover. Three English-speaking people at her destination devoured it keenly. And many of the topics that arose were discussed over dinner that night. The following day, she got very wet and stuffed pages from the newspaper into her boots; the rest was used to start a fire.
Jane Penson
Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire

Times:

The public may not be interested in what barristers earn, but they should know that legal aid cuts are already creating a risk of serious miscarriages of justice
Sir, You had a photo of me carrying a banner outside the Old Bailey on Jan 6 protesting with other barristers for the first time in my 35-year career and the first time in the history of the profession (Law, Jan 30). You should know that I then went to defend a woman on trial for child cruelty and facing prison. One effect of the cuts is that no solicitor assisted at that trial, which put the client at risk of serious injustice. Fortunately, she was not convicted by the jury.
The public may not be interested in what I earn, but they should know that legal aid cuts are already creating a risk of serious miscarriages of justice.
Worse, a day of court time was wasted because (due to prior cost paring) the court video equipment did not work. This institutional “managed waste” costs far more than any saving that is made by spoiling the ship for a ha’porth of tar in individual cases.
Ivor Frank
Temple, London
Sir, As a magistrate in central London, I could not agree more with Alice Thomson (“Spare a copper for a poor legal aid barrister”, Jan 29). We often see defendants in need of good advocates. Often the duty solicitor is over worked, rushing from one court to the next, desperately trying to represent individuals who have a raft of problems (mental health issues, language etc). Usually they do a good job, but legal aid cut inevitably affect the most vulnerable people.
Lucy Lubbock
London SW6
Sir, Further to Alice Thomson on the fees paid to independent criminal barristers undertaking legal aid work, the Ministry of Justice is advertising permanent jobs in its Public Defence Service involving the same work. In contrast to the median gross annual fees of £56,000 reportedly paid to the independent barrister, the MOJ is offering £46,036 to £125,000 plus benefits including pension, paid holidays, parental leave, training etc.
It does not take a genius to work out that these benefits plus the cost of administrative overheads means that the government is willing to pay much more to its junior employees than it is to the barrister of average seniority doing the work independently.
Grant Goodlad
Thornby, Northants
Sir, It’s surprising that the Ministry of Justice is reluctant to trumpet that since the coalition came to power £264m has been saved from the criminal legal aid budget. Ignoring the rise in VAT, the bill has fallen by 20 per cent. It’s against that background that barristers complain that cutting a further £220m will make the independent criminal bar unsustainable.
Jon Mack
London EC4
Sir, The bigger picture is that the Government does not want to pay for those who oppose the will of the State (whether in criminal or other cases). The Human Rights Act limits its aims to paying lawyers as little as possible. The true governmental aim is to control the political debate on the topic; so lawyers who oppose the will of the State must be made unpopular as possible.
This is all pretty obvious to those who have long experience of governmental attitudes to the legal profession.
Roger McCarthy QC
London WC1

Many students will need to work to support themselves during their time at university, making almost all courses ‘part-time’
Sir, I agree with much of what Jenni Russell writes in “Some universities teach and some do not” (Jan 30), but she does not mention of the impact of part- or full-time employment on students’ ability to engage in a course of full-time education.
With the massive increase in fees over the last decade, which not all academics agreed with, education for many university students is now only notionally “full-time”.
Those students whose parents cannot afford to support them, will
be working to support themselves — to the detriment of their full-time study.
Dr Andy Hamilton
Admissions Tutor, Philosophy Dept, Durham University

Distant relatives of the Prime Minister, via the Pub Landlord, and the resemblance of Thackeray to Les Dawson
Sir, I was unaware of Mr Al Murray’s illustrious ancestry and Oxbridge pedigree, which seem to outshine that of the prime minster, to whom he is related via mutual connection to the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray (“Ale in the family: Cameron’s pub cousin”, Jan 29).
The most cursory search on the internet discloses Thackeray’s interest in and penchant for humour, clearly a family trait if not a little distant. Thackeray did, however, say, “A good laugh is sunshine in a house” — a perfect quote particularly for the PM if the indefinite article is replaced by the definite article.
A. F. Kellner
London W1
Sir, I have never been able to take the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray seriously since I realised he was the spitting image of Mr Les Dawson, the illustrious comedian.
Des Machale
Cork

All visitors to the Hagia Sophia are welcome without religious or gender based restrictions — although appropriate attire is appreciated
Sir, As an Iznikian, I am puzzled by Professor Elizabeth Jeffreys’ letter (Jan 25) and what she says about Hagia Sophia in Iznik. Granted, I have yet to meet a local who understands why we need yet another mosque but the building is still open to tourists. All visitors are welcome without religious or gender based restrictions — although we find those in the shortest of shorts or bikini tops somewhat disconcerting. Access is of course briefly compromised during prayer times but our guests can visit other historical sites in town or sit in the Hagia Sophia garden until the building reopens to visitors.
In 1920 during the War of Independence Greek forces destroyed most of the building. The Turks would not have damaged what had been a mosque since 1331. I imagine the Greek soldiers had no idea of the importance of Hagia Sophia to the Greek Orthodox Church.
For over 80 years it stood roofless, open to the elements with the mortar turning to dust and the fire damage evident on the inner walls. I cannot recall any foreign concern about its dilapidated state or the importance of our Byzantine heritage. In 2007 it was restored with monies provided by the Turkish Department of Antiquities.
Professor Jeffreys and the further 52 scholars are welcome to visit us anytime.
Azize Ethem (Osmanoglu)
Iznik, Turkey

There are many good reasons why schools may not always offer a hot lunch — a lack of kitchen and dining facilities among them
Sir, The idea of a hot lunch at school is admirable (Jan 30) but problematic. I am vice-chair of governors of a large infant school. We have nearly 400 children eligible to receive a lunch starting in September. We have no kitchen and no dining hall. The existing hall can seat only 75, would mean six sittings; thus, the hall would be unavailable for PE etc and curriculum requirements could not be met. Even if we have funds to build a kitchen and dining room, the playground is the only space available and this is already inadequate.
Diana Cobden
Christchurch, Dorset

Despite the rise of the internet and emailed publications, the printed parish magazine still has a place in community life
Sir, I have a copy of The Gospeller, the July 1894 parish magazine for Hellidon and Catesby, two Northamptonshire villages (“What the Lord giveth, the internet taketh away”, Jan 27).
We still have a parish magazine to serve Hellidon and Catesby, as well as nearby Staverton, with which we became a united benefice in 1951. As far as I can tell, a parish magazine has been continuously produced since the early date, certainly since 1966.
Like Haworth in your article, we envisage the time when we too shall have to distribute our articles and notices via the internet.
Jenifer Fell
Hellidon, Northants
Sir, The news that a parish magazine has changed format from print to electronic version comes as no surprise. We compete against local press, free magazines and websites. There is still a place for a printed edition but it needs to be combination of church newsletter and community magazine. Our magazine makes a healthy profit, kindly supported by local businesses as well an effective way of reaching the community.
As the Archbishop of Canterbury said in 2009, parish magazines “are the most widely read Christian publications — and many people are likely to read them without ever setting foot inside a church.”
David R. Pickup
Stone, Dinton and Hartwell Parish Magazine, Bucks
Sir, I have a Church Monthly dated 1892 from Swynnerton and Cotes Heath Church (Staffordshire) It was addressed to a grandma I never met and cost 6d. It contains many items of interest to me as most of my family were from this area. It contains a year’s details of births, marriages and deaths, amount of money collected at each service, including the number of coins, eg, 32 coins = 8/6d. At the back are items about the choir outings, games and poems. Not bad at 1/2d a month. A very treasured book.
Irene Ash
Moreton Morrell, Warks

Telegraph:
SIR – Much of Radio 3 output (Letters, January 29) is wonderful. Performance on 3, the weekly operas, the proms and many features are just terrific. It remains my radio station of choice.
But it has introduced embarrassing interviews with listeners, songs from the shows, a bit of didactic pop music, dreadful world music and other “popular” stuff.
Radio 3 also appears to be desperate to claim that its audience is in excess of two million, when the number of listeners to its mainstream output is well below that.
The BBC should be honest about what Radio 3 is and embrace it or kill it. The devotees of great music would soon rally round and sponsor a new service, using new technology, with a budget big enough for the orchestras and the broadcast output.
H C Marshall
Shatterford, Worcestershire
SIR – My two-year-old daughter adores Classic FM. This stems, I like to think, from its miraculous effect when I used it to soothe her as a baby.
She has a radio in her nursery tuned to Classic FM and switches it on herself. The other afternoon I found her dancing, quite happily, to Handel’s Violin Concerto.
Sarah Crosbie Jones
Groombridge, Kent
The smoke police
SIR – There are laws against texting and telephoning while driving, against motorway lane-hogging and about lane-changing. Parliament is now debating a ban on smoking when children are present in motor cars.
Surely it is better to attempt to educate adults. Who is going to police the driving habits of millions of motorists?
Michael Clemson
Horsmonden, Kent
Journey into space
SIR – Tom Bower claims that Virgin Galactic has “no licence” and “no rocket” to go into space (report, January 27). The recent rocket-powered flight to 71,000 feet renders Bower’s main claims increasingly removed from reality. The company’s rocket motor burned for the full duration.
He also fails to note that the team has an experimental permit from the Federal Aviation Administration, the proper regulatory form for the test-flight programme. Nor does he mention that we applied for a commercial licence in 2013. We expect to receive it well in advance of commercial service later in 2014.
There is no doubt that what Virgin Galactic and its customers are doing is hard. Sadly, Mr Bower’s book fails to give a fair summary of it.
George Whitesides
CEO, Virgin Galactic
Mojave, California, United States
Fresher frozen
SIR – Michael Halpern (Letters, January 30) questions the need for freezers when 20 million homes are within a 10-minute drive of fresh food. You have reported before now that it can take two weeks for fresh produce to get to the table after picking, with up to 45 per cent of important nutrients lost in fresh vegetables.
Produce that is frozen after being picked has more nutrients sealed in, but must be stored in freezers to be eaten at home.
Malcolm Watson
Welford, Berkshire
SIR – The reason for a freezer? I enjoy ice cream and I like to have it to hand.
Robin Dudley-Warde
Bitton, Gloucestershire
Taking a punt
SIR – Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, holds an Irish passport, but did not mention Ireland in his speech in Scotland on currency unions (report, January 30). Ireland remained in monetary union with sterling from 1922 to 1978, when it joined the EMS.
Dr John Doherty
Gaoth Dobhair, Co Donegal
Unpossessive name
SIR – An early example of the dropped apostrophe (Letters, January 28) is in London. Margery Arnold’s Grove became Arnold’s Grove, then Arno’s Grove and finally the Tube destination of Arnos Grove.
Arthur W J G Ord-Hume
Guildford, Surrey
A country walk, a dog and a parish magazine
SIR – I am not a churchgoer, but I happily deliver the local parish magazine (Letters, January 29) when walking our labrador.
The church being locked most of the time limits the possibility of people collecting a copy there. This month I have enjoyed meeting the recipients as I collect their annual subscriptions.
Many parish magazines are now online, so paper copies may indeed soon be consigned to history.
Richard Strother
Southampton
SIR – I was sad to read that Haworth’s parish magazine may cease to exist. Despite our village church being joined with two others, each village still produces a parish magazine, eagerly awaited each month. Our village prints 400 each month, in simple A5 form, largely funded by advertisements from local businesses.
Veronica Bliss
Compton, Hampshire
SIR – The cover of the parish magazine here has been designed by David Juniper, illustrator of the legendary Led Zeppelin II album cover. That probably makes it a collectable item. The inside ticks all the right boxes, too.
Julie Juniper
Symondsbury, Dorset
SIR – The parish magazine of Bolton Priory, North Yorkshire, has been distributed since 1884. We still print 500, delivered free monthly to every household in the parish. We also have postal subscribers and we cover costs through advertisements.
We are developing a new website, while continuing the traditional printed version. As with most newspapers, we have found that “both” is better than “either or”.
Val Middleton
Judy Allen
Brenda Sheard
Ilkley, West Yorkshire

SIR – The tragedy at Dunblane in 1996 followed glaring errors in police procedures, according to Lord Cullen, chairman of the inquiry.
I am told that had the correct procedures been followed in applying firearms laws, which are quite adequate, then Thomas Hamilton would not have been granted a firearms certificate.
If this is the case, then handguns were banned for political reasons, rather than for public safety. Moreover, since then, criminal use of handguns has increased, creating a worse public-safety issue.
I do not believe that this question has been debated satisfactorily, and the official Dunblane papers cannot yet be viewed. Why not?
Derek Stimpson
Chairman, Historical Breechloading Smallarms Association
London WC1

SIR – Let’s not waste time on yet another review of flooding response. We have the comprehensive Pitt Review of the floods of 2007 already. Reviews are like public apologies, and only allow organisations to make the same mistakes in future.
Having been the county emergency planning officer for Oxfordshire, 1992-2008, I would say that what needs to be done now is: river dredging where appropriate, without concern for EU laws, then disbandment of the Environment Agency.
Local authorities should also have much stronger powers to ban house-building on flood plains without resilience measures, such as sacrificial basements, and providing houses with plastic skirting and lower walls, high-level sockets, moveable kitchen equipment and stone ground floors.
Insurance companies should be forced to repair to a better resilience standard, as in any new build, with local authorities having the duty to sign off such repairs and act as advocate for residents.
The Environment Agency should be broken up, and a new authority formed for all water matters. All environment and regulatory matters should be returned to central government. No quango should have both regulatory and delivery roles.
The Civil Contingencies Act, in place since 2004, must be applied. The Ministry of Defence should be included in the Act as a category responder, in order to give it a duty to offer help under the Act’s prevention section.
Penalties must be applied to all organisations involved in emergency response that fail the primary duty of the Act: to prevent incidents.
John Kelly
Oxford
SIR – During his visit to Somerset, Owen Paterson, the Environment Secretary, announced that water is being pumped away at “something like a million tons a day”. That is about a million cubic metres a day. Some 25 square miles are flooded, or about 60 million square metres. With pumping at this rate, the water should drop by less than two centimetres a day. It would be gone in a few months – if it doesn’t rain.
John Blagden
Milverton, Somerset
SIR – At Sockbridge, near Penrith, gravel deposited during the 2009 floods has diverted the river, is destroying fields and threatening our new bridge. The Environment Agency refuses to remove the gravel.
T C Bell
Sockbridge, Cumberland
SIR – The river problem is not so much sediment, though that has to be removed, but weed. This affects the whole water column. A clear river not only speeds flow but also lowers the water table, enabling land to absorb more water before flooding starts.
John Marshall
Horsington, Lincolnshire
SIR – Reports have suggested that the Environment Agency stopped dredging where it found voles on the river bank.
Was no thought given to the effect such a policy would have on badgers, a protected species, who live in underground setts, and have probably been drowned in their hundreds?
Neil Gillies
Orpington, Kent

Irish Times:

Sir, – I wish to give a tentative welcome to the new Child and Family Agency (Home News, January 31st).
Tentative, because I am disturbed to see psychology is not one of the core services provided by the agency. During my career in the area of the children’s health service as a psychologist, I repeatedly saw the value of a psychological perspective included at the earliest stages of many interventions with children, whether it was an infant who was not thriving because of maternal depression, a pre-schooler with anxiety and toileting problems, a school- aged child who was being bullied because of a learning disability, or a teenager who was depressed because of identity issues.
This psychological perspective is even more important when trying to understand and help young people who have been hurt by difficult or traumatic experiences often resulting in behavioural, cognitive and emotional problems which lead to placements in care.
I am not sure why psychologists are not part of the new agency. It has been many years since I worked directly in the children’s services, but I would appeal to all the stakeholders involved to come together to give our children the best holistic service possible. – Yours, etc,
Dr MAEVE MARTIN,
Ard Gaoithe,
Clonmel, Co Tipperary.
Sir, – The new Child and Family Agency has been set up to ensure that there will be better communication between State agencies and a standardised approach to care. Except at its inception, not all necessary services have been transferred.
Why have public health nursers and children’s mental health services not been included? If this new agency is, as the Taoiseach said in his speech, “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to reform child protection and welfare services, the omission of these crucial service is an opportunity wasted. The Irish Times should investigate why these essential services have not been brought under the authority of the new agency. – Yours, etc,
MIRIAM KELLEHER,
Woodpark,
Ballinteer, Dublin 16.

Sir, – January saw the replacement of the One Parent Family Tax Credit with the Single Person Child Carer Tax Credit. This new credit means only the parent who has the primary custody of the children now retains an additional tax credit. The impact is that de facto mostly single and/or separated fathers have lost a significant tax credit and consequently their pay packages are negatively impacted.
As a practising barrister I am already receiving queries in relation to the impact of this, largely unnoticed and unpublicised, change to the tax code. Clients are unable to meet their maintenance payments and this is inevitably going to lead to an increase in cases being entered into the court system to resolve disputes between parents. This in itself causes a financial difficulty in that maintenance orders which have been made in the Circuit Court must be reviewed by the Circuit Court with the obvious considerable cost implications for parties.
In addition, I believe that this regressive action will lead to fathers not being able to take up overnight access with their children as they will no longer be able to afford appropriate housing for them and for their children.
The Department of Justice published a briefing note on the proposed Children and Family Relationships Bill, where it is proposed that the “best interests of the child” be the “paramount consideration” when considering matters of custody, guardianship and access. It is hard to see where the best interests of children lie in a decision which will, for many fathers, push their already fragile financial positions to a place where they will no longer be able to afford appropriate housing.
Prior to the budget both Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Minister for Finance Michael Noonan stated that no person’s pay packet would be affected by the budget. This is patently untrue.
In the wake of the recent European Court of Human Right finding in the Louise O’Keeffe matter, it begs the question how of we as a society wish to treat all children and in particular how we wish to promote ongoing and healthy relationships with both parents. – Yours, etc,
CLARE O’DRISCOLL,
Barrister-at-Law,
The Hill,
Abbeyfeale,
Co Limerick.

osure of the population, even small risks to health from the proposed pylons may have a large impact on the population. Children are particularly vulnerable as their nervous and other physiological systems are still developing and they have a longer lifetime exposure. It is therefore of paramount importance that the risks to health are accurately known. It is clear that they are not.
There are many methodological problems in identifying adverse health effects from this type of radiation. In particular there are great difficulties in assessing exposure; and individuals are not generally aware of the levels to which they are exposed. As a result, epidemiologic studies to date have relied on rather crude proxies for exposure. It is therefore understandable that not all studies would show adverse health effects; and childhood leukaemia has been linked to such exposure by some studies, but not by others.
Further studies have found an increase in the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease in people living less than 600 metres from a power lines, while others have not.
Exposure to non-ionising radiation is governed internationally by guidelines issued in 1998, by the International Commission for Non-ionising Radiation Protection (ICNIRP). These guidelines are used by national governments, including the Irish Government, to regulate levels of exposure to this type of radiation. The ICNIRP guidelines acknowledge the difficulties in ascertaining exposure levels. However, since the current guidelines from ICNIRP were issued, two large studies have been undertaken, both of which raise concerns.
The EU REFLEX report involved 12 research groups in seven countries and reported its findings on radiation and health in 2004.
The researchers found an “intriguing pattern”, for example, intermittent exposure to radiation at a common electrical mains frequency appeared to be toxic to DNA in some types of human cells. Furthermore, the SCENHIR report, issued by the European Commission in 2009, is quite explicit, stating that its previous conclusion that ELF (extremely low frequency) magnetic fields are possibly carcinogenic, chiefly based on childhood leukaemia results, “is still valid”.
Two simple precautionary measures may be proposed.
First, that data on exposure to non-ionising radiation be included on all new entrants in the National Cancer Register. And a decision on the proposed pylons should be deferred until we know the risks to which we are exposing the population.
The tragedy of avoidable illness is only superseded by the knowledge that it could have been avoided. There is an onus on public health professionals to take the lead. This is the time for the precautionary principle to come into action. – Yours, etc,
Dr ELIZABETH CULLEN,
Irish Doctors’
Environmental Association,
Kilcullen, Co Kildare.

Sir, – Much has been said and written lately concerning the RTÉ drama Amber; the predominant opinion being one of anger and frustration towards the programme-makers at the lack of explanation at the end of the storyline.
As a member of a family living with the ongoing reality of a missing person, I find it regrettable that the general discourse was much less inclusive of the fact that there are many in our society living with a lack of resolution, but one that is real and not fictional.
In recent times there has been an effort – admirably so – to recognise and have compassion for those among us suffering with mental anguish. I would hope that a similar appreciation could be held for those of us living with the lack of closure that an inexplicably absent loved-one creates. – Yours, etc,
CHARLES FOLEY,
Eugene Street,
Dublin 8.

A chara, – Martyn Turner published a cartoon in The Irish Times on February 21st, 1995, entitled “Reconciliation in Northern Ireland . . . How it Will Work”’. Needless to say, in the cartoon it did not work. I have a faded copy on my noticeboard, but if readers don’t have access to the original cartoon they can always turn instead to the news about the reconciliation event at the Skainos Centre in east Belfast last Thursday night.
Patrick Magee played a part in the 1984 bombing that killed Jo Berry’s father. Jo Berry has forgiven Magee. The two of them spoke together at the reconciliation event.
Outside were loyalists – some of whom were not born in 1984 – who were prepared to use violence to stop the event. Four PSNI officers were hurt during the disorder. Many prominent people have tried to paint a rosy picture of life in Northern Ireland. However, sectarianism is endemic, many migrants are facing nightly racist attacks, there is no agreement on parades, flags or the past, and the entire notion of reconciliation has been rejected by unionism and loyalism. Still, Martyn Turner can save on a bit of ink. There is no need for him to revisit the topic; his assessment in the cartoon is as accurate today as it was in 1995. – Is mise,
TOMÁS
MAOILSEACHLAINN,

Sir – Do I detect the embryonic stage of an Irish solution to a perceived problem, the establishment of non-religion teaching schools under religious patronage? – Yours, etc.
JOSEPH MACKEY,
Glasson,
Athlone,
Co Westmeath.
Sir, – I think Ruairí Quinn’s proposal to reduce and soon eliminate the teaching of religion in schools is brilliant! With absolutely no moral education, future generations of Irish jail inmates will be able to read and understand Ulysses, while simultaneously counting the number of years they will be “inside”. – Yours, etc,
MARY O’MAHONY,
Bawnard West,
Midleton, Co Cork.
Sir, – With regard to Bill Bailey’s suggestion (January 28th) that increased religious education is some kind of panacea for the inherent dishonesty, corruption and general lack of integrity throughout the elite of the country, let us not forget that the Catholic Church had a moral monopoly in this State for much of the last century, a period during which our elites (including the Catholic church) hardly covered themselves in glory.
It is also worth noting that, according to the world ranking on corruption perception in 2012, the least corrupt country out of 174 was Denmark, a country which emerged as the third least religious country out of 143 in a 2009 Gallup poll on the importance of religion (18 per cent of Danes said religion was important; 80.5 per cent said it was unimportant), while the most corrupt country was Somalia – the fifth most religious country in the 2009 poll (98.5 per cent of Somalis said religion was important; 1.5 per cent said it was unimportant).
To contend that there is a correlation between religiosity and reduced dishonesty and corruption is not borne out by the evidence. – Yours, etc,
ROB SADLIER,
Stocking Avenue,
Rathfarnham,

Sat, Feb 1, 2014, 01:03
First published: Sat, Feb 1, 2014, 01:03

Sir, – I was saddened to learn of the death of the former journalist, broadcaster, sportsman and politician Ted Nealon. Stephen Collins (Home News, January 29th) summed up this exceptional man’s life well.
I was a trainee researcher with Telefís Éireann (RTÉ) in the late 1960s. In those pre-Google days it was often difficult to search for information, necessitating long, laborious hours perusing reference books and musty papers in the National Library. Early on I was advised that Ted was “the man to go to” if there was an urgent question that couldn’t be answered or needed to be verified.
He was always most helpful and agreeable, with an encyclopedic knowledge of Irish politics (and of many other subjects). It was not surprising that he eventually won a Dáil seat and was appointed a government minister by Garret Fitzgerald – the country could not afford to waste such a valuable fund of knowledge! Nealon’s Guide to the Dáil and Seanad was, of course, legendary and a must-read for political anoraks; but he also wrote Tales from the Dáil Bar, an entertaining collection of anecdotes. Contained within it is the story of the lifeboat man who, in 1985, rescued the leader of the opposition, Charles Haughey, when his yacht sank off Mizen Head. The young man then asked the taoiseach for a State funeral because he reckoned his father would kill him when he found out he had rescued Haughey.
Ted Nealon will be missed. Ní fheicfimid a leithéid arís. – Yours, etc,
JOHN O’BYRNE,
Mount Argus Court,
Harold’s Cross,

Sir, – On behalf of the members of Institutes of Technology Ireland I wish to express our deep sadness at the death of Seán Flynn.
Seán had a curious and questioning mind which was at the heart of the very many fine pieces he wrote for your newspaper. He also understood and explained the complexities (and sometimes contradictions) in Irish education with clarity and precision. Most importantly, he challenged us to be better, and that’s how it should be.
Education has lost a good friend and we send our deepest sympathies to Seán Flynn’s family and colleagues. – Yours, etc,
GERRY MURRAY,
Chief Executive,
Institutes of Technology
Ireland,
Fumbally Lane,

Sir, – “There are less people here today”, “Not thought to be life-threatening”, and “Loose cows on the road”; each a long-term favourite of our national broadcaster. – Yours, etc,
ALAN McMILLAN,
Orwell Park, Dublin 6W.
Sir, – I’m surprised nobody has mentioned “I mean”, which is regularly used to pepper conversations and interviews. I mean, it’s the new “You know”, you know. – Yours, etc,
NORMAN DAVIES,
Belton Terrace,
Bray, Co Wicklow.
Sir, – “Window of opportunity”. But does it have “transparent” glass? – Yours, etc,
DAVID RUDD,
Shinrone, Birr, Co Offaly.

Sir, – As someone with a modicum of legal knowledge, I am amazed at the Department of Education’s assertion that it had no responsibility whatever in the Louise O’Keeffe (and similar) cases. I’m even more amazed that our senior courts upheld that assertion (now overturned by the ECoHR). Responsibility cannot be devolved in such cases. Duties and tasks yes, but ultimate responsibility, no. Not entirely at least. On the other hand it seems to me, though I haven’t read the ECoHR findings, that others must also have had co-responsibility, not least the perpetrator of the abuse; but also the parish priest as “patron”, the board of management of the school and to a lesser extent the parents.
If compensation is to be paid, then will all those listed above, but most especially the church authorities, be asked to cough up, or are they to walk free, again? Or is it to be yet another burden on the unfortunate taxpayer. After all the government has no funds out of which to pay compensation except what we, the taxpayers give them! And we are not only entirely innocent of this crime, some of us are victims too! Yours, etc,
WILLIAM F (LIAM)
O’MAHONY,
Barrow Lane,
Graiguenamanagh,
Co Kilkenny.
Sir, – The news that Louise O’Keeffe has won her case against Ireland in the European Court of Human Rights finally rips away the last pretence of generations of Irish governments to evade responsibility for their negligence in protecting children in Irish schools. All Irish people should feel a sense of shame that it took a European court to lance this festering Irish boil.
The Irish legal system comes out of this whole affair more than slightly soiled. The courts always turned down Louise O’Keeffe’s case because they accepted the plea of the executive – even though the State paid for Irish education, it gave a free hand to the Roman Catholic Church to run the schools. It was a grubby quid pro quo – the church got control of the minds and lives of the young and did not make trouble for the State. The State paid up and everything was hunky-dory. Mistreatment? Cruelty? Sexual abuse? Not a chance. The church would not and could not countenance such a travesty. We all know what happened when that can of worms was opened in the past 20 years or so.
The amount of compensation payable now to the living victims of this abuse is almost immaterial. The State fighting to the last gasp when justice demanded a generous approach shows the real attitude of our governments. Money and political power counts – justice is just a word to be trotted out to impress people when the need arises, like an election. Otherwise it’s the always open-to-interpretation law that rules the day.
Tuesday, January 28th, 2014 was a great day for Louise O’Keeffe and the other abused children of this country. But it was a day of shame for successive Irish governments, the Irish legal system, the Roman Catholic Church and all those patriots, big and small, who heard no evil, saw no evil and, therefore, did not speak up when they should have.
If this State does not abide by the true principles of truth and justice this tragic type of events will happen again and again. When will we learn our lesson? – Yours, etc,
LIAM COOKE,
Greencastle Avenue,
Dublin 17.

Irish Independent:
* The landmark judgment in the case of Louise O’Keeffe reflects similar rulings by the European Court of Human Rights that give recognition to children’s rights. In the 1980s, a series of cases were adjudicated in Strasbourg concerning corporal punishment in British schools under Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights, which states that “no one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”. The same legal provision has now been applied successfully to include the sexual abuse of children. Although the O’Keeffe case dates back to the 1970s, it sends an important message to the Government today about its duty of care and the legal, as well as moral, obligation to not only protect minors but to put in place adequate safeguards.
Also in this section
We need to support our sporting heroes
Brian Hayes – a contract with Irish voters?
Letters: Quinn needs to educate himself on faiths
The ruling also signals a cultural shift in Ireland concerning the status of children. Added to the findings in the Murphy, Ryan and Cloynes inquiries into clerical abuse, there is now clear validation that children have a right to be taught in a safe environment and that their physical integrity must be respected by teachers.
This is in keeping with developments elsewhere such as Scandinavia, which has been particularly vigorous in promoting child welfare and challenging inappropriate adult authority.
The implications of this judicial review are that, as a signatory to the European Convention, the Irish State and particularly the Department of Education will need to raise its game to ensure the public feels confident that existing and future generations of children are protected within the educational system.
MARIE PARKER-JENKINS
PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF LIMERICK
TOTALLY OVERCOME
* Pete Seeger inspired many, but you always knew it was a lost cause when people started singing “We shall overcome”.
DR JOHN DOHERTY
GAOTH DOBHAIR, CO DONEGAL
TRANSITION PENSION
* I feel compelled to write to support Frank Cummins (Letters, January 28) regarding the abolition of the Transition Pension.
The fact that workers whose contract of employment states that they have to retire at 65 and then make themselves available for work to claim Job Seekers Benefit is quite frankly absurd. I also think it is grossly unfair that a person who retired on December 31, 2013 at age 65 is entitled to claim the Transition Pension but a person retiring a couple of days later at the same age cannot.
Then there is the situation where a person who would have qualified for a pro-rata Transition Pension – having worked initially in the private sector for a number of years and then entering public sector employment pre-1995 and paying a modified stamp – ends up having no entitlement to the Job Seekers Benefit. Some of these would be lower-paid public service workers, who would not have enough service to qualify for a full pension and who would have depended on the Transition Pension to make up the shortfall.
I have heard very little from our public representatives, trade unions and bodies representing pensioners on this issue, particularly when you consider that the Job Seekers Benefit is almost €50 euro less than the Transition Pension and the retirement age is set to rise in the coming years.
TONY WALSH
FINGLAS WEST, DUBLIN 11
BETTER USE OF BUS LANES
* While trying to get to St Vincent’s hospital last Monday for a breast scan, it took me two-and-a-half hours for a journey that would normally take an hour. While in a little panic, I saw a clear bus lane ahead and wrongly decided to use it. A garda pulled me in and read me the law. He was right. Thankfully, his human heart understood my distress and allowed me to continue my journey.
On returning from the hospital I realised the amount of time Irish people sit in traffic while trying to get to hospital appointments.
A simple solution: when the hospital sends out an appointment for a specialist treatment, they issue a blue cross with the date inscribed which would be placed on the windscreen on the day of travel, which would allow the patient to use bus lanes.
Let the NRA, the HSE and the gardai get together and put some humanity back into our country.
B O’NEILL
ADDRESS WITH EDITOR
IF YOU THINK I’M SIXTY
* Reading Emmanuel Kehoe’s reflections on being in one’s 60s, it might come as a consolation to know that he (and indeed the undersigned) are both younger than Rod Stewart. . . Let’s rock on so!
TOM GILSENAN
BEAUMONT, DUBLIN 9
REMARKABLE ‘REACTION’
* Paddy O’Brien, in a recent letter, wrote: “God exists not in heaven but in the mind of man; the near-death experience. . . is nothing more than a chemical reaction in the brain.”
I can indeed accept this theory. But perhaps Paddy could explain how a group of people could be affected by my brain chemicals in June 2004.
A roof I was on collapsed and I fell 12 feet to the ground. My head bounced at least three times. I was in a different place metaphysically and assumed I was dead. I thanked my Creator for my life and said I would accept His/Her decision.
As I came to, I heard a voice: “Get on with your life.”
This was all in a matter of seconds. I checked my reflexes as I waited for the ambulance to arrive. I walked on to the lowered stretcher. After being placed in the ambulance, the paramedic began to lower the back of the stretcher. I heard a clicking noise in my neck. The pain was so intense I asked the paramedic to stop lowering. His response: “I have to bring you into casualty lying down.” After a short discussion using some Irish words, he desisted.
In the scanner it was discovered I had severely fractured my C1 and C2 vertebrae (the hangman’s noose), and had also suffered a 5cm separation of the brain from the skull, along with numerous skull and facial fractures.
I recovered 100pc. The surgeon told me my neck was hanging by a thread and that if the paramedic had ignored my request I would have died in the ambulance. He also told me I had suffered two injuries, each of which, to all intents and purposes, should have been fatal.
For the record, Paddy, I don’t believe in God; rather I believe Him/Her.
DECLAN FOLEY
BERWICK, VICTORIA
CARBON MONOXIDE HELP
* The story of Susan O’Connell and her daughter Shauna, who suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning in their Carrigaline home (‘”Sixth sense” mum flees from gas leak flat with daughter’, October 23), serves as a stark reminder about the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning.
According to the Department of Health, more than 40 people die from carbon monoxide poisoning each year, and thousands more are treated in hospital. It is likely many more victims go unrecognised because the early symptoms can easily be mistaken for flu or food poisoning.
The only way to fully protect yourself and your family is to have an audible alarm. They are widely available from any good DIY store.
Carbon monoxide has no smell, taste or colour, meaning it is easily inhaled without a victim realising. It is produced, most commonly, when a household fuel-burning appliance such as a boiler or cooker is installed incorrectly or poorly maintained. It can also build up when flues, chimneys or vents are blocked.
For more information, visit http://www.co-bealarmed.co.uk
LAWRENCE SLADE,
CAMPAIGN MANAGER,
CARBON MONOXIDE: BE ALARMED!
77 KINGSWAY, LONDON

2 February 2014 Rest
I go all the way around the park listening to the Navy Lark. Our heroes are in trouble, again. There is a new Wren and Heather will take a great delight inb clobbering poor old Leslie for a week if he take and interest in her, will he?   Priceless.
Tidy and clean up and move endless things down stairs
Scrabble today Mary wins, just.  and get under 400, Perhaps I will win tomorrow.

Obituary:

Cyril Rosen, who has died aged 86, founded the British branch of the International Primate Protection League in 1977, and served as an expert witness in a landmark court case against the Royal College of Surgeons for animal cruelty.
At the time that Rosen began his work with IPPL-UK, monkeys were generally seen as amusing distractions, usually found in cramped and unstimulating quarters in dilapidated zoos and private homes. For Rosen, however, the relationship between man and primate had far greater, and far more personal, significance. In the early 1960s, in response to a newspaper advertisement, he had rescued and nursed back to health a baby West African Mona monkey, which he named Sousa.
Before long they were inseparable, the primate travelling into work with Rosen on the Northern Line every morning. En route Sousa proved an adept pickpocket, much to the consternation of staff and fellow passengers. At the office Sousa had a large cage in the main showroom and became a valued team-member, with Rosen ghosting a stream of lively correspondence between “Mr da Monk Esq” and various government officials. “Mr da Monk” was even offered an American Express card, and he granted an interview with the Today programme, in which Rosen spoke on his behalf.

While he did not advocate keeping primates as pets (nor encourage others to follow Sousa’s example on the London Underground), Rosen took the opportunity to direct public attention towards the many animals smuggled across borders each year, held in illegal zoos or mistreated by inexpert handlers. For a time he served as trustee and secretary of the now-defunct British Monkey Owners’ Society and helped to advise on the establishment of primate sanctuaries at home and overseas, before founding IPPL-UK, four years after the establishment of its American counterpart in 1973.
In his official capacity as IPPL’s British representative, Rosen played a key professional and financial role in numerous campaigns over the next three decades, lobbying against the use of chimpanzees in tourist attractions and against the bush meat trade, as well as helping to train and place field workers with overseas rescue operations and in newly-founded animal sanctuaries.
He also gave evidence to parliamentary committees on the role of chimpanzees in medical research and served as an expert witness in a landmark 1985 court case against the Royal College of Surgeons, following a raid on the establishment’s research laboratories by an animal activist group. The group had found five monkeys in poorly ventilated cages, one of whom – named Mone – eventually died of dehydration. Though the RCS was found guilty of undue cruelty in
Mone’s case and fined £250, the conviction was overturned on appeal.
Rosen’s interests were not limited to the IPPL, and towards the end of the 1970s he hit on the idea of building Britain’s first “Primatarium”, an audio-visual exhibition to raise awareness of environmental issues. For this purpose he acquired a large building in King’s Cross, formerly an adult cinema which doubled as a rock venue.
The stalls were restructured to resemble a forest and the front rail was cloaked in aluminium leaves, while two pumps to one side created an indoor waterfall. “We also had speakers in the ceiling that re-created the sound of a tropical storm,” Rosen recalled. “I remember seeing people pulling up their coat collars expecting a downpour.”
Despite considerable interest from local schools, however, the project proved too ambitious to maintain, folding after 18 months. Later the site of the Primatarium housed the Scala cinema, which opened its doors in 1981. The first film to be screened there was King Kong.
Cyril Rosen was born in London on February 20 1927, growing up in Highbury with five siblings and a large collection of pets, including dogs, cats, ducks, geese and chickens. It was, he later claimed, the sight of a family chicken being roasted and presented on the dinner table one Sunday lunch that prompted his decision to become a lifelong vegetarian. A bright student who often read so far in advance of the class that he often felt justified in playing truant, he left school on the outbreak of war, aged 12, in order to work at his father’s dental trading business, Nesor (Rosen backwards) .
As a pacifist, Cyril refused conscription into the Army and subsequently served a jail term, returning to work at Nesor with his brother Len upon release. In 1949 he published a work on casting using the lost wax process, and the Nesor Centrifugal Casting Machine became an industry standard. Under the direction of the two brothers Nesor assumed a key role in the modernisation of British dental equipment during the 1960s, developing into one of the leading firms behind what became the British Dental Trade Association (recently renamed the British Dental Industry Association).
Following the death of his wife, Cyril Rosen moved, in 2006, to the Isle of Man, and was forced to curtail his full-time involvement with the IPPL. (The UK branch of the charity is now in the process of closing down.)
Much of his time was dedicated to the restoration of Balcony House in Castletown, formerly the residence of Nelson’s helmsman, Captain Quilliam, who served in Victory at Trafalgar. Hearing that the house was due for demolition, Rosen purchased it and had it rebuilt to the original design, furnishing it with carefully researched period furniture and pictures. Upon its completion he took great pleasure in sitting in the restored library .
In 2007 he was presented with the Primate Society of Great Britain’s Special Conservation Medal, for his contribution to Primatology — the second person to win the award after Jane Goodall, 11 years previously. For many years he was a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, and would often compare notes with contemporaries such as Patrick Moore. He was also a dedicated show jumper, riding in competitions with his favourite horse, Tarla.
Cyril Rosen’s wife, Gina, predeceased him in 2001.
Cyril Rosen, born February 20 1927, died December 21 2013

Guardian:
Read Victoria Coren Mitchell’s column about my “evil” proposals and you would think that they lie somewhere between the ruminations of Joseph Goebbels and Hendrik Verwoerd (“State school fees? That’s evil”, Comment). In the interests of accuracy, it is important to state what I was saying. Britain’s stagnating social mobility is my concern and I was proposing that a quarter of the places at top state schools and independent schools be reserved for the bottom quartile, who perform least well in schools today.
To combat the stranglehold that the better-off have at top state schools, and to bring fresh money into the state sector, I proposed that those who could very well afford to pay make graduated contributions, while still holding to the principle of free state education for all, with even the richest paying nothing at middle- and lesser-ranking state schools. All independent schools should sponsor academies as partners and state schools should offer the same richness of education that independent schools offer. It may well be that your readers still want to condemn me, but now they can do so knowing what it is that I am proposing.
Anthony Seldon
Crowthorne
West Berkshire
Germaine Greer’s inspiring role
The article “Germaine Greer at 75. What did her landmark book do for me?” (Focus) fails to do justice to Greer’s ideas. As an example, Anna Holmes states that Greer is “horribly anaemic on abortion”. In 1972, Germaine Greer was writing in the Sunday Times in support of a woman’s right to choose. She was bombarded with hate mail.
What riles some, I’d guess, is that she’s never been confined to commitment to a single issue but has seen her feminism as linked to the struggles of nurses, teachers, the revolution in Cuba, the rights of Australian Aborigines and a range of others. Her anti-reformism has lost her many friends, but “feminism is a revolutionary movement and cannot reasonably expect to find its interests served by governments which have come to power in the traditional masculine ways” (1975). If the men and women coming to fight for equality over again can embrace her rage and her iconoclasm, they will find in her writings a visceral inspiration, even if they find much with which they might disagree.
Nick Moss
London NW10
The productivity paradox
Will Hutton has noted that half of the recent jobs growth is down to redundant workers appearing as “sole traders”, no doubt propelled in part by the rhetoric against unemployed people, as well as by firms’ outsourcing (“How much can we believe in the Osborne recovery?”, Comment). But at the same time, we are bombarded with accounts of the “productivity puzzle” facing the UK: why we are not seeing the expected productivity growth.
It is plausible that the two phenomena are related. Conventional analysis has it that one of the factors in productivity increase is that less productive firms are being driven out while more productive firms grow. But right now we have the emergence of lots of sole traders, many in sectors where real output is hard to assess. Result: a factor reducing the overall productivity of the UK economy. Thus the finger-pointing at “unproductive” services and suggestions that established firms are featherbedding workers.
Statistical analysis should be able to show whether and how fairly this accounts for the apparent paradox.
Ian Miles
Professor of technological innovation and social change
Manchester Business School
University of Manchester
E-cigarettes are harmful
I am pleased that ministers are seeking a ban on e-cigarette sales to children (“Bid to ban e-cigarette sales to teens”, News). In fact, a ban on sales to children is not going far enough. Nicotine is a highly addictive substance and the only rational use of e-cigarettes is as part of a programme for smoking cessation. When I practised as a community pharmacist, it was very noticeable that nicotine replacement products that provided the user with a nicotine “hit” were far harder to stop using than, for example, patches. The latter give a steady level of nicotine, thus breaking the cycle of cravings.
Brian Curwain
Christchurch
Dorset
Old boys stick together
Sean O’Hagan warns that the middle classes increasingly dominate popular culture (“A working-class hero is something to be… but when it comes to the arts, being posh is the key to success”, In Focus). The same is true for women and workers from ethnic minority backgrounds. O’Hagan says posh schools act as gatekeepers and working-class artists can’t afford practice spaces. True, but the real entry barriers for female, working-class and ethnic-minority workers are the proverbial old boys’ networks. An oversupply of freelancers fight for contracts and fame. Employers and critics overcome that by recruiting and praising those whom they know and whom their mates know – from school, from home, from the dinner party.
Dr Doris Ruth Eikhof
Glasgow

Tony Blair is wrong (“Religious difference, not ideology, will fuel this century’s epic battles”, Comment). As the anthropologist Akbar S Ahmed, a former Pakistani political agent and now at American University in Washington, DC, shows in his excellent recent book The Thistle and the Drone (Brookings Institution, 2013), which looks at 40 case studies of violent conflicts around the world today, the real cause is deeper. It is the clash of social and economic modernisation and globalisation with traditional, localised tribal cultures – with their codes of honour and revenge.
The push for modernisation does not merely derive from the west or the north, but also from central governments in “peripheral” regions of the world, exemplars being Musharraf’s Pakistan, Yemen and the Rohingya of Burma. In this broader context, religion is secondary, co-opted in localised versions to justify resistance struggles in rural, isolated, often mountainous regions otherwise difficult to access and to absorb into a globalising world.
These conflicts are limited in geographical scope and are best dealt with by negotiating with tribal hierarchies and compromising with demands for local autonomy.
Philip G Cerny
Professor emeritus of politics and global affairs
University of Manchester and Rutgers University, New Jersey
York
Can this Tony Blair who writes about religion as being at the root of future wars be the same Tony Blair who, as prime minister, promoted faith schools?
For many, this early segregation seems the surest way to foster the religious intolerance he now decries – or is it only religions other than his own Roman Catholicism that he sees as extremist?
Jean Glasberg
Cambridge
According to the economist Ben Friedman, whenever the benefits of economic growth are not enjoyed by a broad range of the population, democratic values such as tolerance tend to wane. If this is so, the best way of reducing the potential for abuses of religious power is also to reduce the potential for abuse of political power, military power and market power.
Similarly, to reduce the risk of religious extremism, we might seek to reduce extremism in poverty and wealth.
Kevin Albertson
Manchester Metropolitan University
Manchester
Wouldn’t it be comforting if we could explain the “ghastly roll call of terror attacks in the obvious places” on religious extremism? It would, after all, allow us to lay the blame fairly and squarely on those “obvious places” and look to a “genuine global strategy”based on the values of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation in collaboration with the Harvard Divinity School.
If that didn’t work, then we could always impose our values through the supposedly legitimate use of force (or, more accurately, violence).
We have, of course, been here before, although Blair didn’t quite put it like that when he led the UK into a disastrous war in Iraq.
Again, Blair is hiding the real politics of western domination behind the mask of benign tolerance.
But if the “ghastly roll call” is ever to end, it will require an honest appraisal of how the real politics failed and of how we need a new politics, a politics that acknowledges the immensity of global and regional inequalities and the part that the political elite have played in sustaining and promoting those inequalities.
Jon Nixon
Senior research fellow
Hong Kong Institute of Education
Hong Kong
The fact that Tony Blair is using a faith-based institution to resolve problems caused by people motivated by faith rather than reason is ironic at best.
Jim Pettman
Anglais-Juillac
France

Independent:

There was one significant omission from Archie Bland’s excellent article on sexism in parliament (“Where are all the women?”, 26 January), and that was the electoral system, which is inimical to women’s representation in the House of Commons. Bland refers to the problem of safe seats, but does not draw the obvious conclusion that this is a consequence of single-member constituencies. If we retain the present electoral system, the only pragmatic solution is to impose all-women short-lists for constituency parties to choose from, but this has serious democratic and political defects.
It only requires multi-member constituencies, with three or four MPs to be elected under a preferential voting system – where the elector votes one, two, three, etc – with the consequent need to present a broad-based team of candidates, to transform the opportunities for women candidates.
Michael Meadowcroft
Leeds, West Yorkshire
Everyone, rightly, condemns “benefits cheats”. However, if Alan Strong’s allegations are substantiated (“Social landlords cheated by repair firm, tribunal hears”, 26 January), are not these companies even bigger “benefits cheats” – for they, too, are robbing the public purse? Why are they not being prosecuted?
Why do councils (and housing associations) place contracts with these national companies rather than with local tradesmen? How can it be cheaper, or more cost-effective, to pay a large company, that owns smaller companies, who sub-contract out the actual work to (usually) local traders?
Malcolm Morrison
Swindon, Wiltshire
While it is more likely than not that Ed Miliband will be prime minister in 2015, he could, as John Rentoul notes, lose and so it is reasonable to look at who his successor might be (26 January). However, probably the more pressing political question is who will be the next leader of the Tories and of the Lib Dems in the event that they fail to win next year. I wonder if Rentoul has some thoughts on this, even though I suspect he believes a Labour defeat to be certain.
Keith Flett
London N17
Jane Merrick is right to say that pensioners’ benefits should be axed (26 January). The retirement age is going up so why are we paying for 60-year-olds to travel to work and to heat their homes when they are out all day? Surely state benefits should, like work pensions, start on the day of retirement.
Gillian Cook
via email
Jane Merrick (26 January) says that she can’t wait for there to be a female party leader so she can write about her husband. I well remember that we had a female party leader from 1974 to 1990 and the intrusive amount of speculative comment, by journalists, about dear Denis. He even took to writing a column for Private Eye to explain himself.
John Buckman
Swansea
Having castigated school-leavers as being illiterate and innumerate, Janet Street-Porter then goes on to say that high heels and so on aren’t relevant (26 January). I agree with both statements.
But to say that high heels are guilty of “rending [women] fragile and vulnerable”? Really Janet? They might rend the ligaments of the foot, but surely it’s rendering? Perhaps one of your well-heeled, poorly paid runners could have spotted this.
Jack Hughes
Brixham, Devon
I used to smoke in the car when on a long journey with my window down thinking it was OK. But I am sure my smoking near my eldest son contributed to him having asthma and his frequent bad chests he suffers to this day; even though he is in his thirties and has never smoked.
I agree smoking should be banned inside vehicles with children in, or any other person who doesn’t want to breathe in second-hand smoke.
I wish I’d never smoked near my children and I will regret the damage I have done to their lungs for the rest of my life.
Simon Icke
Buckinghamshire via email

Times:

Relocated Scots’ yes vote for the United Kingdom
I WAS very pleased to see that there could be a legal challenge over the exclusion from the independence referendum of Scots living outside their homeland (“Expat Scots to sue over exclusion from referendum”, News, last week). However, we Scots who are in this position are not expatriates as we reside within the country of which we have been citizens since birth — the United Kingdom.
When my father moved from Scotland to England it was because he was posted to work at Bletchley Park, where his endeavours were to benefit Britain as a whole. During his career he regarded himself as a UK public servant, and would have been saddened to be described as an expatriate. In my civil service career I too always thought of myself as working for the UK.
It is possible to be proud to be a Scot, but to regard one’s country as the UK. That is why Alex Salmond doesn’t want us to have our say in the referendum — he knows what the answer would be.
Tricia Smith, Leyburn, North Yorkshire
Spoilt ballot
The failure of Scots living in the rest of the UK to receive a vote in the referendum lies not just with the Scottish National party and the Scottish government but with the prime minister, the coalition and every party in parliament, all of whom were happy to restrict the vote to those registered in Scotland.
If Cameron had allowed all Scots in the UK to have a vote, or allowed “devo max” as a second option on the ballot paper, independence would not stand a chance.
Professor Alan Sked, London School of Economics, London WC2
No contest
As an expat Scot, born and raised in Glasgow and now living — via France and Luxembourg — in West Sussex, I disagree with those who think we should be given a vote in the referendum. The policy of giving the vote to those living in and contributing financially and socially to Scotland seems both practical and fair.
It may mean that 1.15m expat Scots don’t get a vote, but a million English and other incomers living in Scotland and making contributions to the community will have their say. There seems to be an assumption that most expat Scots would vote no. I don’t think this is the case necessarily.
Paul McBride, Henfield, West Sussex
Soldiers’ rights
My Royal Marine son is in married quarters in Plymouth after service abroad and lately in Arbroath. When he told me he and his wife could not vote in the referendum I made inquiries and found that this was not the case. Gordon Brown MP proved helpful and provided the necessary information. It is a matter of great importance for the future of the UK military that its members are aware of this.
Reverend Bill Shackleton, Glasgow

Get ‘experts’ out of our classrooms
WHEN, oh when, are we going to realise that education is far too important to be left to the likes of self-confessed policy wonks and strategists, academics turned entrepreneurs and former national newspaper leader writers turned education experts who, I’ll wager, have never between them put in an honest shift in front of a 28-strong group of restless 14-year-olds on a sullen, wet Friday afternoon in deepest, darkest January (“Schools watchdog ‘spitting blood’”, News, last week).
Jon Cooksey, Stratford-upon-Avon
Trading places
In 2012 the UK slipped four places in science to rank 20th out of 65 nations and regions taking part in exams administered by the Organisation for Economic Co- operation and Development.
In maths and reading the UK gained two places to reach 26th and 23rd overall. The test results for Britain show little difference in maths, English and science for recent years. Sir Michael Wilshaw claims that Ofsted “has done more to raise standards in 21 years of existence than any other organisation”.
After 21 years I would have expected us to be at the top of the league tables.
Howard Elliot, Head of science (retired), Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire
An inspector calls
Criticism of Ofsted is justified not because it is too left or right but because its very nature stifles innovation. The pedagogy of most state schools is determined by the ever-changing requirements of the inspectorate. Every aspect of in-service training is dedicated to the production of an Ofsted-friendly lesson.
And when an inspection is imminent, teachers are given tick lists of what is deemed to be Ofsted best practice.
Stan Labovitch, Windsor
One size fits all
I don’t usually share the concerns of rightwingers when they castigate the failings of the state education system but I do have some sympathy with their view that free schools and academies should not be subject to an inspection regime that doesn’t always reflect their particular aims and aspirations. Free schools do, however, need to be accountable for the extent to which they are achieving their aims.
Professor Colin Richards, Former inspector, Spark Bridge, Cumbria
Self-centred
Rod Liddle concurs with the right-of-centre think tank Civitas that Ofsted is devoted to a “child-centred” model from the 1960s but this could not be further from the truth (“Whoever taught our teachers is the dunce to expel”, Comment, last week).
Ofsted’s model is entirely results-centred and league-table-centred, and leaves the poor child far from the centre. The “forlorn ideology” of Liddle’s apparent nightmares has long been abandoned.
I was one of the misguided leftie teachers trained (at a proper vocational college in London, as it happens ) in the 1960s and I remember the teacher trainers from other countries flocking to see the work in our brilliant schools: they came from Europe, America and the Far East. Now we are supposedly lagging behind all of them.
I presume Liddle recognises the irony of his wish to “deal with the cultural awareness” of his own children: he wants them to be “insular, sociopathic and bigoted, just as I was at their age”. At their age — and now, Rod.
Richard Bristowe, Market Harborough, Leicestershire
Political lesson
Liddle highlights much that is wrong with our education system, but he could have gone further. We had education, even up to tertiary level, long before we had parliamentary democracy, so there is a strong case for taking politics entirely out of the teaching profession.
Anthony Phillips, Salisbury, Wiltshire
Private equity
In suggesting that private schools be heavily taxed to subsidise the state system (“State schools reap rewards of middle-class pupils”, Letters, last week) your correspondent Marianna Wells ignores the fact that, as it is estimated to cost more than £1,600 a year to put a child through state education, the parents of every privately educated pupil are already subsidising that system.
Alan J Miller, Edgware, London

Lift restrictions on prostate cancer drug
I WAS diagnosed with prostate cancer recently. Luckily it was treatable and I am doing well, but for 10,000 men every year in Britain the outcome is fatal. One man every hour dies from prostate cancer in the UK.
That’s why I have signed up to Prostate Cancer UK’s campaign Men United v Prostate Cancer. We must use our voices to campaign for more research funding, better diagnosis, better treatments and better education about men’s rights. We have first to try to reverse the recent illogical decision by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) to restrict access to a life-extending prostate cancer drug — enzalutamide. This drug is available to men in Scotland without the same restrictions, and we must ensure it’s made equally available throughout the UK.
Every day I wake up I know that I’m lucky to be here. But I want luck to be left out of the equation. Men United aims to save lives and I am delighted to be leading this campaign.
Sir Michael Parkinson, prostatecanceruk.org/challengenice

All systems go for Virgin Galactic lift-off
TOM BOWER’S claims in extracts from his new book on Richard Branson that Virgin Galactic has “no licence” and “no rocket” to go to space (“Lost in space” and “The sun lizard fading into exile”, News Review, last week) misrepresent the facts and use old information to create a story. Indeed the recent progress of the Galactic programme, including the latest rocket-powered flight, renders Bower’s main claims false. The company’s rocket motor has burnt for the full duration and thrust multiple times, and the company released video footage of one such test in December. Bower also fails to note that the team has an experimental permit from the Federal Aviation Administration for the test flight programme phase.
The company applied for a commercial licence in 2013 as planned and to coincide with the latter stages of the test- flight programme. It expects to receive that licence well in advance of commercial service later in 2014.
Most seriously, Bower attempts to cast doubt on Virgin Galactic’s absolute commitment to safety, particularly by suggesting that any potential lessons that could have been learnt by the tragic 2007 industrial accident at Scaled Composites were somehow brushed under the carpet. The opposite is true. The company supported the full independent inquiry and accepted all the resulting recommendations in terms of system redesign along with their costs and time implications. The end result is a system that will be significantly safer.
Bower also claims that Richard no longer owns any of the principal Virgin businesses and that the company has ceased to innovate. Among others, Virgin Galactic is majority-owned by Richard and it certainly innovates. Richard’s empire has not shrunk, and his work, through his foundation and companies, is creating a real impact.
George Whitesides, Chief Executive, Virgin Galactic
Points
Non-appliance of science
The omission of a science category from Debrett’s list highlights that institution’s view of society (“Britain’s 500 most influential”, News Review, last week). I commend the inclusion of Baroness Greenfield, but Lord May and Sir John Beddington (both former government chief scientific advisers) cannot be overlooked. Within the realm of science broadcasting one would hope that Professors Brian Cox and Jim Al-Khalili, and — dare I say — Dara O Briain, will have a greater influence on the nation’s future than the drivel epitomised by Chris Evans.
Stephen Lockwood, Colwyn Bay, Clwyd
Mind the migrant care gap
While confusion over the healthcare entitlement of migrants continues, our doctors pick up the pieces (“Hospitals cheat NHS over health tourists”, News, last week). Our London clinic has been inundated with patients who have been refused care by the NHS — including children and pregnant, trafficked women — all of whom live here and are not tourists. Without a coherent policy we face deploying mobile clinics to Britain’s streets to plug healthcare gaps — resources that arguably would be better spent in Syria.
Leigh Daynes, Doctors of the World UK
Out of office message
The Labour party was founded to represent workers’ interests (“Labour goes back to the bad old days”, Editorial, last week) but until it unshackles itself from a narrow and divisive commitment to only one of the four factors of production — land, labour, capital and enterprise — it will remain a party of the past and be unsuitable for office.
Bernard Kingston, Biddenden, Kent
Birthdays
Christie Brinkley, model, 60; Ken Bruce, DJ, 63; Sir Andrew Davis, conductor, 70; Andy Fordham, darts player, 52;Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, former president of France, 88; James Hickman, swimmer, 38; Sir David Jason, actor, 74; Graham Nash, musician, 72; Libby Purves, broadcaster, 64; Shakira, singer, 37
Anniversaries
1709 Alexander Selkirk is rescued after being marooned on a Pacific island for more than four years; 1882 birth of James Joyce, author; 1971 Idi Amin declares himself president of Uganda after a coup; 1979 the Sex Pistols’ Sid Vicious dies; 1990 President FW de Klerk lifts a ban on the ANC and vows to free Nelson Mandela

Corrections and clarifications
In Databank’s Biggest Share Movements (Business, last week) a fall in Tullett Prebon’s share price was attributed to a “trading scandal”. This was incorrect and we apologise for the mistake.

Telegraph:

SIR – After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the economies of the newly independent non-Russian republics were in disarray, not least because they still used the rouble as their national currency.
Monetary policy was now being made by the new Bank of Russia (instead of the defunct state bank of the Soviet Union) purely for the purpose of managing the Russian economy and without reference to the needs of the other republics.
Within a few years each country had introduced its own currency and each had its own central bank.
If the Scottish National Party wants genuine independence, it should state its intention to use the pound on a temporary basis until it has set up a new Central Bank of Scotland, which would be responsible for managing a new Scottish currency, conducting monetary policy in Scotland, and regulating the Scottish banking sector.
Toby Wight
London W3
SIR – According to the International Code of Flag Signals, a white cross on a blue background (letter M) signifies “My vessel is stopped and making no way through the water.” Will this be prophetic for the Scottish economy if the saltire is flown after independence?
S G Bowles
Mulbarton, Norfolk
Helping boys succeed
SIR – For many years girls have outperformed boys at GCSE and A-level. Now we hear that more girls than boys apply for and enter university (report, January 31). Competitive courses such as medicine and law also now have a clear female majority.
We have a minister for women. What is needed instead is a minister for boys.
Anthony Whitehead
Bristol
Supermarket waste
SIR – Jim White (Comment, January 31) wrote about three men charged with stealing food dumped by a supermarket.
He did not mention that in law anything dumped or abandoned by its owner is res abandonata, ownerless and therefore incapable of being stolen.
Perhaps the Crown Prosecution Service dropped the case because it recognised that the police had no case.
Norman Baker
Tonbridge, Kent
SIR – Do government regulations prevent farmers from collecting waste supermarket food? It is criminal to pour bleach on it and destroy its value as fodder.
George K McMillan
Perth
Second-paw smoke
SIR – I support Labour’s plan to outlaw smoking in cars carrying children, but could this not be extended to cover cars carrying dogs?
I often see both the driver and the front-seat passenger puffing away, seemingly oblivious to the harm being done to the dog accompanying them.
Keith Edwards
Barrowby, Lincolnshire
Oiling my rage
SIR – On the subject of wrap rage, I challenge anyone to open a bottle of Tesco’s extra virgin olive oil without a knife or a screwdriver.
James Logan
Portstewart, Co Londonderry
Sex in the classroom
SIR – If the campaigners who call for “transparent” sex education in schools had made it clear that sex should be viewed within the framework of a moral background, then their ideas would be more acceptable.
Central in helping children to search for purpose in their lives is a discussion of the process of moral development. This covers a wide area involving psychology, sociology, ethics and religion. It can help the child to become aware of the influences that shape his moral attitudes, and irrational prejudices and immature attitudes may be exposed.
This all aids the development of the moral maturity that is the hallmark of responsible citizenship in a democracy.
Where does Lord Nash, the education minister, expect to find the teachers qualified to undertake this huge task?
John Figg
Weymouth, Dorset
One life saved
SIR – I must thank A N Wilson (“Britain has always provided a haven for refugees”) for pointing out how lucky we are to live in this country, come rain or shine.
My 81-year-old mother is one of those fortunate thousands of Jewish children who arrived from Austria, bewildered, unable to speak a word of English and clutching a suitcase from which for months she refused to be parted. Her passport was stamped J for Juden and gave her name as Sara, for, although her name is Nita, all Jewish girls were called Sara by the Nazis.
I thank the Ponsonby family, who took her in with their children, who cared for her and educated her, and brought her up in their English Christian family, but never wanted her to stop being proud of her Jewish heritage.
I thank Britain for letting my mother and the other little children embark to these shores, thus allowing me to be born, and to have four wonderful children.
Mia Woodford
Petworth, West Sussex
Hot room, cold room
SIR– I can sympathise with Judith Woods, as I too have a husband who never feels the cold.
Installing underfloor heating with individual room thermostats has probably saved our marriage, but rather limits conversation during the winter months.
Kirsty Blunt
Sedgeford, Norfolk
Film music on Radio 3 was the last straw
SIR – Classical music lovers have long been poorly served by the BBC because of the lengthy periods of other programming on Radio 3 (Letters, January 31).
The recent changes, such as the introduction of film music, make a bad situation worse. Why impose this genre on Radio 3 listeners when there are more appropriate BBC stations?
Trying to cater for multiple tastes on a single station (and emulating a commercial competitor to boot) risks satisfying no one.
In France, Radio Classique and France Musique both offer a classical repertoire. Given Britain’s tradition of composing, playing and listening to classical music, we deserve something similar. Is Tony Hall, director-general of the BBC, listening?
David Gosman
London SW19
SIR – Someone who sees no use for a freezer (Letters, January 31) either has someone to cook for him or is not much of a home-maker.
We have two freezers at home – one upright model and a chest version. Both contain lots of made-in-advance home-made savoury dishes, all ready for pulling out the night before to enjoy for dinner the following evening.
I work full-time, so don’t have time to cook from scratch on the night. Having a freezer also means that I only need to shop at our local supermarket one day a week. The home-freezers among us also like to freeze seasonal produce, such as summer fruits.
I wouldn’t be without my freezer for the world.
Michele Platman
Birmingham
Related Articles
The floods followed neglect of agricultural land through deliberate policy
01 Feb 2014
SIR – For us home-bakers, the freezer is essential. Batches of biscuits, slices of home-baked bread and cakes, and home-made pies and quiches can be stored in individual portions for defrosting and a freshly cooked taste.
Sarah Gall
Rochdale, Lancashire
SIR – You need a freezer for all the leftovers from cooking, and for fruit from the garden and hedgerows.
It saves us money and stops us wasting food.
Valerie Thompson
West Horsley, Surrey
SIR – Bogof.
Martin Yirrell
Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire
SIR – I would have a job convincing my wife that she should get rid of the freezer and drive to our local supermarket and back each evening to buy the two ice cubes she has in her gin and tonic.
Warren Page
Purley on Thames, Berkshire
SIR – Criticism of the Environment Agency over the lack of effective dredging on the Somerset Levels should be seen in the context of a radical change in attitudes to rural land use.
From the 1980s, farmland was no longer to be managed primarily for food production. European food surpluses and influential leaders of environment pressure groups combined to change practices in land management.
Farm subsidies have been entirely decoupled from food production. Natural England champions letting “natural processes happen”. So dredging is halted when a vole swims into sight.
Perhaps we all need to consider where our priorities lie.
Giles Sturdy
Chairman, Wessex Regional Flood Defence Committee, 1997-2003
Wareham, Dorset
SIR – Did the deployment of Armed Forces to the Somerset Levels bring any respite to the inundated residents? As far as I could see, they came, they saw and they went away.
Diana Holl
Clevedon, Somerset
SIR – Channels called rhynes drain the Somerset Levels. These release water to the sea through sluice gates as the tide falls, as at Huntspill sluice. The gates close as the tide rises. This sluice has been neglected for years, stuck in the “summer” position, discharging a fraction of what it should.
Vernon Evenson
Didcot, Oxfordshire
SIR – As flood water submerges our tiny half-acre watercress farm, thanks largely to lack of maintenance of a carrier of the river Itchen, the Environment Agency finds resources to threaten our 150-year-old business with closure if we fail to comply with demands to pay a “permit to discharge” levy of more than £3,000.
With an annual turnover of just £15,000, we shall be forced to cease watercress growing if we meet their unreasonable demands, and if we fail to meet their demands, fines will have the same effect.
Charles Ranald
Itchen Stoke, Hampshire
SIR – Here in the Brecks, we have had a mere 2.48in of rain this month, only half an inch above the average for the past six years. The figure for November, December and January combined is 6.26in, which is 0.12in less than the six-year average. Certainly not the wettest winter for 100 years here.
David Tomlinson
Bardwell, Suffolk
SIR – On BBC News 24 yesterday, the forecaster said: “There’s loads of weather going on at the moment.” Should I just go back to bed with my head under the duvet until there is no weather going on at all?
Gordon Bain
Ditchling, East Sussex

Irish Times:

Irish Independent:

Madam – A few years ago I had a letter printed here in the Sunday Independent regarding my contributions to several various charities, and how I was getting dubious about them all, and that charity begins at home after all. Within a week I had letters from practically every one of them explaining how the money I sent was being utilised, and reassuring me that all was well, and hoping that I would continue to subscribe.
Also in this section
Keep challenging consensus
Protecting children is now a legal obligation
We need to support our sporting heroes
However, not one of them told me how much of the money went to pay off and give top-ups to executives.
In the light of recent events in that regard, it has definitely made up my mind, once and for all, about future contributions from this pensioner.
If I am to make contributions in the future it will be to send a sick child for treatment abroad, or for some charitable event (eg, a hospice) where the money is paid into a fund or bank account to go directly to that event.
It is a disgrace that so many letters are being dropped through my letterbox, and so many phone calls made to my house, begging me to continue with contributions, to what now is turning out to be payments to top dogs who are earning hundreds of times more than my measly pension.
We have had many shameful events down through the years in this country of ours, but surely recent disgusting disclosures must rank with the very worst.
Murt Hunt,
Ballyhaunis, Co Mayo

Madam – On my first cursory glance through last weekend’s Sunday Independent I almost packed it all up, abandoned my place and moved to the Blasket Islands (preferably Tearaght, furthest from the mainland).
Also in this section
Top-ups beat ‘em all
Protecting children is now a legal obligation
We need to support our sporting heroes
What had me in this apoplectic rage is our inept state institutions.
When I returned to my Sindo some time later, I suddenly became in danger of enjoying myself. Brendan O’Connor was exposing the straw man Enda –also known as the mascot of Davos – quite beautifully. Declan Lynch had the habitual kick at bookmakers inc; Stephen Donnelly had a well-crafted economic case regarding the one-per-centers.
Gene Kerrigan was at his brilliant, insightful best savaging a kind of sacred cow.
Despite feeling a little grimy I also relished Aoife Drew’s Paris report on the troubles of that farcical figure, Hollande – some deep-seated jealousy of the parish bull on my part no doubt.
If not for this journalistic resistance and consensus-challenging which gives me hope, I could have found myself in Dingle harbour.
David Cotter,
Co Cork

3 February 2014 Phone and Wood
I go all the way around the park listening to the Navy Lark. Our heroes are in trouble, again. They are back fro leave Leslie on a one wheel monocycle   Priceless.
Phone gone, wood gone upstairs tidied and cleaned for tomorrow
Scrabble today Mary wins, just.  and get under 400, Perhaps I will win tomorrow.

Obituary:

Maximilian Schell, the actor, who has died aged 83, was – with Maurice Chevalier and Marcello Mastroianni – widely recognised as one of the most successful non-anglophone foreign actors in the history of American cinema.
Comparatively unknown when he won an Oscar for his role as a German lawyer in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), he went on to co-star in many other acclaimed films, including Richard Attenborough’s A Bridge Too Far (1977).
With a screenplay by Abby Mann, Judgment at Nuremberg was set in 1948 at the time of the Nazi war crimes trials. But rather than dealing with the trials of the better-known Nazi leaders, the film turned the spotlight on members of the German judiciary who had served in Hitler’s regime.
Schell had already portrayed Hans Rolfe, the German defence counsel, in the original American television production in 1959, a performance for which he received an Emmy nomination. Repeating the role in Stanley Kramer’s film with electric effect two years later, he brought to the part what the critic for Variety called “a fierce vigour, sincerity and nationalistic pride”.
“Schell dominates the film,” agreed the reviewer for Time magazine, “and easily outdoes his more celebrated co-stars [Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich and Judy Garland among them].” Particularly noted was Schell’s intellectual approach to the part, which distinguished him from many of the leading Hollywood figures of the day.
Unlike them, Schell had received a university education in post-war Europe and came from a bookish, cultured background. He cared deeply about world politics and although of Austrian birth had become a naturalised Swiss citizen, proving that “different people with different languages can live together in peace”. Once, in a television rehearsal, he interrupted proceedings to announce that although he was cast as a German, he was actually Swiss.
Maximilian Schell was born in Vienna on December 8 1930 into a Roman Catholic family. His grandfather had been a composer in the 19th-century Austrian court and a friend of Wagner and Liszt; his father Hermann was a poet and playwright, vocations that placed him prominently on Nazi blacklists in 1938 when the family fled to Switzerland to escape the Anschluss.
The Schells exhibited a strong theatrical streak, Maximilian’s mother being an actress and his elder brother, Karl, a film actor. An older sister, Maria, was acclaimed as the most celebrated Teutonic actress since Marlene Dietrich, and Maximilian ignored his father’s advice not to follow the family tradition to appear in his first professional production when he was 11.
To appease his parents, he studied Philosophy and the History of Art at the Universities of Zurich and Munich, but supplemented his spending money by working in professional stage shows, as a professional footballer and even as a sports reporter for a Zurich newspaper. Abandoning his doctoral thesis, he spent four years touring Europe as an actor, served his mandatory term in the Swiss Army, polishing his French, German and Italian, and learning enough English to read and understand Shakespeare.
He was far from fluent when he was invited to play a militaristic Nazi lieutenant in a film version of Irwin Shaw’s war novel The Young Lions (1958). He managed it by speaking phonetically, conversing off screen with the film’s star, Marlon Brando, in French, before finally bringing his English up to scratch. No sooner had he done so than he made his American debut on Broadway in Ira Levin’s Interlock, starring Celeste Holm. Although the play closed after four performances, Schell’s notices were encouraging.
While turning down no fewer than 16 film offers because he was embarrassed to take on badly-written parts in insubstantial scripts, he began to carve out a career in television, and starred in the title role in a three-hour German-language adaptation of Hamlet, filmed in Munich and broadcast throughout Europe. But he still hesitated at the prospect of Hollywood, and until the last minute entertained reservations about repeating the role of Hans Rolfe in Judgment at Nuremberg.
After his triumph at the 1962 Oscars, at which he beat his co-star Spencer Tracy for the Best Actor award, Schell appeared in a string of Hollywood films, among them Five Finger Exercise (1962); Topkapi (1964); Krakatoa — East of Java (1969); and Attenborough’s war adventure A Bridge Too Far, shot largely on location in the Netherlands. But he continued to prefer stage work, complaining that film actors were at the mercy of film editors; he also hankered to write for the theatre.
When, in 1977, Schell directed the first British production of Horváth’s Tales from the Vienna Woods (with a script by Christopher Hampton) at the National, Frank Marcus in The Sunday Telegraph praised the “sheer theatrical magic” of the huge revolving stage. John Barber in The Daily Telegraph agreed that it was a “brilliant” production.
As an actor he went on to win two more Oscar nominations, in 1976 for Best Actor in The Man in the Glass Booth (1975) and in 1978 as Best Supporting Actor for Julia (1977). In 1993 he won the Golden Globe for best performance by an actor in a supporting role in a series as Lenin in Stalin (1992).
In 1974 Schell’s film Der Fußgänger (1973, The Pedestrian), which he wrote, produced, directed, and in which he starred, was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar and won the Golden Globe in the same category. For his documentary about Marlene Dietrich, Marlene (1984), Schell interviewed the 84-year-old actress on tape (she declined to face a camera), splicing excerpts of their conversation over clips of her old films. The result was nominated for Best Documentary at the 1985 Oscars.
More recently Schell appeared in several German-language made-for-television films, including Alles Glück dieser Erde (2003, All the Luck in the World) and a mini-series The Return of the Dancing Master (2004) based on Henning Mankell’s novel.
He appeared in dual roles in a Broadway revival of the stage version of Judgment at Nuremberg in 2000, and, in 2006, in Robert Altman’s London production of Arthur Miller’s play Resurrection Blues.
Maximilian Schell married, in 1986, the Russian actress Natalia Andrecheno. The couple divorced in 2005. In August last year he married Iva Mihanovic, a German-Croatian operatic soprano, who survives him along with his daughter, Natassja, also an actor, from his first marriage.
Maximilian Schell, born December 8 1930, died February 1 2014

Guardian:

Lenny Henry is right to argue that the inequalities faced by ethnic minority talent must become a thing of the past (The door to nowhere, 25 January). However, his list of highly successful actors, directors, and writers includes only one Asian, and his description of “Team GB in its full multi-ethnic, multicultural butt-kicking glory” is sadly not correct.
Little commented upon at the time, Team GB was, in fact, comprised almost in its entirety of whites, blacks, or those of a black and white parentage. Similarly, in Danny Boyle’s marvellous Olympic opening ceremony, Asians were conspicuous by their absence, no more than extras in the various sets.
There are profound reasons for the lacuna of Asians in the world of entertainment and sport – the fact that the Premier League is devoid of Asian footballers is perhaps the most striking example. A survey by the Commission for Racial Equality in 2000 found that black Caribbeans had much greater exposure in the British media (particularly in television) than Asians.
Though such a survey has not been repeated, there is no reason to think that the situation has changed. This has little to do with racism or discrimination but instead much to do with the separatism engendered in our supposedly “multifaith, multicultural society” – indeed it seems almost quaint to refer to a segment of society as “Asians”, given the preference for a “faith identity”. To truly comply with Lenny Henry’s laudable wish, a starting point is for such separatist identities to be reined in.
Dr Rumy Hasan
University of Sussex; author of Multiculturalism: Some Inconvenient Truths

On Christmas Eve, 1964, it fell to me to go and register the death of my grandmother, aged 92, in Croydon (Letters, 1 February). I arrived late in the afternoon to find the registrar’s office party in full swing. A young man in sober suit but wearing a purple paper hat showed me into a side room. With appropriate sombre face, he took down the details – asking whether my grandmother’s forename, Elizabeth, was spelt with an S or a Z. As the typewriter pinged out the final line of the death certificate, a chorus of Ding Dong Merrily on High came from the adjacent office. She would have been thrilled!
Margaret Westwood
Guildford, Surrey
• While it is most gratifying to have one of my British Travellers in Finland books mentioned in the Guardian (Letters, 31 January), I should point out that these cricketers were seamen and marines of the British fleet in the Baltic during the Crimean war. As I observe, “the rocky terrain of the islands must have presented challenging batting conditions”.
Tony Lurcock
Oxford
• Further to Cécile Nobrega’s obituary (Other lives, 28 January), Ann Davidson’s statue Woman and Child predates Aleix Barbat’s sculpture as the first statue of a black woman in Britain. Unveiled – by Suganya Chetty, a member of the ANC living in exile here – on 22 July 1986 in Edinburgh’s Festival Square, it honours all those killed or imprisoned for their stand against apartheid.
Iain Black
Edinburgh
• ”I enrage flag wavers as party leader (5,6)” (Cryptic Crossword No 26,171, 31 January). Wonderful! Thank you, Paul.
Nick Drury
Wrexham
This is nothing new and not specifically a London problem (Empty homes scandal of UK’s billionaires row, 1 February). There are empty buildings in every city left as crumbling eyesores until residents just want something to happen, even to be rid of them, and countless other listed buildings are neglected then demolished without consent. All this for the sacrosanct rights of owners to do nothing with what they own. Many empty buildings are council-owned. What about the rights of other people not to have empty derelict buildings in their towns and villages? What about owners’ responsibility to communities? What about the rights of people to have somewhere to live?
Cathryn Iliffe
Leeds
• I grew up in adjacent East Finchley during the 1980s, and it was clear then that The Bishops Avenue had become a dump – a sort of ancient monument to foreign investors hankering after aristocratic airs long since faded into anachronism, corrupted both by their absence and appalling taste. For those paying their taxes to the local exchequer, the road’s prime use was as a car park for concerts and firework displays on Hampstead Heath. Sadly its role has little changed.
Josh Berle
Pinner, London
• Empty homes are found thoughout central London, not just “Billionaires Row”. The southern bank of the Thames is becoming a cliff of unoccupied, high-rise apartments from Southwark Bridge west to Wandsworth Bridge, built as investments for non-British residents.
Robert Holden
London

Jonathan Freedland is wrong to refer interchangeably to the NHS and doctors, not least because of the general loss of public trust in institutions he describes. The headline on his article (We trust no one with our data – not even our doctors, 1 February) is ironically inaccurate. Hitherto the public could trust their GPs to look after the personal information they hold about them.
The leaflet that Freedland says explains to the public the new care.data project doesn’t even refer to it by name. Nor is NHS England mentioned, despite it being the organisation responsible for the programme and the leaflet. The Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC), the body actually harvesting patient information from GPs, isn’t even identified.
With the NHS logo at the start and finish, the leaflet explains what “we” will do with patient health records – without saying anywhere who “we” are. The woeful lack of clarity does not engender confidence and trust. It’s not enough to hide behind the NHS logo.
Dr Alex May
Manchester
•  Better collective population health data for research purposes is commendable. The sale of identifiable individual confidential information is not. Some people may want to support the first and opt out of the second being used for purposes for which they have not given explicit consent. Whatever the assurances in the NHS leaflet, in the details available online (www.hscic.gov.uk), the government makes no secret of its intentions to sell whatever data the commercial market wants to buy. The table of HSCIC data linkage and extract service charges 2013/14 includes prices for selling identifiable personal data, specifically a “one-off extract tailored to the customer’s requirements of specified data fields containing patient identifiable data, sensitive data items or both”. This has nothing to do with sharing medical information about ourselves so that we can be treated wherever we are in the NHS, which will continue. Human fallibility being well evidenced and in spite of political assurances about data security (trustworthy after Snowden?), many of us will want to opt out of allowing our personal information to be offered for sale in this way.
John Veit-Wilson
Newcastle upon Tyne
• The day after your front-page lead (Patient records to be sold from NHS database, 20 January) I received the NHS leaflet on the subject. This simultaneously declares that “Information that we publish will never identify a particular person” and, on the next page, “If you do not want information that identifies you to be shared outside your GP practice, ask the practice to make a note of this.” Why do I not find this reassuring?
Edwina Rowling
Ditchling Sussex
•  Following the Guardian’s coverage, I checked the NHS leaflet for details on opting out. As there was no reference to deadlines on it, I rang the patient information line and was told that I had four weeks from the time I received the leaflet. Records would be included in the system on a postcode basis from spring. I wonder what possible reasons there may have been for omitting this?
Christine Saunders
Hampton, London
• While data extracted under the clinical practice research datalink (CPRD) might well be completely anonymised, the data extracted and uploaded to the HSCIC by the care.‌data project is most certainly not (Sharing NHS medical records will be vital for improving healthcare, 24 January, theguardian.com). It is identifiable data, is kept by the HSCIC as such, and can therefore be disseminated to organisations, both research and non-research, in anonymised, pseudonymised and clearly identifiable formats. Patients have no say in which aspects of their uploaded data, when, to whom or for what reason their data will be given to organisations.
Dr John Parkinson talks about needing “every GP to allow their practice to join the system”. CPRD is voluntary. The care.‌data project is compulsory – practices cannot refuse to upload patients’ sensitive data, because the Health and Social Care Act compels them to.
Choice, either for the surgery or for their patients, plays no part in care.data – the decision has been made for them. All patients have is the right to object and to reverse that decision – to take back control of their medical records.
Dr Neil Bhatia
GP in Hampshire and author of the website http://www.care-data.info

Independent:

Many of us in the East Anglian Fens are feeling great sympathy for the plight of the residents of The Somerset Levels.  The Environment Agency (EA) party line that dredging “is not a panacea” is also frequently chanted here.
Fortunately, following the devastating floods of 1947, a very well thought-out flood protection scheme was implemented, and it has protected the area  until now. However, our system has also been compromised in recent years by a lack of EA maintenance activity.
Low-lying land in England and Wales is usually managed locally by one of many Internal Drainage Boards (IDBs). The boards dig and maintain arterial ditch systems and, if required, provide pumping stations to convey water to the rivers. The EA is responsible for the rivers and outfalls to the sea. All the land within an IDB area is subject to a drainage rate of which about 50 per cent is passed  on to the EA. Individual property occupiers also pay a contribution to the system via their council tax. The EA is also in receipt of payments from farmers for the right to abstract water for irrigation and from boat owners and fishermen for permits to enjoy themselves. To paraphrase the late, great Pete Seeger, where has all the money gone?
River management has suffered from a lack of continuity of personnel. For example, over the past 50 years, the Great Ouse has been managed by the Great Ouse River Board, the pre-privatisation Anglian Water, the National Rivers Authority and now the EA. Each organisational change has been accompanied by a loss of some very experienced drainage engineers, frustrated by the resulting chaos.
We are now in the hands of an organisation with so many hats it does not know which one to wear first.
Les Walton, Soham, Cambridgeshire

I am unsympathetic to the fate of those dwelling in the Somerset Levels.
It rained a lot more than normal. The flood plain is flat and in some places below sea level. The water doesn’t drain away easily. It has always been like this since the beginning of habitation and we will never be able to deal with the extreme recurrence of precipitation. It has been suggested that this flood has a recurrence interval of 1:100 years. It’s more like 1:1,000 and records have not been kept for a thousand years anyway.
People don’t live where it is too hot, too cold, too dry or too wet. Why live on a flood plain known to flood every now and again?
Chris Harding, Parkstone, Dorset

Italy’s broken  justice system
Italy has the dubious distinction of being the Western European country with the highest number of negative judgments made against it by the European Court of Human Rights – and by a considerable margin. It has just staged its latest show trial, one worthy of North Korea or Iran.
Judge Nencini delivered guilty verdicts on Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito when no credible evidence against them exists and the real murderer was convicted five years ago and will be out on parole later this year.
When are the Italian people going to rise up and do something about their country’s broken justice system?
Nigel Scott, Member of Advisory Board, Injustice Anywhere Organisation, London N22

Italian justice reminds me of European referendum results: keep staging them until you get one you like.
Steven Calrow, Liverpool

The rich are taking over the state
Discussions concerning tax and wealth disparity concentrate on the “fairness” or otherwise of the top rate of income tax. Fairness is subjective and it will never be possible to reach agreement on this.
There is another and much more important issue involved, and that is the political influence which huge accumulations of wealth can buy.
This can most obviously be seen in this country in the composition of the government front bench, and in the US in the influence of the Bush, Kennedy, Koch and other families.
In both countries we are rapidly moving away from the ideal of a one-man-one-vote democracy towards government by an unassailable permanent rich elite so powerful that it can dictate government policy.
The only way to remove the stranglehold of this elite is to remove a lot of their money by taxation. The democratic health of the country requires it.
Dudley Dean, Maresfield, East Sussex

I cannot understand what all the fuss is about the 50p tax rate. Does it really make that much difference to someone who earns £160,000, for example? They would receive £5,000 of their “extra” salary, as opposed to £5,500 – hardly something to cry about.
And if, as you say, the tax rates for everyone will have to increase after the election, something “neither side is yet willing to admit” (editorial, 27 January), perhaps Ed Balls should be applauded for being at least partially frank.
Norman Evans, East Horsley, Surrey

Pace Charles Foster (letter, 28 January), you don’t free the poor by fostering a mentality that anyone who struggles to find paid employment is free to sleep under a bridge and beg, while anyone who benefits handsomely from the way we have arranged our national affairs owes nothing to others.
Stephie Coane, Windsor

Lord Digby Jones comments on Labour’s proposed 50p tax rate: “If it creates wealth let’s kick it . . . really go for the energy companies.” I would like Lord Jones, whom I had always considered to be a left-leaning business leader, to explain why we should consider the mostly foreign-owned energy companies as wealth-creating. It’s not how most of us see them.
Keith Frayn, Oxford

Leaving ‘Europe’  isn’t that simple
May I add a footnote to Tim Brook’s excellent letter on Britain’s prospects after it left the EU (30 January)?
To qualify for membership of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) the UK would have to subscribe to the European Economic Area (EEA) Agreement which provides for “the inclusion of EU legislation covering the four freedoms – the free movement of goods, services, persons and capital – throughout the 30 EEA States. In addition, the Agreement covers co-operation in other important areas such as research and development, education, social policy, the environment, consumer protection, tourism and culture, collectively known as ‘flanking and horizontal’ policies. The Agreement guarantees equal rights and obligations within the Internal Market for citizens and economic operators in the EEA.”
As well as surrendering sovereignty in relation to the key items listed by Mr Brook, the UK would also have to agree to free movement of persons – in other words immigration from the EU countries would continue unabated.
Given that those wishing to take the UK out of the EU usually use loss of sovereignty and immigration as their key vote-winning arguments, then joining EFTA would appear to be a non-starter.
John E Orton, Bristol

Why are fewer boys going to university?
Your editorial of 31 January (“Don’t panic: if young men are choosing not to go to university, so be it”) demonstrates the bias inherent in some aspects of the gender debate as it relates to males.
It is not seen as a problem that fewer men go to university, and the assumption here, once again, is that it is related to choice rather than structural factors. If the roles were reversed, rest assured that the media would introduce evidence of structural patriarchy as a key determinant.
The decline in men in all aspects of education, from professional to support roles, is evidence of appalling gender discrimination.
Jon Kingsbury, Totton, Hampshire

It doesn’t surprise me that female school-leavers are a third more likely to go to university. As a school teacher, I have seen over many years that girls work harder than boys and consequently achieve better results.
The big issue here is why don’t boys work harder? Is it because the curriculum is far too focused on academic knowledge rather than technical knowledge, which turns boys off learning.
Kartar Uppal, West Bromwich, West Midlands

You inform us that girls are heading off to university in droves while boys increasingly pass it by. Yet on the BBC’s University Challenge, the weighting is the other way round.
I wonder why this would be. Is there some inherent reason for males to be more strongly represented? Or does the BBC have a prejudice? Mastermind, also, exhibits this preference – at best one token woman – and both programmes are hosted by men.
Perhaps some great seat of learning could establish a field of research on the subject.
The Rev Peter Sharp, Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire

Times:

Sir, Your excellent article (Jan 31) on female genital mutilation (FGM) highlights the poor response of statutory agencies to this form of child abuse. The UK child protection system relies on referrals about children at risk of harm being made to social services. With FGM no such referrals will be made as it is a hidden crime. This requires a proactive response involving charities, the London Mayor’s office, the Met Police, the Royal College of Midwives and local authorities.
There is an issue with the wording of the current legislation. It is vital that statutory agencies respond to the courageous lead given by Nimco Ali and other victims in addressing this horrendous form of child abuse.
Andy Elvin
Children and Families Across Borders, London SW9
Sir, Dr Abe and “Miriam” (Jan 25) are doing excellent work in highlighting the prevalence of FGM in the UK and its lifelong consequences. Given the number of FGM survivors, and that Dr Abe’s youngest FGM patient is only 9, I suspect that many were mutilated when already resident in the UK. The law prohibits FGM on UK nationals or permanent residents, whether carried out here or in the parents’ country of origin. That being the case, the police must be notified. A high-profile prosecution will send out a strong message to practising communities.
Vera Lustig
Walton-on-Thames, Surrey
Sir, At The Manor Gardens Centre we have worked extensively to prevent FGM in North London and we still regularly meet teaching, health and social care professionals who know very little about FGM and lack the confidence and knowledge to raise concerns if they think a girl is at risk. Our training helps them to understand the consequences of FGM, why it must be seen as a child protection issue and their key role in keeping girls safe.
As Nimco Ali states, schools are a safe haven for many children and are absolutely key to ending FGM in the UK. Protecting all girls from FGM will not be possible unless all teachers are given the knowledge and skills to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all the girls in their care.
Eva Del Rio
Eleanor Tomlinson
Manor Gardens Centre, London N7
Sir, I am delighted your are campaigning against female genital mutilation. It is interesting to remember that FGM used to be called “female circumcision” and part of the move to have it treated as a serious issue was to change this cosy description which sounded simply like the counterpart of the male version.
Perhaps you could also use your influence to institute a change in the related phrase “honour killings” (“Police failing to stamp out ‘honour’ crimes”, Jan 31). The associations of the word honour are those of nobility, pride and self-respect, not appropriate for the victimisation and abuse of vulnerable and powerless people. Associations with backwardness and ignorance would be preferable. The word “murder” would also be more exact. How about “primitive community-sanctioned murder”? Far too clumsy — no doubt Times readers can come up with something better. The steady repetition of this might eventually contribute to a change in thinking.
Penny Rutherford
Ruislip, Middx

In a recent trial a driver who killed a rider who was wearing a helmet and high-visibility clothing was acquitted
Sir, The Advertising Standards Authority has just ruled that adverts featuring cyclists must show the rider wearing a helmet, and no further than 0.5m from the kerb (report, Scottish edition, Jan 30). Not only does this endanger cyclists, but it is also at odds with official advice from such as the Highway Code, Cyclecraft and British Cycling’s excellent Effective Traffic Riding. It may lead to grave misconceptions on what is expected of riders. It could even lead to injury or worse as riders copy unsafe practice, or put too much faith into what is still an unproven helmet.
In a recent trial a driver who killed a rider who was wearing a helmet and high-visibility clothing was acquitted, I cannot be the only one who is asking what is really being done to make cycling both safer and an choice that anyone can adopt. If this is not dealt with immediately by government, a perfect storm threatens to destroy what progress has been made. Solutions lie in better training for the police and CPS in dealing with cycling-related trials; juries to have some form of cycling experience; and far, far more investment in creating safe routes for cycling.
D. J. Cook
Southampton

The 350 HP Sunbeam Record Breaker was not fitted with a Manitou aircraft engine but with a purpose-designed engine
Sir, Your report on the National Motor Museum’s ceremonial firing-up of the 350 HP Sunbeam Record Breaker (Jan 30) was not entirely accurate. The car was not fitted with a Manitou aircraft engine but with a purpose-designed engine. This was emphatically pointed out to me in the 1970s by a Mr James who had joined the Sunbeam company in 1912 and worked on the development of the original Land Speed Record (LSR) car.
A fundamental difference lies in the valve layout: the LSR engine has three per cylinder whereas a Manitou had four. The car engine owes much of its parentage to the dangerously unsuccessful Sunbeam Arab crudely cribbed from the Hispano-Suiza aero-engine. Sunbeam had provided aero-engines in the Great War, mainly to the Admiralty, and had specialist experience and unsold parts at the close of hostilities — it would have drawn on both resources for the car.
Ian Walker
(Editor, Sunbeam, Talbot, Darracq Register Newsletter)
Datchworth, Herts

4

Perhaps letter writers to The Times have changed their opinion of what constitutes a suitable seasonal marker from the natural world
Sir, Reading your letters page (Jan 31), am I to understand that the first snake-bite has replaced the first cuckoo?
Margaret Murgatroyd
Norwich

Telegraph:

SIR – There is no way in a million years that anyone would be allowed to erect wind turbines off Italy’s Amalfi coast, a spectacular seascape that every person should experience at least once.
Yet we have allowed a handful of political philistines to destroy other unique areas of natural beauty, so that no one in future will be allowed to experience them. One example of such vandalism is the seascape off the North Wales coast, east of Llandudno, which is now just a forest of wind turbines.
Brian Christley
Abergele, Denbighshire
SIR – Edward Davey, the climate change minister, informs us that onshore wind is “currently one of the cheapest large-scale renewable technologies”. This, of course, does not say much for the others.
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He neglects to point out, though, that his policies, based on his own department’s figures, will be costing consumers £7.6 billion a year by 2020.
Paul Homewood
Stocksbridge, South Yorkshire
SIR – The fact that any wind turbine installation can be deemed “economic” (Letters, January 26) is simply because of the various subsidies paid to generators (all ultimately from consumers’ and taxpayers’ pockets). Remove these and the industry would disappear, allowing politicians to concentrate on how best to deliver a secure and affordable energy supply to both domestic and industrial consumers.
Because of their intermittency, neither wind nor solar energy can be economically competitive until cheap, efficient energy storage is available on a large scale. Don’t hold your breath.
Martin Livermore
Cambridge

SIR – Your leading article eloquently crushes the plans of Ed Balls to raise the highest rate of income tax to 50p in the pound.
But remember that, thanks to Gordon Brown, the actual rate paid is currently 45p income tax plus 2p National Insurance surcharge. So Mr Balls’s plan would mean an increase to paying 52p out of every 100p earned at the highest rate.
Tony Narula
London W2
SIR – You argue that a rise in the rate of tax would send a message that Britain penalises success.
I define a successful society as one in which everybody can have access to good health care and a high standard of free education, and can afford essentials such as housing, food, clothing and heating.
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I support the re-introduction of the 50p tax rate on those who earn more than £150,000 (more than five times the current average wage) and I believe that the majority of the population will do the same.
Lewis Sleeman
Leeds, West Yorkshire
SIR – I think it’s a wonderful step forward for the Labour Party that they are, after so many years, at last considering the use of an accountant in the management of their whelk stall.
Peter Griffith
Malvern, Worcestershire
EU referendum
SIR – Our only hope of getting a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union is to elect a majority Conservative government next year.
Labour has given proof that, like the Liberal Democrats, they are rigidly opposed to giving us that referendum.
Frank Tomlin
Billericay, Essex
SIR – Perhaps those of your readers who are calling for a referendum on our continued membership of the European Union might care to reflect on the fact that not only are all of the three main political parties in this country in favour of Britain remaining a member, but that no other member of the EU, for all its recent trials and tribulations, has shown any sign of wishing to leave.
From Germany and Holland in the prosperous north, to Italy, Greece and Cyprus in the more troubled south, all have judged that it is in their best interests not only to remain in the EU but also to keep the euro as their currency in spite of the short-term hardships that brings.
Are we seriously suggesting that all the people of the great nations of Europe are wrong and Ukip is right?
David Langfield
Pyrford, Surrey
To war in Iraq
SIR – Reading Andrew Gilligan’s piece on Iraq once again highlighted that one of the real tragedies of that entire episode was how totally unqualified – and, indeed, unelected – individuals such as Alastair Campbell were involved in the decision-making process of taking Britain to war; even more sad is that Mr Campbell’s opinions are still sought after.
Bharat Jashanmal
Fairford, Gloucestershire
Beatlemania
SIR – “America will embark on a golden anniversary spree of Beatlemania,” Philip Sherwell writes.
Fundamental to such celebrations is the fact that the four Merseysiders who landed at the newly renamed JFK airport did so when the sky was anything but golden, just 77 days after Kennedy’s assassination.
The release of the Beatles’ joyous record I Want To Hold Your Hand certainly lifted American spirits. Yet it was their setting foot on American soil in February 1964 that acted like a ray of sunlight on a nation clouded in darkness.
Lee P Ruddin
Birkenhead, Wirral
Space to pray in
SIR – Trevor Reid doesn’t want his church to have “flexible” space.
Leaving aside the death-knell such views sound for Christian communities interested in a viable future, it reveals a poor sense of history. Pews became commonplace only with the longer sermons and static liturgies of the post-Reformation era; they are a somewhat modern development.
Before then, naves were flexible spaces where all manner of community activity took place.
In filling them with immovable woodwork, the Victorians and their immediate forebears were securing income from pew rents, but showed scant regard for history. I pray that Mr Reid and his supporters will be cured of their attachment to these horrid, newfangled constructions.
Rev Canon Wealands Bell
Lichfield, Staffordshire
Classic ailment
SIR – I recently spent a short spell in hospital, where the television in the room could only provide BBC radio stations. This did nothing to speed my recovery; all I wanted to hear was pleasant, melodic music. This was not possible on Radios 1, 2 and 3.
Yvonne Warren
Leatherhead, Surrey
Danger in paradise
SIR – I worked in St Lucia in the Eighties and was told on arrival that the country had the second highest murder rate in the world, South Africa being number one.
We never went out after dark unless in groups and by private-hire minibus.
Colin Heaton
Brindle, Lancashire
Good manners
SIR – Your reader said that being offered a seat made her realise that she must appear older than she feels.
Being a reasonably capable man of over 60, I am occasionally in the situation of being offered a seat by a younger person.
I have no need of this generosity, but it presents a dilemma: do I politely refuse the offer, possibly discouraging the potential donor from such generosity in future, or should I accept the seat in the spirit with which it was offered?
When taking the latter choice, what do I do when another passenger arrives who obviously needs a seat and nobody offers theirs? Do I give up the seat that was generously donated to me, even though the original donor is still present? (Answer: yes).
It is worth mentioning that the majority of young people who offer their seat to me (or other persons) are women, not men.
John Snook
Sheffield, South Yorkshire
SIR – On a river cruise to Moscow, some of the women in our party discovered I was 84 and looked after me for the rest of the holiday. On a tour of the Moscow Metro, we entered a train where there was only one vacant seat. The kind ladies thought I should take the seat, but I insisted one of them should have it, whereupon three Russian women stood up and offered their seats.
They could see I was getting on but, on this occasion, I believe my sex appeal that may have had some bearing.
Colin Blythe
Leicester
SIR – Some years ago, walking in the Lakes with a group of young people, I arrived at the top of Fairfield, halfway round the Horseshoe, to be greeted by an elderly A W Wainright-like character in tweed plus-fours, who was clearly a serious walker.
“Do you know the golden rule?” he asked. “No,” I replied.
“You don’t know the golden rule, sonny?”
I completed the walk wondering what I, or any of my charges, had done wrong.
As I descended into Ambleside, I noticed a pub in front of me in the Kirkstone Road. It was called The Golden Rule.
Duncan Rayner
Sunningdale, Berkshire

SIR – I have lived and worked on the Somerset Levels for more than 30 years and started my own business here in 1987. We have been caused major inconvenience, with some loss of business from the flooding, but nothing compared to the suffering and loss of homes and business of other people.
No one here is saying that if the river dredging and maintenance had been kept up as it used to be there would not be flooding. There would be, and we know and expect this. What is certain is that the impact and level of flooding would not be so serious. Muchelney and Moorland would most certainly not have flooded and the A361, a major road, would not be closed for months.
Everything nowadays, including vital utility services, is driven by budgets and profits. The goal of providing basic necessary services has gone out of the window.
The flooding problems we are suffering in Somerset stem from the cuts to the river maintenance budget back in 1996, when the National Rivers Authority was amalgamated into the Environment Agency, along with several other bodies, for supposed streamlining and efficiency.
A new budget and money must now be made available immediately to reinstate river dredging and maintenance programmes on a continuing basis. If this happens then, yes, we will still have flooding, but never on the scale of recent years.
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The cost of regular dredging, had they done it, would have been a fraction of the money spent dealing with the very serious flooding. The Government, particularly Owen Paterson, the Environment Secretary, and the Environment Agency, and its chairman, Chris Smith, should hold up their hands and accept this. It is inexcusable that they don’t.
John Davison
Burrowbridge, Somerset
SIR – Surely it would be prudent for the major insurance companies to provide the Environment Agency with the £3 million required for dredging the rivers to prevent them paying in excess of £50 million in claims.
Melvyn Parrott
Pavenham, Bedfordshire
SIR – Christopher Booker rightly deplores the Environment Agency’s failure to dredge rivers, thus causing the flooding. The silt dredged from rivers is deposited on the banks and classed as “waste matter”, for which there are rules which prevent locals farmers from spreading it on their fields.
He failed to point out that these rules come from Brussels, bypassing our Parliament and forcing compliance by the agency. The same rules stop waste cardboard being collected and turned into useful briquettes to fuel power stations, or old road surfacing, removed when roads are to be resurfaced, being given a new life to repair tracks leading to farm buildings.
The sooner we have our laws made at Westminster, instead of being imposed by unelected foreigners in Brussels, the better.
Don Anderson
London SW19
SIR – I live in Wraysbury, which has been in the news of late because of flooding caused by the river Thames, thanks to the lack of dredging. In the days of the Thames Conservancy, the river was dredged regularly. While there were the occasional floods, they were rare events and, in fact, the previous serious flood under its remit was more than 60 years ago, in 1947. Operational responsibility was taken over by National Rivers Authority from 1989 until 1996, when the Environment Agency was created.
This agency should have accepted responsibility for land drainage and flood risk management, but it has failed to do so. In fact, it now claims two contradictory things: that the river is self-scouring; and that dredging would disturb the natural habitat.
What happened in Wraysbury and the Somerset Levels is now happening in Kent and the Environment Agency has proved itself, again, to be incompetent.
Freddie Pilditch
Wraysbury, Berkshire

Irish Times:

Sir, – I recently took part in Operation Transformation’s National Blood Pressure Day. I was concerned at the number of people who came to get their blood pressure done who are not taking their tablets regularly because of cost.
At the same time, I have just received a letter from Minister for Health James Reilly in reply to concerns I raised with him about the impact that the fives-and-under GP visit card might have on my workload and therefore the time I could give to some of my other patients, including those with complex physical or psychological problems.
His words were: “It is not possible to be definitive about the average increase in workload resulting from the introduction of this measure, however the increase in the total number of GP visits arising is expected to be low as parents already bring their children to their GP, as necessary, regardless of whether they have to pay”.
We know that controlling blood pressure prevents heart disease and stroke, yet the Government, despite promises, has rolled back on giving free healthcare to people with long-term illnesses. It has chosen instead to drive ahead with free healthcare to a group who in Mr Reilly’s own words “already visit the GP when they have to”.
I believe in removing barriers to healthcare, but this should first be prioritised for those for whom there is proven benefit. It has to be planned and resourced and there must be capacity before usage is increased. None of this has been done.
I came from practising in the UK. We are heading towards a system whereby patients will wait for a five- to eight-minute appointment with a stressed GP who refers more patients to hospital because he/she doesn’t have time to take a proper history and examine the patient, let alone address the person’s concerns or advise on health promotion. Is this really what the people in Ireland want? – Yours, etc,
Dr ELUNED LAWLOR,
Loughboy Medical Centre,

Sir, – Anne Lucey highlighted the abysmal statistics regarding women candidates in the forthcoming local elections (Home News, January 24th).
Currently just 25 per cent of all local election candidates are women. While this figure is low, it does at least represent an increase on the last local elections. In 2009, only 17 per cent of the candidates were women. Interestingly, on that occasion, 17 per cent of council seats were won by women, clearly indicating that there was no electoral bias against women – when women get on the ballot paper they will get elected. However, the problem is that not enough women are appearing on the election ballot papers. While there are many factors inhibiting women’s participation in politics, a key stumbling block is how candidates are selected. At selection conventions, party delegates will tend to favour the “tried and tested” incumbent candidates rather than the “new” candidate. Incumbents are typically men meaning it is more difficult for “new” women candidates to get selected.
The 5050 Group is campaigning for more equal representation in Irish politics, part of which is challenging political parties to effectively implement the gender quota legislation.
It is not too late for some political parties to take directive action and get more women selected. Otherwise, it will cost them in the long run. At the next general election parties will lose half their State funding if they don’t comply with the gender quota legislation which will compel them to have at least 30 per cent women candidates. For many women and men, becoming a councillor is the first “stepping-stone” to a seat in the Dáil. It makes sense for all parties to pull out all the stops now and get more women on the ticket for May’s local elections.
We need more women in politics: parties can make this happen with two vital ingredients – political will and leadership. – Yours, etc,
NOIRIN CLANCY
National Chair,
5050 Group,
Sea View Park,

Sir, –  When I was in primary and secondary school in Ireland, religious education was part of the national curriculum and it still is.
From an American perspective, because of the separation here of church and state, this appears very strange. Standard practice in the US is for the church and  parents to assume this educational responsibility, typically through Sunday school after church, or daily, after school.  Surely a similar arrangement could work in Ireland? Or more to the point,  why would anybody want the State to teach religion to their children? – Yours, etc,
NED MONAGHAN,
Siwanoy Lane,
New Canaan,
Connecticut, US.
Sir, – Michael Harding’s columns (Tuesdays, Life) are like pathways to the soul. Invariably he writes about what is meaningful, important and of real value; such a change from the wearying tide of commerce, politics, graft and greed that mostly fills your pages.  He is truly unique, and has that gift of appearing to be a close personal friend to those whom he has never even met.  Thank you for taking the time to let us share his thoughts. –   Yours, etc,
Capt JOHN DUNNE, MNI,
(At sea),
C/o BP Maritime Services,
St George’s Street,

Sir, – Tommy Graham’s suggestion (January 25th) that the Vatican should be fielding a football team sounds plausible, but it is out of place. To quote the prophet Bill Shankly: “Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.”
Whereas religion is merely about life and death. – Yours, etc,
GERARD MONTAGUE,
Zaumberg,
Immenstadt/Allgäu,

Sir, – The three characteristics of classical professionalism are professional knowledge base, altruistic service and professional autonomy. Therefore, any initiative that promotes teachers’ professional autonomy has the potential to promote the profession. The Junior Cycle reforms as outlined in the 2012 document A Framework for Junior Cycle offer significantly increased professional autonomy to teachers with respect to the assessment of their students at Junior Cycle level. While acknowledging the considerable demands placed on teachers in these times of austerity with increased workloads and requests to do more and more with an awful lot less, it is important to embrace such opportunities for enhanced professional autonomy.
The teaching unions, the TUI and the ASTI are going to ballot members to seek a mandate for a series of actions in relation to the Junior Cycle proposals. A TUI newsletter dated January 24th states: “The union remains gravely concerned by the dilution of standards inherent in the proposals, particularly in the shift away from external moderation and national certification”.
With such substantial reforms as this, it is essential the TUI, the ASTI and their members demand greater resources and fight for teachers’ continuing professional development needs. However, it is also important they do not call for anything that could, in time, lead to the deprofessionalisation of teaching in Ireland as has come to pass in other international jurisdictions where externally moderated standardised tests have significantly weakened the teaching profession. – Yours, etc,
Dr RAYMOND LYNCH,
Department of Education & Professional Studies,
University of Limerick,

Sir, – Now that an opportunity has arisen to abolish the tolls on the East Link Bridge (Home News, January 31st), I trust the Dublin City Councillors will act in the best interest of the citizens, as did their predecessors,who abolished the tolls on the Ha’penny Bridge in 1919. – Yours, etc,
LOUIS O’FLAHERTY,
Lorcan Drive, Dublin 9.

Sir, – A passage in Roy Foster’s review of Dermot Meleady’s biography of John Redmond (Books, January 25th) caught my attention: “There is an argument, indeed, that his [Redmond’s] Woodenbridge speech, where he committed the movement to fighting for the Allies, was part of a deliberate ploy to drive out the extremists. Here and elsewhere, he was a formidable political operator.”
Redmond’s sending tens of thousands of his followers off to war (and in many cases to injury and death) is here effectively endorsed. Adopting the – surely rather extreme – tactic of sending one’s followers off to war as a way of isolating extremists: does Roy Foster endorse this as a general principle in politics or will any argument serve when it comes to enhancing the reputation of John Redmond? – Yours, etc,
BARRA Ó SEAGHDHA,
Martin’s Row,
ChapSir, – The increase in the licence fee proposed by Waterways Ireland, from €126 up to a possible €3,600 in one year (outlined in the new Draft Canals Act, 1986 [Amendment] Bye-Laws, 2014) cannot be justified. This level of increase would not be accepted by any other group of people in Ireland. Even though to boaters this increase is large, the amount of money that will be received by Waterways Ireland from these licences is very small compared to its yearly budget.
This action will drive boats off the canals; and locally businesses in areas that rely on boaters and visitors will see their income fall and jobs will be at risk. Bars and hotels on the canals benefit not just what from the boaters spend but also from visitors to their premises because of the presence of the boats. Waterways Ireland should be doing more with Fáilte Ireland and Enterprise Ireland to promote the recreational use of the canals and their potential business opportunities. I am in favour of paying a reasonable licence fee, but this should be for a service – which is not currently provided or proposed.
I object to this consultation process being organised by the same company that intends to charge us these outrageous new fees. So I ask for an independent group, such as the one set up to decide on the current pylon dispute. This would need to include all stakeholders.
I have been a canal boat owner for six years and a boater for more than 30 years. The canals and rivers of Ireland can only prosper if all users are properly consulted and respected. – Yours, etc,
NICK KELLY,
Rushbrook,
Blanchardstown, Dublin 15.

elizod, Dublin 20.
Sir, – The increase in the licence fee proposed by Waterways Ireland, from €126 up to a possible €3,600 in one year (outlined in the new Draft Canals Act, 1986 [Amendment] Bye-Laws, 2014) cannot be justified. This level of increase would not be accepted by any other group of people in Ireland. Even though to boaters this increase is large, the amount of money that will be received by Waterways Ireland from these licences is very small compared to its yearly budget.
This action will drive boats off the canals; and locally businesses in areas that rely on boaters and visitors will see their income fall and jobs will be at risk. Bars and hotels on the canals benefit not just what from the boaters spend but also from visitors to their premises because of the presence of the boats. Waterways Ireland should be doing more with Fáilte Ireland and Enterprise Ireland to promote the recreational use of the canals and their potential business opportunities. I am in favour of paying a reasonable licence fee, but this should be for a service – which is not currently provided or proposed.
I object to this consultation process being organised by the same company that intends to charge us these outrageous new fees. So I ask for an independent group, such as the one set up to decide on the current pylon dispute. This would need to include all stakeholders.
I have been a canal boat owner for six years and a boater for more than 30 years. The canals and rivers of Ireland can only prosper if all users are properly consulted and respected. – Yours, etc,
NICK KELLY,
Rushbrook,
Blanchardstown, Dublin 15

Sir, – While the decision to have a Rome-based ambassador to the Holy See has generated much coverage, there has been much less coverage of other significant diplomatic changes. Eddie Finnegan (January 24th) refers to the upgrading of the Irish Aid office to embassy status in Sierra Leone, west Africa. This significant diplomatic development in the west African region is very warmly welcomed by the Sierra Leone Irish Partnership (SLIP).
In addition to heightening Ireland’s participation in the international involvement in the region it also underpins and consolidates the over 200-year-old relationship between Sierra Leone and Ireland.
Sometimes important decisions which generate little media coverage can have very significant positive effect for many people – this is one such decision!– Yours, etc, ,
GERALDINE HORGAN
Hon Sec of SLIP,
C/o Kiltale, Dunsany,

Sir, – Clearly, it’s a no-brainer. – Yours, etc,
JOHN CURTIS,
Clogher Road,
Crumlin, Dublin 12.
Sir, – “12pm” – there is no such thing. – Yours, etc,
ROGER HURLEY,
Killiney Road,
Killiney, Co Dublin.

Irish Independent:
* I am an old-age pensioner living in a remote part of Co Monaghan – living in fear. In 2009 I returned home from evening Mass when three masked robbers broke in my front and back doors and cornered me in my living room. They were all armed with iron bars and shouting “where is the money”.
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Top-ups beat ‘em all
Protecting children is now a legal obligation
One of them stood over me wielding a large iron bar while the other two ransacked my home, breaking my bed, mirrors and other furniture. The ordeal lasted for for about two hours. Only by the grace of God, a neighbour arrived and frightened the robbers off.
I am 77 and since then I have been terrified almost to live here once it gets dark. Before I go to bed I have to barricade my room door and window for safety in order to get some sleep.
The reason I have now been driven to write to you is that I will have to give up my telephone as I cannot afford it any more.
Eircom has given me credit up until April, after that I am sure will no longer have contact with the outside world.
Mobile service in this area is non-existent.
I am sure there are thousands of old people living alone in the same position – living in fear, knowing they could lose their lives at the hands of criminals. Therefore, I would ask that the telephone allowances be reinstated to every person living alone in the country.
It is only victims who have lived through such an ordeal that know the true effect it can have.
It is only a matter of time before some old person gets killed in their own home.
We are the people who built this nation.
PATRICK WATTERS
CO MONAGHAN
AN INSPIRATION TO US ALL
* Think of how wonderful would be the country of Ireland if only we had politicians with the commitment, courage, determination and unflinching resolve of a Louise O’Keeffe.
In my humble opinion, this lady is an inspiration to all of us.
MICHAEL DRYHURST
BALLINDERRY SCHOOL HOUSE, FOUR MILE HOUSE, CO ROSCOMMON
THE GAY DEBATE
* What David Quinn – ‘Can we have a respectful debate on same-sex marriage? I don’t think so’, Irish Independent, January 31 – and every other religious apologist evidently can’t comprehend about the gay marriage debate is that gays are prohibited from actions that a member of the majority can undertake for ideological or religious reasons. This completely precludes respectfulness.
It is, in itself, an act of disrespect to exclude certain people from marrying just because you don’t agree with it.
This implicit hermeneutical justification of disrespect towards gay marriage is what incites the reciprocated disfavour (albeit that death threats and such are never to be tolerated, from either side). But what religious people the world over will have to one day realise, is that their scripture should not dictate how other people – folks who put no credence in scripture (or who favour other scripture) – live their lives.
My question to the opponents of gay marriage is why should certain beliefs matter to those who don’t share them and why, just because I don’t believe what you believe, should I be discriminated against?
I’ve yet to hear a cogent answer from them that isn’t laden with biblical ideology.
BRIAN MURPHY
BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA
RHINOS ARE REAL VICTIMS
* I was as sorry to hear of the break-in at the Co Cork mansion of ‘Lord of the Dance’ superstar Michael Flatley as I would be at the news of any theft by vile criminals who prey upon householders. Nobody deserves to have his or her home violated by the dregs of society who have no respect for the rights or possessions of law-abiding citizens.
But I also have sympathy for the unfortunate rhino who at some point was brutally killed for a part of its body that happens to be almost as valuable as gold on the black market.
Sadly, the rhino is endangered worldwide thanks to unscrupulous poachers who gun down these mighty creatures. Brave wildlife rangers have been killed in Africa while defending the precious few rhinos that remain outside nature parks and reserves.
The poachers gun down the animals, hack away the horns and then flee the scene, leaving the mutilated carcasses behind.
So while I hope the thieves who raided Mr Flatley’s home are caught and brought to justice, I equally hope that the publicity accorded to the high-profile crime will have focused attention on the plight of the magnificent rhinos and the work of conservationist groups worldwide to save the dwindling number of them that still survive in this troubled, greedy world, enhancing it with their exotic presence.
Mr Flatley was wronged by the theft of the horn – but its previous owner suffered the greatest wrong of all.
JOHN FITZGERALD
CALLAN, CO KILKENNY
LET’S ELECT OUR JUDGES
* In their preliminary submission to the Department of Justice’s public consultation, the most senior judges in the land called for changes to the judicial appointments process, most notably that the appointment of judges should no longer depend on their political allegiance.
It would seem then that even though the elevation of lawyers to the bench has in some cases been political, the only interested party left out of the loop has been the public, whom both politicians and the judiciary ostensibly serve.
If appointment by politicians is to end, would it not serve the purposes of both transparency and accountability to bring the political views of judges into the open by requiring them to be elected, as is the norm in many parts of the United States?
At least then we would be able to explain many perplexing sentencing decisions on the basis of whether judges declared themselves liberal or conservative in this regard before their election, and have the means of expressing our dissent if we feel they are not serving the best interests of society.
HUGH TREACY
CREAGH, GOREY, CO WEXFORD
SUPPORTING OUR TEAM
* Kevin Fielding (Letters, January 31) blames the supporters for not being vociferous enough during international rugby matches in the Aviva Stadium. Clearly, he must have been absent during the Ireland vs New Zealand game last November, when the supporters gave everything they had.
It must be pointed out that Irish fans will be the most energetic supporters in the world if their team on the pitch actually gives them something to shout about.
Over the last few seasons, the previous Ireland rugby set-up gave the supporters very little to shout about and get behind, but we are now entering a different place with a fresh and ambitious mentality within our national team set-up.
JOHN B REID
CRANNMOR, MONKSTOWN, CO DUBLIN
IT’S NOT O’LEARY’S FAULT
* It was the British government, not Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary, who discovered that Luton was in London.
A 1978 government white paper proclaimed Luton as an integral part of the London airport system, leading to the renaming of Luton International Airport as London Luton Airport.
Mr O’Leary has a lot to answer for but it is unlikely that he was running Britain at 17 years of age.
DR JOHN DOHERTY
CNOC AN STOLLAIRE, GAOTH DOBHAIR,
CO DONEGAL
Irish Independent

4 February 2014 Meg and Lynn

I go all the way around the park listening to the Navy Lark. Our heroes are in trouble, again. Lady Todd Hunter Brown has seen a ghost ship Priceless.

Hospital,, diesel, post office, Co Op, Meg and Lynn visit

Scrabbletoday Mary wins, just.and get under 400, Perhaps Iwill win tomorrow.

Obituary:

Eva Tovarich, who has died aged 93, was a post-war circus artiste who balanced Big Top drama with power and ingenuity in an act billed as “The World’s Greatest Equilibrists”.

Guardian:

ling machine for testing, say ministers, 30 January) incorrectly lends to the impression that the Responsible Gambling Trust’s research programme is being frustrated by an unco-operative gambling industry and is not independent of the industry.

It’s fair to say that some elements of the gambling industry have been slow to accept the role they could play in facilitating research into the way people behave when playing gaming machines but it is completely false to argue that the industry is now frustrating our research programme.

The research the article mentions was commissioned by a now defunct body and inherited by the RGT when the charity was established in 2012. It is a matter of regret that no bookmaker was persuaded to participate in that project. However, we also published in December research commissioned by the RGT to systematically assess how the data held by machine operators can help us understand how people behave when playing on those gaming machines offering the highest stakes and prizes in Britain, and what helps people to stay in control and play responsibly.

This was a first step in a major research project that has the full co-operation of 13 machine operators, including the five largest bookmakers. Together these businesses operate 80% of the market for gaming machines with the highest stakes and prizes in Britain. Specifically, operators have offered to provide category B2 gaming machines (those found in bookmakers) for research purposes, which is an opportunity the RGT will ensure is taken up in the next phase of its research.

I am proud the RGT has secured the co-operation of the gambling industry, which is greatly assisted by having trustees who work in the industry, only one of whom is a bookmaker.

I am equally proud of our governance arrangements, including having trustees independent of the industry as well as government observers, to ensure that all research that we commission is independent, peer-reviewed and published.
Marc Etches
Chief executive, Responsible Gambling Trust

Your editorial (3 February) attributes the sacking of Baroness Morgan as chair of Ofsted to “partisan grounds”, and Labour tries to embarrass David Cameron by claiming that her sacking is part of a larger pattern. However, the real issue is Michael Gove‘s determination to gain control of Ofsted and silence its outspoken chief inspector. Seeking to widen the argument merely lays Labour open to counter-charges and distracts attention from Gove’s doings.

Independent:

You suggest that Pakistan is right to negotiate with the terrorist organisations in their midst (editorial, 30 January).

These people murdered nearly 700 Shia in 2013. They boast of the assassinations and massacres they commit, brazenly affirming their genocidal objective of eradicating the whole “infidel” population of Pakistan, which includes Ahmadi Muslims, Christians and Hindus.

Last September, their suicide bombers killed at least 75 worshippers attending Mass in Peshawar’s historic All Saints Church .

A fortnight ago gunmen murdered three Express TV workers in Karachi, and their spokesman struck a deal live on air with a senior journalist from the channel, that they would stop killing Express journalists on condition they were given air time to present their extremist views. So anybody who disagrees with them is a target.

These people want to change Pakistan, and ultimately the world, into an Islamic caliphate governed by seventh-century rules. Negotiating with them is futile, because they believe murder of infidels, and the promotion of the caliphate, are commanded by God.

Eric Avebury, House of Lords

A political leader without policies

In his article of 27 January, Nigel Farage suggested he was only a candidate for Ukip in the 2010 election. It is true that he abandoned the leadership in the run-up to the election, but he remained the leader in all but name. He made far more visits to the Ukip campaign HQ than Lord Pearson, the official leader. Ahead of media appearances, he was briefed at length by Ukip staff on the relevant policies, which he would then argue and defend.

I authored the 16-page summary of the manifesto which was launched by Mr Farage at the Ukip spring conference in 2010, despite his claiming proudly on arrival that he hadn’t bothered to read the thing. Mr Farage recently boasted about the appointment of a new dedicated Head of Policy “to develop intelligent, costed policies which will form a manifesto for the 2015 general”.  That “new” appointment is Tim Aker, who did sterling voluntary work writing parts of the 2010 manifesto Mr Farage denounced as “drivel”.

Mr Farage referred to a manifesto of 486 pages. This is wholly inaccurate. The 486 pages were 17 separate policy papers produced by over 100 policy experts, including the former commander of the UK’s nuclear submarine fleet, who put together the defence paper – which was warmly praised by the UK National Defence Association. All were binned by Mr Farage, who’d prefer to have a blank piece of paper than a manifesto.

Mr Farage is a political leader who doesn’t believe in policies. Without policies he can be neither serious nor credible.

David Campbell Bannerman MEP, (Conservative), Brussels

Fit matters more than fat

The World Health Organisation in its obesity report (3 February) appears not to have noticed that the car dominates our residential roads, and this prevents children from playing outside close to home, as they have done since before becoming Homo sapiens. When they can play out, children are active and have a healthy lifestyle without costly intervention from the state.

The major problem is lack of fitness rather than obesity. Obviously they are related but primacy needs to be given to addressing the lack of fitness.

Rob Wheway, Director, Children’s Play Advisory Service, Coventry

Common sense or shifting blame?

While I wholeheartedly agree that rape is always the fault of the rapist and never the victim (Alice Jones, 1 February), I think Irma Kurtz had a fair point.

Choosing to become intoxicated beyond the point where you can reasonably expect to make your feelings and preferences obvious in a coherent way, is to choose to put yourself at unnecessary risk.

The decision to rape someone is made by the rapist, but don’t we all have a responsibility to ourselves to put our safety first? We should ensure rapists are stopped and punished. We should also ensure as we raise our daughters that they develop self-awareness and adopt a positive attitude to keeping themselves and their friends safe from myriad situations where huge intakes of alcohol increase their vulnerability.

Vicky Bayley, Buckinghamshire

Alice Jones is being rather unkind to Irma Kurtz, who asks women not to put themselves at risk of rape by drinking excess alcohol.

Does Alice Jones believe in leaving her sports car with the hood down, keys in the ignition, on the High Street? Perhaps a sign in the window saying “Theft Is Wrong” will work? I hear no campaign against insurance companies who will reduce your claim, when it is stolen, on the basis of “contributory negligence”.

There are nasty people about. Rape is wrong. Theft is wrong. But please don’t pillory people, like Irma Kurtz, who just talk common sense.

Phil Isherwood, Leigh, Lancashire

If we had stayed out of the Great War

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown bemoans current efforts to commemorate the First World War (3 February). Might I suggest that remembering, as we do on Remembrance Sunday, is not the same as glorifying.

She also quotes Niall Ferguson as being antiwar. I read his article in this month’s BBC History Magazine. In the same issue six other historians suggest that Britain’s involvement was either inevitable, morally necessary, or both. Presumably, the alternative would have been some form of appeasement – not a policy with a proud record.

Graham Hudson, London SW19

Niall Ferguson’s view that the Great War “was the biggest error in modern history” is at least in part shaped by the belief that without it the British Empire might well have survived as a multi-national super-power – as would the more authoritarian multi-national empires in central and eastern Europe.

Not such a bad idea in my view, but I am surprised to find it supported by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. Is she secretly nostalgic for the European and world order before August 1914?

R S Foster, Sheffield

Yes, minister for education

Come come, Sir David Bell, you and Baroness Morgan have very short memories. Ministers of Education have always wanted yes-men. The graveyards are full of memorials to the Advisory Councils, the Schools Council for Curriculum and Examinations, the Secondary Examinations Council, the Schools Curriculum Development Committee, the National Curriculum Committee,  the School Examination and Assessment Committee and countless others which failed to jump to the whim of whoever happened to be the minister.

Perhaps it’s time, come to think of it, to refresh the office of Secretary of State. The present incumbent’s been there quite a long time.

John Mann, (formerly Secretary,  Schools Council for Curriculum and Examinations), London NW2

Prevent floods? As soon hold back the tide

I live on the edge of the Somerset Levels on a bump, so, thankfully, we are dry. The Levels are a true, 100-square-mile flood plain. They hold the water that drains from  the surrounding hills: the Mendips, the Poldens, the Blackdowns, the Quantocks and Exmoor.

The plain’s small rivers cannot empty themselves into the sea because the 15-metre spring tides have the second highest range in the world. High tides approach and recede every 12 hours; then the rivers cannot empty themselves and flood back over the plain. Only during the 12 hours of ebbs can they drain.

If the little rivers were widened and dredged, they would be more efficient, but not enough to stop the flooding.

It would certainly help if fewer ill-designed, tiny, unwanted and expensive homes were built on the Levels’ slopes. This would preserve ground-water retention and stop this unneeded despoliation of our lovely county.

If artificial rivers were constructed, that ran directly into the sea, they would do what our little rivers and drains cannot. But they would need to be big and numerous, each with far larger control-barrages than the Thames’s.

Are these solutions absurd and all too much to hope for? If so, we should try the ridiculous and reduce the tidal range. I hear that the Chinese are mining minerals from the moon and bringing them back to earth. If they did this really well, they might make it hollow and reduce its mass. This would work.

Mick Humphreys, Creech St Michael,  Somerset

It seems that everyone is to blame for the flooding in Somerset. The fact that it has rained almost every day for a month, and is some of the worst weather for 100 years, doesn’t seem to matter. It’s someone’s fault.

Sometimes we have to accept that you can’t do anything about this. This is nature.

Martyn Pattie, Ongar, Essex

Times:

Telegraph:

SIR – I share Cristina Odone’s joy at seeing Emma Thompson shrug off her “painful and pointless” high heels at the Golden Globes ceremony.

SIR – Baroness Morgan of Huyton, in claiming a Tory bias with regards to appointments in public roles, carries on a rich tradition of Labour hypocrisy.

SIR – The increased dredging of rivers will not address the root cause of flooding, which is water being allowed to run off upland areas too quickly. Agricultural subsidies should be realigned so that landowners are compensated for protecting rivers from excessive silt input from fields, so cutting down on the need to dredge. Planners must also stop permitting new building on flood plains.

Irish Times:

Sir, – The HSE has recently published a draft contract for doctors in order to facilitate “free” GP care for children under-six. To my disbelief this document requires medical practitioners to state that they “shall not do anything to prejudice the name or reputation of the HSE”.

The clear objective of this despicable clause is to gag GPs and prevent them from publicly highlighting the failings of incompetent administrators. It is an appalling reflection on both this Government and its Minister for Health that such a deliberate act of censorship is being actively contemplated.

I believe this contract constitutes a direct assault on freedom of expression for GPs. Furthermore, these Soviet-style tactics effectively destroy the ability of doctors to advocate for their patients, which is one of the core duties of a medical practitioner.

While I appreciate the power of the government spin machine and recognise the sheer level of anti-medical hostility that exists in our national media, it would be a dark day indeed if this document is allowed to go forward unchallenged. Action must be taken immediately. – Yours, etc,

Dr RUAIRI HANLEY,

MICGP, Kilskyre,

Kells, Co Meath.

Sir, – As a social worker, I welcome the new Child and Family Agency, at least because it offers the potential of a standardised approach to assessing and protecting children, and transparency in terms of its ring-fenced budget. Miriam Kelleher (February 1st), wonders why public health nursing and child and adolescent mental health services, are not included in the new agency.

Surely this is because those services argued, that public health nurses work with the public from the cradle to grave, and are better positioned within the new primary care directorate, and child and adolescent mental health services are specialist mental health services and are better placed within the new mental health directorate?

What is key is that all agencies work together, each doing their bit to ensure that child welfare is paramount and those children at greatest risk are protected. – Yours, etc,

FRANK BROWNE,

Ballyroan Park,

Templeogue,

Dublin16.

Sir, – Noirín Clancy, chair of the “5050 Group”, points out that just 25 per cent of all local election candidates are women and blames political party selection conventions which she says “will tend to favour tried and tested [male] incumbent candidates rather than the new [female] candidate” (Letters, February 3rd). Ms Clancy seems to have based this view on an assumption rather than on actual evidence.

First, Dr Adrian Kavanagh of NUI Maynooth maintains an interesting website that lists the candidates being put forward by each of the political parties. It shows that Fine Gael, by far the largest party with the most male incumbents, has nominated at least one female candidate in 68 of the 120 electoral areas in which they have held selection candidates so far (57 per cent). This does not suggest female candidates are being shafted wholesale at local level; it suggests quite the contrary. Local media coverage of selection conventions being held across the country, of which Ms Clancy’s group ought surely be aware, shows that both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are actively seeking female candidates and that any woman who is willing to run for either party would be welcomed with open arms, not snubbed.

Second, if Ms Clancy’s claim is accurate then surely it would further manifest itself in a much higher ratio of women among Independent and non-party candidates, where no such party political barriers exist. However, according to Dr Kavanagh just 25 per cent of Independent candidates are women, which is only marginally ahead of Fine Gael but significantly behind the Labour Party which is at 32 per cent. Clearly, if women are not running as Independents in any greater numbers than as members of political parties, then local selection conventions cannot be having the negative impact which Ms Clancy alleges.

The fact is that women are far more reluctant than men to express an interest in running for election, either as members of a political party or as Independents, due to a range of deep-seated reasons surrounding the culture of Irish politics and the workload that comes with being an elected representative.

These problems will not be solved in quick-fix fashion by crass gender quotas imposed across the board, but by directly addressing these underlying factors. The sooner that feminist organisations abandon this obsession with quotas, and focus on more worthwhile solutions, the better for all women. – Yours, etc,

BARRY WALSH,

Brooklawn,

Sir, – Four weeks into 2014, I understand Limerick City of Culture 2014 has not yet received the €6.2 million promised in the October budget from the Department of Finance. Many artistic events, culture and community projects and festivals now seem in jeopardy as it appears finance is not available to initiate pre-production or confirm artists’ contracts.

Nor has the board announced recruitment to fill the positions left vacant in management and the artistic team. Why? – Yours, etc,

KATIE VERLING,

Mayorstone,

Limerick.

Sir, – The call by the State’s judges for a radical overhaul of the judicial appointments process is to be welcomed (Breaking News, January 30th). The overhaul must be extended to cover the appointment of State solicitors. – Yours, etc,

DONAGH CRONIN,

Oliver Plunkett Hill,

Fermoy, Co Cork.

Sir, – Oh how preoccupied we get when the ballot box appears on the horizon.

The Labour Party leader, Eamon Gilmore declares his party’s local elections manifesto will promise cuts in property tax (Home News, February 3rd) . The Labour Party is already in Government – and it introduced the property tax! Had Mr Gilmore forgotten? – Yours, etc,

RONAN QUINLAN,

Bothar tSlí Leathan,

Baile Atha Cliath 15.

Sir, – Thank you to Róisín Ingle for her beautiful piece (Magazine, February 1st) – reminding us that Ann Lovett’s pregnancy was not a replication of the immaculate conception. – Yours, etc,

SARAH IRONSIDE,

Rue Bordiau,

Brussels, Belgium.

Sir, – Prof Damian McCormack’s letter (January 29th) intrigues me. He criticises trade missions to countries whose human rights record does not meet his approval. He appears to want Ireland not to have any dealings with those whose human rights values he questions.

I am typing this letter on a computer manufactured in China, which has a poor human rights record. The computer company is situated in the United States, which uses the death penalty. Many of the computer parts are made in India, which conducts a space programme while many of its citizens go hungry.

Should I abandon the computer age and revert to the pencil? – Yours, etc,

SEAN O’SULLIVAN,

Crossabeg,

Sir, – Irish Water is being compared to the HSE, with the chaos and inefficiencies that appeared after the HSE’s establishment. Irish Water is to be complimented for its planning, foresight and openness in informing the public of its intention to be overstaffed, inefficient, and broken well before it is even up and running. That is planning Irish-style. – Yours, etc,

JOHN ROGERS,

Ballydorey,

Rathowen,

Co Westmeath.

Sir, – I applied for a renewal of my driving licence on November 26th and after a four-hour wait at the NDLS centre in City West managed to complete all the formalities. By January 29th I had still not received the licence – which meant I had to cancel or delay several trips abroad which required hiring or driving a car. I also attempted to contact the NDLS service by phone and email on a number of occasions without success until this morning (January 29th). It has now assured me my licence was put in the post yesterday (January 28th). Hopefully this will soon enable me to re-book my flights.

The situation is analogous to the situation with Irish Water where a service previously provided by local authorities is now being centralised into one specialised agency. While one might expect some teething problems in this process the failure to deliver such a basic and legally required service has serious consequences for citizens and businesses who need to travel abroad. I wonder will the Government learn from this episode and ensure that similar problems aren’t experienced with Irish Water? – Yours, etc,

FRANK SCHNITTGER,

Red Lane,

Blessington, Co Wicklow.

Sir, – A particular story told by the late lamented Ted Nealon – whom I knew along with his friend John Healy when we were on the Irish Press staff – deserves to be on public record. It concerns the provenance of the Liam Cosgrave “mongrel foxes” reference to the Garret FitzGerald clique who were said to be plotting his downfall as leader of Fine Gael.

Many years later Ted told me that he sat at the press table in Cork as Cosgrave addressed the annual Fine Gael gathering. With the copy of the script in front of him he was re-reading in tandem, awaiting off-the-cuff quotable remarks. Suddenly, he noticed that Cosgrave was reading again from an earlier page. No one seemed to notice.

He looked up and saw that Cosgrave was shuffling the pages to get back on track. As he did so, the wily huntsman talked about the mongrel foxes who, he said, were out to derail the party. It is probably the only quote that has survived from that Fine Gael gathering. – Yours, etc,

JOE FOYLE,

Sandford Road,

Ranelagh,

Sir, – I was shocked to read that the “Exchange” art space in Dublin’s Temple Bar is being forced to close its doors (Home News, February 1st). How inspiring of Temple Bar Cultural Trust to shut down one of the only alcohol-free art spaces for young people in the city and what visionaries Dublin City Council truly are, that we will now have another vacant building to admire in the capital. – Yours, etc,

JOHN A KENNY,

Waterside,

Malahide, Co Dublin.

Sir, – As beloved by broadcasters “Live in the studio . . .”. What’s the alternative?   – Yours, etc,

GERRY McDONNELL,

Kippure Avenue,

Green Park, Dublin 12.

Sir, – Enough already. – Yours, etc,

JOHN DOYLE,

Enniskeane, Co Cork.

Sir, – Could we do away with the euphemism “Passed away” and “Passed”? I heard a person on the radio saying recently that someone had been “pronounced passed away”. If there’s a major incident involving loss of life, do we say “100 people passed away when the train/plane/cars crashed?” Dead, Died. End of. – Yours, etc,

MAIREAD MASON,

Ballymore Eustace,

Co Kildare.

Sir, – “Welcome back”, on radio or TV, when I’ve gone nowhere. – Yours, etc,

OLIVER DUFFY,

Melbourn Estate, Cork.

Sir, – “Ireland and Northern Ireland”, defying the laws of geography. – Yours, etc,

BERNARD

Mac BRÁDAIGH,

Annascaul, Tralee, Co Kerry.

Sir, – May I commend your readers on their endeavours to reduce down the use of superfluous words and banal everyday phrases. Take “reduce down”, for example. Too often we hear this grating sound-byte from politicians in austerity mode, but it is ridiculous. Who has ever heard of reducing something up? – Yours, etc,

MICHAEL DOORLEY,

Sidmonton Gardens,

Bray, Co Wicklow.

Sir, – Given the magnitude of their loss on the rugby field (Sport, February 3rd) should Scotland be seeking not independence, but amalgamation with Wales, England or (God help us) the French? – Yours, etc,

Dr JOHN DOHERTY,

Cnoc an Stollaire,

Gaoth Dobhair, Co Donegal.

Sir, – If anyone said today to coloured members of our Irish community that they should not have the right to marry one another, he or she would rightly be accused of making a racist comment. If this is the case, does it not logically follow that it would be equally unjust of anyone to state publicly to members of the Irish homosexual community that they should not have the legal right to marry each other?

Could anything be more simple and just than to look into one’s heart and see that love between two consenting adults is as equal and just and as meaningful as love between all consenting adult couples. The emotions of human heart should be superior to the passions of old long-standing principles and traditions. – Yours, etc,

SEAN O’BRIEN,

Clonliffe Road, Dublin 3.

Sir, – Following Kevin Butler’s call (January 31st) for the State to “exit the marriage battlefield”, may I propose the Government introduce the Colourful Partnership Bill.

Based on the equality of the primary colours, and with red and yellow representing male and female, the combination of the two equates to orange. Partnerships could then be colour coded and any nuances and inequalities catered for in legislation.

Such a move would: 1. Rid us of all references to homophobes, subhumans, vampires and the Catholic Church; 2. Overcome any deficiencies in the Civil Partnership Act and 3.For those who still want to trade in insults, those who dissent can be regarded as suffering from chromophobia. – Yours, etc,

SEAMUS O’CALLAGHAN,

Bullock Park, Carlow.

Sir, – At the risk of being described by “Catho-phobes” as a “homo-phobe”, may I suggest that attacks on the stance of the Church of Rome may be misplaced.

I understand that the church is unique among western churches in having seven sacraments of which one is “matrimony”. The modern “techie” generation will presumably be unaware that “matrimonium”, its Latin root (alongside its Latin cognate “maritrare”) is to do with the state of “motherhood”.

Whether you believe evolution was divinely set up or was the result of an infinity to one chance “Big Bang”, it remains an objective fact of evolution that the sole means of reproducing the human species is through the conjunction of the male sperm and the female egg, whether artificially or, hopefully, through more pleasurable methods. It follows then that a same sex couple cannot both be the biological parent of the same child, nor can one partner impregnate the other so as to make the other a mother. How can one expect the Church of Rome whether theologically or logically to confer (if that is the right term) matrimony in such cases?

The English word “wedding” has none of this awkwardness attached. To “wed” is to “pledge” so let the Government bring forward same-sex weddings. As far as I know, the Irish word “pósadh” has no awkwardness either so it might fit for the Irish translation of the legislation.

At the same time, Minister for Finance Michael Noonan might abolish all tax and legal reliefs applicable to the married and civil partnership states, because it is more and more clear that marriage as a vehicle for producing children is of far less relevance today than ever before. – Yours, etc,

GERALD MURPHY,

Marley Avenue,

Marley Grange, Dublin 16.

Irish Independent:

* I watched a ‘Neknomination’ video the other day and someone that I love was nominated to do it. All of a sudden it sounded very real.

Also in this section

Letters: Living in fear, cut off from the outside world

Keep challenging consensus

Top-ups beat ‘em all

The second I heard it I said, “I hope he doesn’t do it”, then I thought, of course he will, but what if he is the unlucky one?

How would I feel if he was no longer with us? So I private messaged him (not to embarrass him) and asked him not to do it.

This rubbish has to stop. Young people feel they have to man-up, they can’t be seen to ignore/shy away from the challenge of a Neknomination.

Some even feel they must outshine their nominator and go a step further by drinking that bit more or making a video that is even more impressive!

And yes, it will earn you endless likes on Facebook and you will feel great. But please stop and think!

I think it takes a bigger person to ignore a nomination.

Let’s just say you’re lucky, you complete the challenge unscathed, get plenty of likes and nominate more friends. But suddenly, one of your nominees dies. How would you feel?

Medics break the news to the family that this sudden death was as a result of this game. How would you feel?

You have to face the parents and explain that you nominated their child. How would you feel?

Your own parents cannot comprehend that their child is responsible for the death of another. How would you feel?

It makes national news and the local papers. How would you feel?

Everyone in your locality is talking about you. How would you feel?

This person’s partner watches the video and that becomes their last memory of the one they had planned to spend the rest of their life with. How would you feel?

You attend the funeral but are asked to leave to avoid further upsetting the family. How would you feel?

Every time you see a drink you think of this tragedy and how you nominated your “friend” to complete this fatal act. How would you feel?

Send this to your family and friends and anyone who gets nominated. Sorry if we embarrass you but if it keeps you alive or prevents you from the shame of killing a nominee then surely it’s worth it?

I’m sure this sounds dramatic, and I bet I don’t look cool posting this. Thankfully I’m not bothered about how it makes me look!

It is pretty shocking but not impossible.

So, how would you feel?

ELAINE O’ROURKE

CO LAOIS

SEEKING OUT JUSTICE

* Michael Dryhurst (An inspiration to us all, Letters, February 3) ponders “how wonderful would be the country of Ireland if only we had politicians with the commitment, courage, determination and unflinching resolve of a Louise O’Keeffe”. A laudable sentiment which few would argue with.

Ireland has evolved into a better and more caring society thanks to people like Ms O’Keeffe – and others who have fought to have their stories of horrendous abuse told, heard and believed despite almost insurmountable objects placed in their paths.

There are others with harrowing stories. Derek Leinster, a former child resident of the Bethany Home in Rathgar, is one of those. Mr Leinster has fought relentlessly for many years to have former abused Bethany residents included in the Residential Institutional Redress Scheme but has been met with persistent rejection.

Speaking in the wake of the Children’s Referendum in 2012, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said the Government would respond “positively and wholeheartedly” and match the new legislation with appropriate action.

Children’s Minister Frances Fitzgerald referred to the decision of the people as giving a voice to children, that it was a historic day for the children of Ireland that would ensure their rights were better protected.

Despite being treated with coldness, Mr Leinster, like Ms O’Keeffe, personifies forgiveness and warmth as they continue their journey seeking justice, not revenge.

TOM COOPER

TEMPLEOGUE, DUBLIN

WEIGHTY MATTERS

* Recent health warnings about obesity make me wonder whether the Government might consider a gravity levy. I’m carrying a few extra kilos myself, but I wouldn’t mind paying if it meant such a valuable resource was properly managed.

A standing charge could apply to that portion of an individual’s weight considered healthy, while the excess would incur a per kilogram charge. Naturally, the difference would have to be certified by a state-approved body, perhaps the National Gravity Testing Service (NGTS).

As a last resort, serious defaulters would find themselves losing their footing on terra firma as gravity service was withdrawn and they drifted aloft at the mercy of the prevailing winds. A grim prospect indeed given the scything turbines and crackling pylons lining our horizons.

KEVIN GIBBONS

LEIXLIP, CO KILDARE

LUCK OF TOSS STILL EXISTS

* The credited old idiom “better born lucky than rich” was never truer than today. Every gain by the less privileged is highly appreciated and used to advantage.

On entering a shop on Saturday morning, a friendly discussion on the €30,000 cash to be paid to hundreds of householders living close to the controversial high voltage power lines was in progress.

One man remarked: “I’d move out my business and live abroad if that was to happen to me.”

A near retirement fellow with a jolly smile who was standing close by thought it “a great idea if they passed near him.

“With that money the missus and myself could slip away for an odd cheap holiday in the sun. God knows she deserves it after all her year of slaving for the family.”

A well-heeled farmer and a smallholder chatting outside the ring at Monday’s cattle mart were discussing the new changes coming about in farming.

The smallholder, a little elevated after successfully bidding on three nice store heifers, said proudly: “Did I ever think after struggling to rear four children on 12 acres, with three cows and two sows, the day would come when I would have 30 acres, 12 cows and be getting my entitlements like the ‘big fellow’?”

Who would envy the luck of the 4,000 local authority staff the new Irish Water doesn’t need but has to employ them until 2025 when their service contracts expire?

Enda Kenny hardly ever dreamt, as he worked in a dreary classroom in the west of Ireland, he would, one day, represent his country as Taoiseach, at the recent financial conference in Davos, dealing with the richest business people in the world.

Life is real, life is earnest – but it’s a gamble well worth taking!

JAMES GLEESON

THURLES, CO TIPPERARY

WATER THE NEW GOLD

* In the elitist dictionary, words are manipulated for different meanings that differ to the common man. For example, the word justice, when used in accordance with the elite, that terminology changes to Just – Us!

Then we have the universal word God. In elite religion that means gold, oil and diamonds. However, a new elitist currency is evolving: water!

A currency that is beginning to flow between river banks. Soon we will all be slaves, as civil law becomes maritime law. The law of water.

At birth humans will become the property of commercial maritime bankers. Water will become the law of the land for the elite. Much more precious then gold.

ANTHONY WOODS

ENNIS, CO CLARE

Irish Independent

5 February 2014 Thermabloc
I go all the way around the park listening to the Navy Lark. Our heroes are in trouble, again. They have to rescue a stranded yacht.   Priceless.
Attic, shopping pallets picked up, new source of thermabloc
Scrabble today Mary wins, just.  and get under 400, Perhaps I will win tomorrow.

Obituary:
Sir David Price, who has died aged 89, was a technocratic, humane and moderate Tory who served as a junior trade and aerospace minister under Macmillan, Home and Heath but spent 20 long years on the back benches after being sacked as Heath made his industrial and economic “U-turn”.
For most of his 37 years as MP for Eastleigh, Price campaigned for Britain to be a global competitor in aircraft manufacture, nuclear energy and space research; much of the early groundwork for a European Space Agency was his. As the dream faded, he blamed “an unholy alliance between the aristocratic Right and the intellectual Left that industry is not for us”.
Previously economic adviser to the chairman of ICI, Price formed an equally low opinion of the Treasury. Retiring in 1992, he said he had watched it with “increasing despair: they are brilliant people, hard-working and incorruptible, but in their economic judgments invariably wrong”.
An imposing figure, Price was never afraid to stick his neck out; his abstention over Suez with his uncle, Sir Lionel Heald, just after arriving in the House, was forgiven by Macmillan — although not by members of Pratt’s, who four years later blackballed him from his father’s old club.
He opposed capital punishment and apartheid; and advocated tax credits for the less well-off, a flexible retirement age and a criminal injuries compensation scheme years before they were introduced .
He also campaigned assiduously for the disabled, a cause which was close to his heart. His wife Rosemary had suffered a near-fatal 40ft fall from their Pimlico bathroom window in 1964, when she was 26, incurring multiple injuries and losing the second child they were expecting. After a year in Stoke Mandeville hospital she spent four decades mainly in a wheelchair . (Price himself had had a painful recovery from severe internal injuries after a car crash in 1958.)
In 1970 Price and his wife were turned away from the Tate Gallery when he took her there for the first time since her accident; not only were the steps difficult for a wheelchair, but attendants also said that the gallery was too crowded. The Prices checked other museums and galleries and found things little better; so when Heath’s government introduced museum charges, Price tabled an amendment allowing them to keep the money if they spent it on facilities for the disabled. He fought attempts by Labour to cut the number of beds at Stoke Mandeville, and proposed a Queen’s Award for firms employing more than their quota of the disabled.
David Ernest Campbell Price was born on November 20 1924 . A Rosebery Scholar at Eton, he won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, before being commissioned in the 1st Battalion Scots Guards in 1942. He spent his war as an intelligence officer, eventually with HQ 56 London Division in Trieste.
Years later, when Archbishop Robert Runcie accused Margaret Thatcher’s government of creating a conflict in society between “efficiency and compassion”, Price retorted: “I know of no efficiently run organisation where the morale is low. Has the Archbishop forgotten his own experience in the Scots Guards?”
Demobilised as a major, Price belatedly went up to Cambridge to read History, being president of the Union in 1948 and a vice-president of the Federation of University Conservative and Unionist Associations. He spent a year at Yale before joining ICI, remaining with the company until 1962.
In 1955 Price was selected for the new seat of Eastleigh, winning it by 581 votes in a straight fight with Labour. He proved an assiduous constituency member and after a narrow squeak in 1966 increased his majority by 1979 to 20,294. Two years after his retirement Eastleigh fell to the Liberal Democrats in a by-election.
In the Commons, Price caused a stir with his abstention over Suez. When 110 Tories accused America of “endangering the Atlantic Alliance” by opposing intervention, Price called instead for renewed cooperation with Washington.
The prosperity of the late 1950s fuelled Price’s hopes that every citizen could become a capitalist. Before the 1959 election he proposed “Industrial Investment Certificates”, enabling the public to buy into a trust fund investing in the private sector. During the campaign he received a letter from an inmate of Winchester Prison saying that they would all vote Conservative because they had never had it so good.
In the new Parliament, Price chaired the Conservative backbench Atomic Energy Committee. Unhappy with the idea that the science minister must be an amateur, he said: “I rather hope that at the back of the Cabinet room Lord Hailsham is not playing with his chemistry set.”
In 1960 he proposed a joint space research programme with Europe and Australia, based on the soon-to-be-abandoned Blue Streak rocket. A report he prepared for Hailsham, who personally was not keen, was instrumental in the Council of Europe’s decision to create a European Space Agency at a meeting in Strasbourg that Price — who had served on the Council — attended.
In July 1962 Macmillan appointed him Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade. Price took through a Weights and Measures Bill that embraced the metric system (though he did not envisage it replacing Imperial measures), and a Hire Purchase Bill guaranteeing that anyone who innocently bought a car covered by an HP agreement could keep it. He also fielded complaints from small shopkeepers that Heath’s abolition of Resale Price Maintenance would lead to aggressive price-cutters like Tesco putting them out of business.
After the 1964 election, Price became Opposition spokesman on science and technology. He warned that if Harold Wilson cancelled the TSR2 fighter-bomber, he would be remembered as “the Esau of our times who sold our technical future for a mess of American pottage”. He fell out with Frank Cousins, Minister of Technology, over his refusing Price the “normal courtesy” of seeing his press releases, and as the QE2 took shape, argued that the banks, not the State, should finance it.
When Heath came to power in 1970, he sent Price to the Ministry of Technology as Parliamentary Secretary; Price barely had time to launch a computerised accounting scheme for small businesses, however, before being moved sideways to Aviation Supply under Frederick Corfield.
Concorde — which then employed 25,000 people — seemed his first priority; but within weeks Rolls-Royce hit financial difficulties over the cost of developing the RB-211 jet engine. Despite earlier talk of letting “lame ducks” go to the wall, Heath stepped in to nationalise the company. When emergency legislation to create “Rolls-Royce 1971 Ltd” was brought to the House in March 1971, Price and Corfield caused confusion over how far the government had committed itself to the engine, and angry shareholders accused them of showing an “abysmal lack of faith” in the RB211.
That April Price moved to the DTI under John Davies as Parliamentary Secretary for Aerospace; in September the RB211 received a final go-ahead after the US government lent £104 million toward the engine’s development for the Lockheed TriStar.
Price was dropped in Heath’s April 1972 reshuffle along with Nicholas Ridley, the most vocal exponent of the “lame ducks” strategy. Ironically, the interventionist policies Heath went on to pursue were closer to Price’s own instincts.
After the close election of February 1974, Price took a call from Downing Street asking him to see Wilson; prudently, he checked — and found it had been meant for the Labour MP Bill Price, who became a minister.
Price now staked a claim to fame by using the phrase “Winter of Discontent” in a newspaper article to categorise the fledgling Labour government’s difficulties with the unions. It did not register — but five years later the Sun would use it again, to deadly effect. He also suffered the inconvenience of losing all his constituency correspondence when the IRA bombed Westminster Hall.
Labour’s outright re-election that October spelled the end for Heath. Price accepted that the Prime Minister could not survive — but insisted he had been right to call for a government of national unity. Succeeding Heath, Mrs Thatcher did not recall Price to the front bench.
He spent a contentious Parliament grilling ministers on the risk of rabies, identifying 377 legislative provisions for officials to enter and search homes and business premises, and swimming for the Commons against the Lords.
Knighted in 1980, Price became an energetic member of the new Transport Select Committee. When the government rejected its recommendations for transferring the testing system for HGV drivers to private operators, he abstained in protest. He also declared that the Serpell Report recommending drastic cuts to the railways had “got it wrong”; what was needed was more investment.
After the 1983 election — in which he was helped by his Labour opponent from 1970, who had switched sides — Price joined the Social Services (later Health) Select Committee. He condemned Kenneth Clarke’s plan for anonymous Aids testing of hospital patients as “clinically irresponsible”, and criticised the government’s handling of the protracted ambulance workers’ dispute. Nevertheless, he was the whips’ choice that year to chair the committee — but was defeated by the even more independent Nicholas Winterton.
Leaving Parliament, Price developed his industrial consultancy, was a non-executive director of Southampton University Hospitals Trust and chaired Hampshire Community Care Forum. He was vocal in urging residential care — even calling it “asylum” — for mental patients who could not cope in the community.
Price was twice chairman of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee, and parliamentary consultant to the Institute of Industrial Managers from 1973 to 1990 and its vice-president from 1980 to 1992. He was appointed Deputy Lieutenant for Hampshire in 1982.
He married Rosemary Johnson in 1960. She died in 2006, and he is survived by their daughter.
Sir David Price, born November 20 1924, died January 31 2014

Guardian:

P
The Guardian’s repeated casting of the Meredith Kercher murder trial as a gross miscarriage of justice for Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito is disturbing (Reports, 1-4 February). Undoubtedly, the case is complex and shrouded in ambiguity and uncertainty. However, there are at least three points which are certain.
1) During the pre-trial, trial proper, and retrial, different judges and juries have, after close and prolonged examination of all the evidence, concluded there is enough evidence against the defendants to find them guilty of the murder charge against them.
2) The appeal in which the defendants were acquitted was overturned after the supreme court found it to have “multiple shortcomings, contradictions and inconsistencies” and that the “evidence against [the defendants] had been underestimated”.
3) At the same time as she was originally found guilty of murder, Amanda Knox was also found guilty of slander and subsequently sentenced to four years’ imprisonment for having accused an innocent man of the crime. Although acquitted of murder on appeal, the slander charge was upheld. At the time of the acquittal, Ms Knox had spent four years in jail, ie she effectively served the slander sentence while on remand. Therefore, she has not in fact served any time in prison for a crime she did not commit (although the same could not be said for Mr Sollecito if the final outcome of the legal process were to find him not guilty).
Assertions such as those made by Andrew Gumbel (himself a co-author of Sollecito’s autobiography) that Knox and Sollecito have been reconvicted “without a shred of evidence to substantiate the verdict” are untrue and undermine the gravity of the case, as does a one-sided interview with Ms Knox during which the evidence against her is barely addressed.
Only those in the courtroom are in possession of the full facts; it is only they who should make pronouncements on what the outcome should or should not be. Until then, the best course of action would be to wait for the (admittedly, grindingly slow) Italian legal process to come to its conclusion.
Georgia Ladbury, Friya Engineer, Jen Rouse and 105 others

You report (The works of art that could not be saved for British collections, 31 January) the “loss” abroad last year of 33,000 works of art and other items of cultural value. This is less serious than it sounds. Most were everyday sales from private collections here to private collections elsewhere. Welcome to the art market. The small number that were of high potential importance to UK museums were properly identified by the export review system.
Of these, only six of the original 19 were successfully acquired for public ownership. But it is the sharp decline in public funding for the arts, rather than the export controls themselves, that lies squarely behind this failure. The works which the culture minister, Ed Vaizey, challenged curators to fundraise for in 2013 were, at £115m, worth 50% more than those he export-stopped in 2012; meanwhile his government oversaw funding cuts averaging more than 20% across the sector. With such a background it was remarkable that as many as six were saved.
Agencies such as the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Art Fund continue to do all they can to guard the UK’s arts and heritage against the ravages of the government’s austerity programme. In the case of the National Portrait Gallery’s current campaign for Van Dyck’s self-portrait, a number of trusts and foundations, as well as significant sums from public donations, are also of crucial help. The combination of high art prices in a buoyant international market, currently fast-fuelled by hungry private investors, and a sorry parallel decline in national and local funding for UK museums, is the only enemy.
Stephen Deuchar
Director, Art Fund

George Monbiot (Dredging up nonsense, 31 January) forgets that much of the Somerset Levels are below the high tide level. In order to remain as dry land, all the water that arrives at the Levels – by rainfall or by river flow – in 24 hours must flow out to sea in the 12 hours a day when the tide is low enough. In this area well-maintained drainage channels are essential. This was understood by the medieval monks who created the Levels, by Brunel, whose first effort at an iron ship was the little steam dredger he built for Bridgwater docks, and by the people who live there now.
Flooding any farmland kills that season’s crops of grass or vegetables, and is likely to reduce yields in later crops, putting up food prices and risking hunger among poor people. This is due to market forces when food is traded as a commodity. The argument that suggests dredging was stopped to protect the river bank wildlife always was nonsense. The wildlife had survived on the river banks because the previous management produced suitable conditions for it. There were arguments about the scale and speed of mechanical dredging, but allowing the upper levels of water voles’ burrows to flood is as stupid as flooding villages.
Huw Jones
Pwll-Trap, Carmarthenshire
•  George Monbiot seems to be the only public person who has read and understood the technical knowledge relating to flood events. Piecemeal panic solutions are not the answer. In the transitions from the River Authorities to the National Rivers Authority to the Environment Agency, which deskilled and outsourced much professional engineering competence, local experience and knowledge of how to respond to flood events was lost. The need for “whole catchment management” has long been researched and published by the UK research and consultancy centres CEH Wallingford and HR Wallingford, which are highly regarded international experts in this field. Rather than making panic pronouncements about dredging, it would be better to commit to investment in competent expert studies of the problem catchments and how to manage them to minimise flooding in the future.
Michael Thorn
Helston, Cornwall
•  Dredging the rivers in the Somerset Levels would be little more effective than digging a big hole to hold the floods. A simple scenario may help George Monbiot’s case. Imagine a stream flowing across a garden that occasionally floods the lawn. If it is deepened, it will merely hold more water. The outward flow will still be the same and it will still flood. Extending this deepening to the entire length of the stream would also do no good, as it is the slope of a water course that determines the amount of water it shifts. Deepened rivers shift the same amount of water as before, they just flow more slowly. To protect the garden, the banks of the stream would have to be raised, promptly sending the water next door.
John Linfoot
Bournemouth
•  Surely it is now the time to start building the Severn Barrage, both to remove the threat of high tides (in the same way as the Thames Barrier) and to generate non-polluting power, to fill the looming power gap of about 25%, as old generating stations are closed down. It is estimated that the Severn Barrier could produce the same power as four nuclear power stations – yet be non-polluting and totally renewable.
Dr Brian Parsons
Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire
• Looking down from the Mendip Hills, a vast lake currently covers parts of the northern stretches of the Somerset Levels (Report, 3 February). Given that this is the part of the Levels least affected by flooding, it really makes you think what Britain will look like 50 years from now. By then the rise in global average temperatures will be approaching 2 degrees (in contrast to the havoc already being caused by our present 0.8 degree rise).
Those friends of the British countryside (including the National Trust) who oppose proposals for wind and solar farms such as the Atlantic Array (an opposition campaign spearheaded in North Devon by Ukip) would do well to consider what “natural landscape” it will be that they are preserving through their opposition to renewables. There is a strong strand of conservative environmentalism which is still in deep denial about the actuality of climate change, and some of this can currently be heard demanding river dredging and other “finger in the dyke” solutions in south Somerset.
Paul Hoggett
Chair, Climate Psychology Alliance

First it was the alleged slave holders in Brixton (Slavery case suspects linked to Maoist group, 26 November 2013). Now Raquel Rolnik’s UN report on housing in the UK is described as “Marxist” (Report, 4 February). Is there anything in the writings of Karl Marx which would justify these attributions? Or should we assume it is the Groucho tendency which is being referred to?
Professor Keith Graham
Author, Karl Marx, Our Contemporary
• As wonderful as it is to read about people’s pet stories (It’s a dog’s life for us, Family, 1 February), I was disappointed to see that all three stories about dogs featured the purchase of pedigree puppies – not a rescue mutt in sight! There are some fabulous “ready-made” pets in rehoming centres up and down the country; couldn’t we have read at least one of their stories?
Anna Lister
Cockermouth, Cumbria
• The Beach of Falesa (Radio rescue for long-lost Dylan Thomas script, 30 January) was performed on stage at the Cardiff New Theatre in the early 70s. It was an adaptation as an opera written by Alun Hoddinott, with the lead taken by Geraint Evans. Evans was then a member of the board of the ITV franchise holder for Wales, HTV, which filmed and broadcast the production.
Wyn Thomas
Swansea
• George Lakoff’s analysis of the failure of the progressive mindset (The books interview, Review, 1 February) reminded me of WB Yeats’s poem The Second Coming: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity”.
Jill Rooney
Ashtead, Surrey
• Islington council can worthily share the biscuit with Inverclyde for how to deal with a death (Letters, 1 February). We treasure in “Granny’s papers” the seven letters sent, postmortem, to “Mrs Annie Gray (deceased)”, each dealing with a different implication of her death.
Louise Vincent
London
• These egg puns (Letters, 4 February) are all white, but hasn’t the yolk gone far enough?
Richard Gilyead
Saffron Walden, Essex

Your determination to ignore beer even extends to travel and holiday offers. In the Review (1 February) a travel offer to visit Lille and Antwerp includes “dinner with wine” in Antwerp. In case you haven’t heard, Antwerp is in Belgium, arguably the greatest brewing nation on the planet, with a vast portfolio of beers – many of which can be enjoyed in Antwerp’s bars and restaurants. Just a few metres from the central station, Bier Central is a spacious restaurant that stocks 300 Belgian beers and matches them with excellent food. The cafe De Pelgrim is attached to the city’s major brewery, De Koninck, and also matches beer with food, including a range of Belgian cheeses. To recommend “wine with dinner” in Antwerp insults the locals. When the Guardian announced a Masterclass on how to become a micro-brewer, the event was sold out within days. Pardon the pun, but there’s a thirst for beer knowledge among your readers and it’s time you reflected this in your pages.
Roger Protz
St Albans, Hertfordshire

Ian Sample’s article on super volcanoes is interesting, but his framing of “prediction” is dangerously misleading (Predicting smoke before the fire, 24 January). It has long been possible to foresee supervolcanic eruptions based on the geological record, which dates such eruptions, and geographic knowledge, which shows where they are most likely.
What this new work does is improve understanding of why these eruptions happen and reduce uncertainty in certain localities – perhaps. This “perhaps” arises because the most likely times of occurrence are millennia in the future, so falsification will be difficult.
This may seem like nitpicking, but Sample’s presenting of prediction unfortunately reinforces an erroneous way in which science is interpreted. Too often the public is encouraged to believe that science-based prediction equates to certainty rather than likelihood or probability, with associated uncertainty ranging from the trivial (a few seconds or hours) to millennia.
A recent outcome of this poor conceptualisation is the conviction of Italian earthquake scientists, where uncertainty was similarly misunderstood. An even greater travesty is the misunderstanding of climate change predictions, where significant uncertainty about short-term weather variation is used to obscure the near certainty of climate change catastrophe in the longer term and validate the pernicious short-term policies developed by politicians and economists.
It’s great that the Guardian reports good science. But it also needs to either explain the nature of the scientific method better or recognise it when writing about science.
David Roser
Marrickville, NSW, Australia
The threat is immediate
In the article High Andes gets on top of climate change (24 January), the author suggests that for poor indigenous communities climate change “is not some distant threat”, but an immediate problem.
Anyone who has lived through the past 14 months in Australia, with 2013 the hottest year since records began and topped off by the breaking of temperature records across NSW in January 2014 – by more than a degree in some cases – must surely be aware that something is very amiss with our climate.
Plants simply can’t grow outside their tolerances of temperature and rainfall, birds and insects die; climate change is not something we will have to “adapt to”, it is a total game-changer for ecosystems, and we ignore that at our peril.
The crunch will come when global wheat and rice crops fail in the same year.
Philippa Morris
Gravesend, NSW, Australia
Many kinds of atheism
Several times a week I bow to a shrine and light incense before sitting in meditation with a small group of other people. I am an atheist, but not the kind that Zoe Williams seems to have in mind in her column (24 January).
I am a Zen Buddhist so I actively cultivate a mind free of the notion of a personal saviour or a distinct soul. Unlike Williams, I follow a precept not to indoctrinate my children into my beliefs, let alone raise them to believe that other people are mad for their beliefs. Strangely, I probably have more in common with contemplatives from theistic religions such as some Sufis and Christians than with what Williams describes.
The kind of atheism she talks about seems to have a lot in common with the Deobandi Islam described by Jon Boone (Moderate Islam under siege in Pakistan). Her views are characterised by absolute certainty of her position (dogmatism), a presumption of uniformity of view across atheists (intolerance of heresy) and perceived victimhood.
I think Williams may have been radicalised by the fundamentalist cleric Richard Dawkins and should be watched closely by the NSA, but then she probably already is.
Roger Hyam
Edinburgh, UK
• Zoe Williams is exactly right: atheists don’t make enough fuss. It’s the perennial problem of those driven by what they don’t believe. At university in the 60s we were called woolly liberals, intent on achieving nothing more serious than raising a wry smile on the faces of evangelicals. This is why Richard Dawkins’s rampant atheism is such an eye-watering breath of fresh air.
Sadly, the rest of us woolly liberals don’t quite know how to follow him to the barricades and probably don’t have the energy anyway. Like sheep, our skills are more to do with counting people to sleep or keeping them snuggly warm in our wool.
Peter Roberts
Huddersfield, UK
• To be an atheist is not at all the same thing as to be a heathen, and the fact that Zoe Williams does not seem to know that doesn’t inspire confidence in the rest of her column.
Patrick Curry
London, UK
The expat’s challenge
Roy Greenslade’s light-hearted take on the Swedish military seeking someone to make fictitious broadcasts (Shortcuts, 17 January) displayed an incredible degree of insensitivity and ignorance of the challenges involved in living in a country whose main language is not your own.
Learning a foreign language as an adult is always tough, especially in a country like Sweden, where the natural response to an immigrant’s bumbling attempts to speak the – admittedly relatively easy – native tongue is to switch to English. As such, I could imagine that a job requiring native-American English proficiency and broadcasting skills but no competency in Swedish is nothing less than gold dust for a number of unemployed Americans with a background in media who have made the brave decision to, for instance, follow a Swedish partner back to their homeland in spite of the difficulties involved in such an endeavour. It beats cleaning up vomit on the notorious booze cruises that run between Finland and Sweden or stacking shelves in a supermarket: the lot of many an immigrant. Greenslade sneeringly instructs readers: “Don’t all rush.” It’s good advice; the result could be a stampede.
Allan Bain
Helsinki, Finland
The man sitting in his chair
Gaby Hinsliff (January 17) warns us of how social media is “purpose-built for killing time and showing off”, giving bored people who are “disappointed or dissatisfied with their own lives” the opportunity to indulge in what she calls “online vitriol”. Alas, when Blaise Pascal wrote that “all human evil comes from this, man’s being unable to sit still in a room”, he obviously didn’t have an inkling that, over 300 years later, a man would be able to spread evil in the world without even getting up from his chair.
Richard Orlando
Westmount, Quebec, Canada
Perhaps a smaller wedding
I do not know what the Greek word is for “lack of common sense”. Is it because it is too ordinary a complaint that Scott Stossel (A life ruled by anxiety, 17 January) does not include it in his list of afflictions?
How can I take seriously a man who, knowing the number of phobias he suffers from, chooses to get married in front of 300 people? If I was allergic to almonds would I eat an almond croissant (yum, yum) just because people expect me to do so?
A very private wedding (one can always invent a reason for doing so) plus a great party (one can always be seized by a convenient bout of flu) might have prevented Stossel from suffering from wedding anxiety. I cannot think of a proper reason for not choosing this solution. If there was one I can only apologise.
Amy Gibson
London, UK
The hegemony of English
I was intrigued by Harry Ritchie’s rather self-righteous article condemning what he considers to be the hegemony of standard English, especially as it applies to the spoken language (24 January). I did find it ironic, however, that given his argument that non-standard English should be granted equal status, his article should have adhered so slavishly to grammatical convention.
Had this not been the case, of course, it is unlikely that the article would have been published. It is also unlikely that his commentary on the subject would have been so cogent. I object to the pomposity of those who eschew the use of non-standard English as much as Ritchie, but I would also contend that it is critical that people understand what kind of linguistic register is most appropriate for any given context.
Although this observation might not be a central premise of Ritchie’s argument, I suspect that it is one that, at least in practice, he subscribes to wholeheartedly.
Simon Clarke
Nedlands, Western Australia
• About 60 years ago, there was just such a debate in California: shouldn’t black children be taught in “Ebonics” rather than standard English? They would have an easier job learning arithmetic, geography, history and so on, at least as long as it was not necessary to read the same textbooks that white middle-class children were given.
It was obvious to enough of us why this was being suggested – even pushed, and the proposal never became law. Those black children would never go to college. They might not even be able to finish high school. They would, in any case, not compete for jobs with “our children” who do get degrees. The US needed, still needs, a proletariat and, if those who are still in the American middle and upper class have their way, the working class will soon be desperate enough to work at any menial job offered. A lumpenproletariat, why not?
Bryna Hellmann
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Briefly
• The dilemma of Egypt is this: how do you maintain a liberal democracy when the majority vote for an Islamic theocracy (3 January)?
Martin Down
Witney, UK
• The cartoon portraying François Hollande as Olympia made me howl with laughter (24 January). Brilliant! You should start a caption contest. My contribution: “I must remember to get a wax job.”
Alexandra Chapman
Paris, France

Independent:

Last August in the middle of the day at Baker Street Underground
station, I wanted to add some credit to my Oyster card. Unfamiliar with the
ticket machines and unwilling to delay others, I joined the queue for the
ticket office, and eavesdropped.
There were two tourists ahead of me, both, it transpired, with minimal spoken English. The first was investigating which multi-ticket would be most suitable for her stay in London, about which she was questioned and then offered advice.
The second, a young man, had managed to purchase a similar ticket but it would not function. Eventually the patient and courteous man in the ticket office discovered the error was a wrong start date, and rectified the matter. I did detect a note of relief in his voice when I made my very simple request and handed over £10 cash.
Who is so deluded that they think a bank of machines and more retail outlets will ever replace this kind of service, the idea that has provoked the current dispute with the RMT union? Such expertise and understanding cannot be quantified, and are of immense benefit to London’s image as a tourist-friendly city.
S Lawton, Kirtlington, Oxfordshire
While I share Charles Foster’s concern about the potential excesses of socialism (letter, 28 January), I find his criticism of trade unions as “profoundly undemocratic” unfair and unsubstantiated.
Trade union policy is decided by annual representative conferences. Industrial action is only possible if mandated by a majority of the workforce. Contrast this with party conferences and public statements during hustings, which can be ignored once power is obtained.
The Tory party promised not to undertake major reforms of the NHS and to be the greenest government ever. The Liberal Democrats promised to oppose nuclear power and not to support increases in tuition fees.
By proposing resolutions and attending mandating meetings I had a say in every policy which my trade union adopted. Political parties no longer even pretend that their conferences mandate their behaviour.
Pete Rowberry, Saxmundham, Suffolk
If state schools were like private schools
The Education Secretary, Michael Gove, wants state schools to “be like private schools.” However, if this were the case, 85 per cent of children would not be in a school at all: they would be barred entry on the grounds that they were either not rich enough or not clever enough.
How about an alternative approach? What about private schools being like state schools and taking on some challenging children, not just the “easy to teach” bright, motivated ones from supportive homes? If this happened we really would start to break down the “Berlin Wall” between the two education sectors.
Ben Warren, Head teacher Summerhill Comprehensive School Dudley, West Midlands
Michael Gove makes the interesting assumption that private schools are better than state schools. Is there any evidence for this? No, there is not.
Our top state schools are at least as good as the top private schools. Indeed once you allow for the difference in the standard of pupils at entry, many are better academically.
Mr Gove constantly compares Eton to the worst state school. But (whisper it softly) most private schools are not actually academically particularly good, unsurprising when their staff are often the failures from the state sector.
Parents are very well aware of this, and the honest parent of a child at private school will openly admit that the school is chosen not for its academic achievement, but because it enables children to meet “the right people” and “make connections”.
Private schools work best for those pupils who can only get a well-paid job through knowing the right people, as they would fail on merit.
Sadly then, the attempt at making our state schools “as good as private schools” misses the point. They have different aims and objectives. No amount of long days and homework will make the change.
Sheila Parker, Worthing, West Sussex
I am delighted to hear that Michael Gove’s government will be providing resources to enable schools to extend the times that they remain open and provide activities such as “school plays, sports clubs, orchestras and debating competitions” to pupils.
This was a policy established under the last Labour government and funded through the Extended Schools agenda. Unfortunately it was also one of the areas of funding the Conservative-led Coalition scrapped as soon as it got into power.
Funny how, in the run-up to a general election, money can be made available when it wasn’t previously.
Jo Rust, Secretary, King’s Lynn and District Trades Council, King’s Lynn, Norfolk
Saudi Arabia, source of extremism
Peter Popham’s article “The war on Christianity” (30 January) compliments Prince Charles for “saying the unsayable” by speaking out over the persecution of Christians in Islamic states.  An additional unsayable which could be said is the role of Saudi Arabia as the well-spring of most of the Islamic extremism in the world.
Salafism (for which read Wahaabism), the state religion of Britain’s apparently unimpeachable ally Saudi Arabia, identifies Jews and Christians as enemies of Islam. In addition, Sufis are defined as “witches” and Shi’a as “polytheists”, whom some Salafis believe they should fight and kill in the cause of tawheed, the homogenisation of Islamic thought.
While some Salafi groupings eschew violence, the broad Salafist propensity toward violence and intolerance is propagated by the Wahaabi moonshine of muddled fiction that in Salafism passes for theology.
Saudi petrodollars have enabled Salafism to incubate extremism worldwide, via the internet, by funding mosques in Britain and the US, madrasas (schools) in struggling states like Pakistan, and through the Salafi regional offshoots. Such groupings carried out the Mumbai massacre and the Nairobi siege, and include al-Qa’ida, the Taliban, the Deobandis and Ahl-el-Beit of India, and the Jama’a Islamiya of Pakistan.
The pared-down, simplified Salafist ideology is at odds with the rest of Islamic thought on many issues, and in this context  with a hadith (recorded saying) attributed to the Messenger Muhammad. The Messenger is reported to have directed that Muslims being denied the right of reply, when receiving viewpoints in conflict with their own beliefs, should “politely listen and leave”.
Hamdi Shelhi, Oxford
Medieval floods on the Somerset levels
I do understand why Chris Harding (letter, 3 February) is unsympathetic to those afflicted by the Somerset floods; but there are “more things in heaven and earth”.
He notes that records of flooding have not been kept over the past thousand years. That is of course true, but the medieval chronicler William of Malmesbury, writing around the year 1125, did have things say on the subject.
Of Muchelney in particular (often in the news of late) he says: “The place is not easy of access; one can normally get through in summertime on foot or by horse, but not in winter.”
All the same, we are not living in the Middle Ages, and it ought to be possible to do something about this parlous state of affairs. Allowing the Environment Agency to do its job by staffing it properly would be a good start.
Julian Luxford, Ceres, Fife
Owen Paterson is very keen to focus on the houses in Somerset that haven’t been flooded.
How long before someone in the dock invokes the “Paterson defence”?
“I may be heavily implicated in a number of homicides, but just consider how many people I haven’t murdered, M’lud”.
Mark Robertson , East Boldon, Tyne & Wear
Desperate to smoke in cars
I suppose it was inevitable that the proposal to ban smoking in cars in the presence of children would be met by the objection that it is “unworkable” because it would be very difficult to identify the perpetrators.
This specious argument is always trotted out when members of a small, vociferous group face losing their freedom to do harm. The same shrill voices were heard when fox hunting was banned. It is the last refuge of the desperate, and it is nonsense.
A second’s thought would make it clear that on this basis every law is “unworkable” because it is always difficult to identify the perpetrators.
Andrew McLauchlin, Stratford upon Avon, Warwickshire
This morning I observed a gentleman driving his car while lighting his cigarette with one hand and texting in the other. I thought it was only women who could multi-task.
Lynn Hutchings, Whitstable,  Kent

Times:

We entered the war for reasons that were sound, but the battles could have been fought in ways more economical with lives
Sir, There is an excellent case that the First World War could have been fought in ways more economical of Allied lives, and a much less persuasive one that had Sir Edward Grey been a Foreign Secretary of greater weight and vision the Kaiser might have been persuaded to stay his hand. After Germany invaded Belgium on August 3, national interest no less than honour dictated that Britain uphold its treaty commitment and defend Belgian neutrality.
Professor Sir Roger Williams
Reading
Sir, Professor Ferguson’s arguments (report, Jan 31) concerning the “error” of fighting the First World War may be sound but are perhaps incomplete. H. H. Munro, humorist, traveller, astute observer of politics and, eventually, casualty of the war made the penetrating comment that supporters of the stay neutral and make a profit school were unable to differentiate between a nation of shopkeepers and a nation of shoplifters.
Dr. R. Blackburn
Bolton
Sir, Sir Michael Howard (Feb 3) is right when he says Britain entered the war for a variety of very good reasons and that German intentions were highly suspect. John Rohl in his study of Kaiser Wilhelm related that the Kaiser promised his troops that he would allow them to settle on “ethnically cleansed” lands in Flanders. This was an indication of his well-known racist views and a clear link to Nazi anti-Jewish policies some 20 years later.
Dr Barry Clayton
Thornton Cleveleys, Lancs
Sir, German archives do not support Professor Sheffield’s view (Feb 1) of Britain responding to the threat from an ideological foe in 1914. German intelligence failed to predict Britain’s entry because no such noble plan existed. The British ambassador in Berlin, bemused by conflicting telegrams, asked for his papers and declared war by departing with the Belgian ambassador on a special train to Brussels. During the retreat from Mons the Foreign Office received the bill for his self-indulgence and felt honour bound to pay up.
Roger Macdonald
Weimar, Germany
Sir, Gary Sheffield’s account is anglocentric. He is right that Germany needed to be kept under control, but the war also led to the collapse of the much more benign regime in Austria-Hungary, which was an unmitigated disaster for central Europe and the Balkans, ushering in a host of small and unstable countries unable to resist the attentions of Hitler and Stalin in the ensuing years. The unrest that we currently see in Ukraine is a piece of business still unfinished from this “Great War”.
David Kirk
Crewe, Cheshire
Sir, I wonder if Professor Sheffield (Feb 1) would have the same view if he had to fight himself. His attitude was one which consigned a whole generation of young men to their death. It could equally well be argued that if Russia and France had fought Germany without us, all three would have ended up weakened. I wonder if he is a friend of Mr Gove? The most useful thing that children can learn from the First World War is never to trust the older generation.
Michael Wetherall
Newcastle upon Tyne

Simply to replicate private schools’ long days and activities will not raise standards — discipline and commitment are required
Sir, There is a Berlin wall between the state and private schools, which has been gradually built by all governing parties since the 1970s (“Minister wishes to end state-private divide”, Feb 3).
With the direct grant system there was a more co-ordinated approach between the sectors, leading to greater social mobility and higher academic achievement by the most able in all social classes.
There were problems with the 11+, but, rather than deal with them, it was attempted, through government diktat, to over-centralise education and reduce it to its lowest common denominator.
Michael Gove’s reforms are another retrograde step, showing little understanding of education itself. He does not even understand the private sector, which is itself varied and multi-faceted. Simply to replicate private schools’ long days and activities will not raise standards. Parties need to think constructively about how the systems can work together to provide the appropriate education for each child.
Stephen Smith
Former Head, Bedford Modern School
Sir, The elephant in the room in the education debate can be summed up as “discipline” and “commitment”. Parents in the private sector sign up to an ethos of good behaviour and, in general, their children fulfil their part of the contract; if they persist in unacceptable behaviour they are expelled.
Meanwhile, many classes in the state system are disrupted by bad behaviour, albeit of a minority; the school’s attempts to discipline these pupils is undermined by similar behaviour by the parents, many view school as free child care and condone their children’s behaviour. It is very difficult to exclude a disruptive state-educated pupil. Teachers should be able to get on and teach, not work as an extension of social services.
I make this observation as a former grammar school teacher, member of an LEA and mother of three privately educated children.
Marion Hudson
Smarden, Kent

The government effectively abolished the police caution some years ago as a way of diverting first-time offenders away from the criminal justice system
Sir, There is an explanation for the large number of people on benefit who also appear on the police national computer (“A fifth of claimants have criminal record”, Jan 31). The government effectively abolished the police caution some years ago as a way of diverting first-time offenders away from the criminal justice system to ensure that a single minor offence does not blight a person’s career prospects for life. There is now no difference between a police caution and a criminal record acquired through an attendance at court. If you receive a simple police caution you will be added to the police national computer and be subject to the same restrictions on employment and travel as if you went to court and were convicted.
Although the police will claim that a simple caution is not a criminal record you will be hard pressed to distinguish the two.
Dennis Clarke
Tonbridge, Kent

The plan to remove cash as way of paying for a bus journey raises several questions concerning tourists and Oyster cards that run out
Sir, Transport for London (TfL) says buses will soon not accept cash for fares (report, Feb 3). This follows a consultation. However, when I took part in this consultation and asked TfL two questions, I received no response. First, how this would affect visitors to London, who might well not have an Oyster card? Second, what happens to people whose pass is lost or stolen? Would they be left stranded? If TfL cannot answer such questions, the public transport system would be inaccessible to some of us.
Tim Lamport
South Croydon

With the prospect of further heavy rain, sooner or later a boat navigating on a flooded road is bound to collide with an oncoming land vehicle
Sir, A. P. Herbert famously raised the question whether boats navigating on flooded roads should pass oncoming traffic “port to port”, obeying the rule for navigation, or keep to the left in accordance with the rule of the road. There have lately been many pictures in the media showing inflatables and other small craft travelling along flooded roads, particularly in the West Country. With the prospect of further heavy rain, sooner or later a boat navigating on a flooded road is bound to collide with an oncoming land vehicle such as a tractor or 4×4. And of course boats using roads as waterways could also hit other boats.
I don’t know whether the issue was ever satisfactorily resolved, but if liability can be disclaimed, I feel sure the insurance companies are up to the task.
David Wilson
Bridell, Pembrokeshire

Telegraph:

SIR – Fionnuala McHugh, in her illuminating article on Macau, describes the joys of the old town, but she did not mention the work of George Chinnery, the British artist.
In his time in Macau (1825-52), Chinnery produced exquisite drawings, water-colours and landscapes in oils, whether of the Macaonese people in street scenes, or of the great Hong merchants and their factories on the Praia Grande. His work brought to life this Portuguese colonial city.
Chinnery’s pictures can be seen in the Macau Museum of Art in the Cultural Centre, near the Protestant Cemetery in Camoes Square. There one can also pay tribute at his large gravestone.
Randolph Vigne
Fish Hoek, Eastern Cape, South Africa

SIR – Sir David Higgins claims on behalf of the Government that there is an unanswerable case for building HS2. This is despite its spiralling costs at the expense of schools, hospitals and defence.
But if HS2 is so demonstrably beneficial, why does the Government insist on suppressing the report by its own Major Projects Authority, which is apparently highly critical of the grandiose project?
Nikolai Tolstoy
Southmoor, Berkshire
SIR – David Higgins says that there will be 18 trains an hour on HS2. That will be one train leaving Euston every 3 minutes and 20 seconds. Where will the huge number of passengers come from? Where will they be assembled? How will they be shepherded into line?
Related Articles
An artist who captured the essence of Macau
04 Feb 2014
The Government must protect both town and country from flooding
04 Feb 2014
John M Dent
Mickleover, Derbyshire
Smart meters
SIR – The Government is determined to help consumers save energy through the introduction of smart meters. These will put consumers in control of their energy use in a convenient way, bring an end to estimated bills, help people to switch supplier, save money and transform the energy market.
While there are some costs associated with the roll-out of meters, there are real long-term benefits; for example, recently published energy company research has shown that nine in 10 customers who use smart meters take active steps to reduce energy consumption.
The Government’s vision is for every home and small business in Britain to have smart electricity and gas meters by 2020. We continue to work closely with industry, consumer groups and others to introduce meters in order to lower energy bills and cut carbon for decades to come.
Baroness Verma
Under Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change
London SW1
A palace in wartime
SIR – Bishop Francis Underhill offered pupils at St Brandon’s School, Bristol, the shelter of the Bishop’s Palace in Wells during the war. I had the privilege of living there from 1939-41.
We slept in the drawing room and the picture gallery (said to be haunted) and ate in the crypt, which was used as an air raid shelter at the height of the blitz on Bristol. The newer part of the building was used for school rooms, staff dormitories and the sick room. We had a very unpatriotic epidemic of German measles.
When the ringing of church bells was stopped (they were only to be sounded in the event of invasion), the three swans were no longer allowed to ring for their food at the Gate House. The grounds were a peaceful and exciting playground offering us all sorts of stimuli for the imagination.
Dian Morgan
Swanage, Dorset
Scanning the scanners
SIR – Two million unemployed, many of them young and desperate for jobs, yet machines are everywhere – in banks, transport hubs, libraries, surgeries and cinemas. Now we learn that theft from supermarkets may be mainly due to customer frustration when scanners fail to scan.
One solution would be to employ more staff to monitor the checkouts.
Robert Stephenson
Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire
Grammar school cuts
SIR – I agree with the comments by Paul Evans, the head of Colyton grammar in Devon, about the lack of funding for grammar schools (report, January 25). As a student of the school, I am aware of the challenges it faces as a result of Government cuts.
As a school that has consistently been near the top of league tables, Colyton, along with other high-performing grammar schools, ought to be one of the flagships of British education policy. Grammar schools provide a strong role model to other state schools on how to educate students to a high standard. This cannot be maintained if Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, continues to obstruct progress by cutting their funding.
By reducing funding to such a vital part of the state school system, Mr Gove is doing a disservice to hard-working students. His actions will only exacerbate the education gap between rich and poor.
Samuel Wycherley
Crewkerne, Somerset
Chorus of approval
SIR – If our cathedral choirs are in danger, we risk losing more than a wonderful, unique choral tradition.
Choristers’ training is a discipline that follows throughout their lives. Some go on to be eminent musicians, but many take on roles in life for which their training has shaped them. Many politicians and those in prominent public positions are former choristers. It is a blueprint for working as a team, and producing excellence.
Avril Wright
Snettisham, Norfolk
Replacement for ties
SIR – Dr Steven Field carries his comparison too far in suggesting that “ties must vie with high heels for the title of most uncomfortable and pointless item of clothing”.
The tie not only adds colour to male dress, but covers up the Adam’s apple – unattractive even in high-profile television presenters. Perhaps Britain’s designers could create something that replaces the tie but still manages to maintain an element of colour, comfortably adjusts to the size of the neck, helps keep men’s necks warm in winter, and can be loosened to ease the heat of summer.
At the same time, they could start designing suits with pockets the right size for mini iPads and mobile phones.
Sir Harold Walker
London SW1
Name tapes: the well-travelled, long-lasting kind
SIR – I notice, with regret, that Cash’s, the company that makes woven name-tapes, has gone into administration.
I still travel with shoe bags that I took to my prep school, complete with name tapes. The bags (and the name tapes) have seen service in the Army and were with me during the 50 years that I spent in several African countries. I took them to various European countries, America, the Far East, and they are shortly to visit southern Africa again.
F John Hunt
Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire
SIR – I stopped lovingly sewing on countless fiddly name tapes when the school outfitter at Eton recommended that I used a sewing machine.
Not only was it faster, but this method also ensured long-term survival of the name tape on a garment; sometimes it lasted longer than the clothes themselves.
Angela Walters
Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire
SIR – With five sisters, and a mother who was in a care home, I have sewn hundreds of name tapes into school uniforms. Produced in a variety of colours, with different styles of script, they were an excellent product – hard-wearing, and surviving countless wash cycles as the items of uniform were passed down.
The culprit for their demise is the permanent marker pen – quicker for mothers with busy lives, but, as it cannot be changed except by crossing out, it can produce a messy result.
Christine Hartridge
Hambledon, Hampshire
SIR – Labelled clothing is very useful. While on an art trip with his school, to London, our son thought he would call in to see his father at the Wellington Barracks.
The guardsman at the gate asked for identification. The only item our son could think of showing was the label on his socks. He was allowed in.
Pauline Rossiter
Fleet, Hampshire

SIR – While we acknowledge that government funding for flood defence is not a bottomless purse, we should not pit the needs of one community against another.
It is not good enough to say that this is part of the natural cycle of things and that flooding is simply something that happens from time to time. Neither is it good enough to let agricultural businesses, which are a central part of rural communities and economies, be sacrificed.
The Government and the Environment Agency need to develop a strategic, coherent national response to the effects of our changing weather systems.
Fiona Howie
Campaign to Protect Rural England
London SE1
SIR – Lord Smith, the chairman of the Environment Agency, says, “Flood defences cost money; and how much should the taxpayer be prepared to spend…?” The answer is: whatever it takes. The Government should start by cutting back its overseas aid budget.
David Hartridge
Leicester
SIR – Town or country? Protect both – and the many – by cancelling the high-speed rail line for the few.
Rita Gulliver
Woodley, Berkshire
SIR – The choice is not town or country, but humans or beetles, and the Environment Agency continues to make the wrong one.
Allan G Jones
Rhuddlan, Denbighshire
SIR – For years, the Environment Agency has been preoccupied with prosecuting farmers. Now, having neglected to dredge the rivers, it is responsible for flooding a huge area of Somerset. This has caused slurry pits to overflow, workshops to be inundated and septic tanks to flood. When the water subsides, engine oil, mixed with farm and human waste, will pollute the ground and end up in the rivers and sea.
Who will prosecute the prosecutor?
Rosemary Moorhouse
Lydeard St Lawrence, Somerset
SIR – Lord Smith’s duty is to all citizens, whether in Finsbury or Muchelney. Those on the Somerset Levels pay their taxes.
John Cleare
Fonthill Gifford, Wiltshire
SIR – On the Lincolnshire coast, the Environment Agency is about to flood 338 acres of Grade 1 and 2 arable land to create an “intertidal wildlife habitat”.
This land was painstakingly drained by Henry Pye in the 19th century: land that has produced 1,200 tons of wheat, 600 tons of peas or 5,000 tons of potatoes in rotation. And yet, according to Lord Smith, “agricultural land matters”.
Peter J Taylor
Welton le Wold, Lincolnshire

Irish Times:

A chara, – Perhaps it would be better to call social media platforms that permit “neknominatinons”, which encourage reckless behaviour, dangerous drinking practices, and have been linked to the death of at least one person in this country, “anti-social media”. – Is mise,
Revd PATRICK G BURKE,
Castlecomer, Co Kilkenny.
Sir, – The public debate over the neknomination craze seems to blame the internet for all the ensuing tragedies. How very convenient.
Ireland’s attitude of amused tolerance to alcohol abuse is a serious and deadly flaw that needs addressing at the highest levels of government.
The Minister for Health has publicly declared his determination to stamp out smoking because of the health risks. Which habit is responsible for street violence, domestic violence, higher mortality rates among young people, social dysfunction and many other ills?
If the “game” involved the innocent enjoyment of a cigarette, cigar or pipe, millions in public funds would be brought to bear, and public fulminations would reach boiling point as the health Nazis geared up to full outrage mode. Priorities indeed. – Yours, etc,
JG LACEY,
Lough Atalia Grove,
Renmore,
Galway.
Sir, – Why are we all so outraged by the actions of our young? For years we have been nominating the likes of Obama and Clinton to neck pints of stout every time they visit us.
It’s time we all grew up. – Yours, etc,
JOHN MUGAN,
Woodlands Park,
Moycullen,
Co Galway.
Sir, – Justice Paul Carney’s remarks (“Neknomination risks ‘tsunami of homicide and rape prosecutions”, February 3rd), regarding the link between the “neknomination” game and rape are outrageous.
It is deeply troubling that a member of our judiciary of his rank would make such comments about rape, so wholly disregarding the nature of this crime. To suggest that otherwise upstanding men from “good families” (whatever that means) only commit their brutal crimes against women because they’ve had a few too many drinks ignores the undercurrent of sexism and misogyny that pervades many aspects of Irish society. It is this deep-seated misogyny which is the driving force behind violence against women.
The “long line of cases” of rape that Justice Carney has been dealing with lately is not the result of some drunken poor decision-making; it is the result of the normalisation of violence against women, as evidenced by high rates of male-on-female domestic violence and incredibly lenient sentencing for such violent crimes. We need to be addressing the negative attitudes towards women that make our fathers, brothers, and sons do these terrible things, not trying to censor Facebook for a drinking game. – Yours, etc,
RUTH KILCULLEN,
Shankill, Dublin.
A chara, – Regarding neknominations: to my mind the moral question Facebook has to ask itself is: Is it merely the ticket seller at the turnstile to the games in the amphitheatre of life, or is it the promoter? – Is mise,
COLUM FORDE,
The Park,
Cabinteely, Dublin 18.

Sir, – Ronan Quinlan (February 4th) asks if Eamon Gilmore has forgotten that the Labour Party introduced the tax that it now says it will try to reduce if party candidates are elected in sufficient numbers at the local elections.
Indeed, one must wonder at Mr Gilmore’s poor memory in respect of his position on this tax. In 2010 he said, “it would be perverse to ask people to pay a property tax on a property on which they are paying a mortgage and the size of the mortgage in many cases is more than what the value of the property is worth”.
In the Labour Party 2011 general election manifesto it promised that a property tax would not be introduced until 2014 because it would take time to ensure it was structured in a fair and efficient manner and they spoke of the need to take account of those who paid large sums in stamp duty or who are in negative equity.
The Labour Party can hardly blame its broken promises on the need to compromise with Fine Gael. That party’s manifesto said, “an annual, recurring residential property tax on the family home is unfair” and said it wouldn’t introduce one at all.
When the promises start coming in the months ahead, let’s hope voters have better memories than the politicians. – Yours, etc,
PAUL CARROLL,
The Cloisters,
Clane, Co Kildare.
Sir, – I would like to congratulate the wonderful lady Louise O’ Keeffe on her successful case in the European Court of Human Rights, which helped give recognition to children’s rights.
This is very personal to me, and I thank her with all my heart, for her dogged determination and courage.
I do not remember one happy day of my school life. Most of my school childhood memories are of corporal punishment. The thing to remember is that any kind of childhood abuse, be it sexual or otherwise, remains with the child for the rest of his or her life and makes it much more difficult to survive in life afterwards.
Louise O’Keeffe’s long, successful struggle has helped at least one person deal with some dreadful demons from the past. She is, without doubt, a courageous and wonderful lady. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN Mc DEVITT,
Ardconnaill,
Glenties,
Co Donegal.

Sir, – While laudable, the call for access to some 60,000 records of those who were adopted requires considerable forethought (Home News, January 24th). Many of these records were misfiled, incomplete or fabricated/embellished when originally taken. Consequently, reliability of contents can never be guaranteed.
With this in mind, caution must also be applied to the potential use of such information when/if released. Mechanisms to effectively link a child to his/her birth family must be adhered to in an attempt to minimise upset on both sides of this sensitive relationship.
Most perplexing, however, is the notion the child has an “absolute right” to this information or to know his/her birth parents. Preliminary discussion must centre on where the child’s rights end and the rights of the birth mother kick in? Far too often adoption is perceived from the child’s perspective, not the birth mother’s. There are indeed many birth mothers like Philomena Lee searching for their children, but there are a considerable number who remain shrouded in secrecy. In the early years of legal adoption in this country, many women handed over their children in an atmosphere of “cleansing their sins”. The circumstances of each adoption is as individual as the child and the birth mother. Many women gave children to people they thought could give the child a better future and in exchange, they were granted privacy. It was an unspoken contract.
While many argue a child has an absolute right to know his/her birth parent/s, it must be respected that many birth mothers also have an absolute right not to be known. While the approach is not faultless, it is my opinion that the State is correct in applying caution to this area. There are ladies now in their 70s and 80s who fear that knock on the door – my own birth mother being among them. – Yours, etc,
Dr RUTH-BLANDINA
QUINN,
BalkilA chara, – I’m very surprised at Barry Walsh’s (February 4th) opposition to quotas for women candidates in Irish elections. I thought that argument had been won.
Of the current 25 elected councillors in Kildare County Council, only two are female – a paltry 8 per cent. Furthermore, of the 24 candidates who contested the last three general elections in South Kildare, only one was female (4 per cent).
If there is an increase in female candidates for the local elections it is only because political parties are getting ready for the quota being introduced for our next general election. Mr Walsh is correct that the fault doesn’t just lie with selection conventions, we also have the inequalities of cash, confidence, culture and childcare.
Forcing political parties to have a quota of female candidates will force them to engage with these issues also. If a woman cannot accept a nomination because she has no money or has to sort out childcare then the political party will have to help her sort them. Without quotas, she becomes the high-hanging fruit and 50 per cent of the population will continue to be shut out of representative politics. – Is mise,
ORLA O’NEILL,
Kilcullen,

l Park,

Sir, – I take issue with Dr Elizabeth Cullen’s well expressed but erroneous letter on pylon health risks (February 1st)
In the early 1890s the Westinghouse Electric Company introduced high voltage AC distribution of electrical power to the north-east of the United States. Power transmission in this form has been around for over 120 years. If a health hazard was associated, surely it would have shown up by now.
If there is a health problem associated with alternating electrical fields, I should worry more about my electric blanket or the alarm clock positioned two feet from my head as I sleep; or the multiplicity of circuits and gadgets around the house which, presumably, are emitting this “radiation”.
I have a 220,000 volt power line located 80 metres from my house and a large, unsightly pylon in the corner of our site. I have worked in a plastic tunnel 10 metres away from the nearest conductor for the past 25 years. I am not in any way worried by this proximity.
These power lines and pylons are a visual and aesthetic intrusion on the landscape. But the alternative suggestion of putting the lines underground is not economically sound. The UK based IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology) has recently released a report on underground versus overhead transmission costs with the following conclusion:
“The report deduced that when comparing overall lifetime costs, overhead transmission cables are the most economical technology. For example, 75km of direct-buried AC medium capacity (6380 MVA) cable will incur a lifetime cost £1414.3 million, whilst its overhead equivalent will cost £299.8million.”
Using these figures, the cost of putting the required cables underground would be approximately 4.5 times the overhead equivalent. Many extra billions would be required.
Perhaps the environmental lobby would need to reconsider its support for the ridiculous target of 40 per cent of our generation capacity to be sourced from heavily subsidised and unreliable renewables. This widely distributed generation largely dictates the requirement for the proposed new power lines. – Yours, etc,
JOHN O’LOUGHLIN,
BE (Elec) CEng. MIEI,
Dunshane,
Brannockstown,

A chara, – Minister for Jobs Richard Bruton (Opinion, January 23rd) wrote: “I believe that we must continue and build on our strong record on human rights.”
Surely by his and our Taoiseach’s failure to integrate human rights issues into their trade talks in the Gulf they have undermined and tarnished that record.
Mr Bruton believes that trade issues and human rights issues are mutually exclusive and to raise genuine concerns over women’s rights, workers’ safety or governmental reform would jeopardise those important talks.
However, to have any serious chance of effecting real change in these areas, trade missions are exactly the arena to raise concerns. Business and trade cannot exist in isolation from society and civilisation.
It is morally incumbent on those of us with a strong voice to speak up for the voiceless in our societies. The International Trade Union Confederation estimates that 4,000 more migrant workers will die in Qatar, building the stadiums before a ball is kicked in the World Cup.
On our behalf, the Taoiseach and his minister lost an important opportunity to speak up for these unfortunate workers. – Is mise,
FEARGAL BROUGHAM,
ShelmartinSir, – Over the past six months we have seen our health insurance fees rising by more than 33 per cent due to fee increases and reductions in tax allowances.
I was therefore horrified to note patients with private health insurance are to be charged €800 per bed night in public hospitals versus €80 per night – capped at €800 – for those without insurance. I have worked and paid PAYE tax for 40 odd years, at punitive rates in the 1980s and again in recent years, yet because I have taken the added precaution of having health cover insurance I am to be penalised for same.
Article 40 of the Constitution guarantees that all citizens are equal. How does this sit with this ruling? In effect I am deemed to be inferior to these people – some of whom are hard-working and deserving citizens, but their number also includes work-shy chancers, cute hoors who have wangled undeserved health cards from their TDs and others. Meanwhile, people like me who are prudent but not wealthy have to pay through the nose for everything.
There are limits to our patience, but given the government’s pursuit and intimidation of Louise O’Keeffe and her fellow victims, as well as Bridget McCole many years earlier while she was lying on her death bed, we are not too hopeful of a resolution any time soon. – Yours, etc,
TONY O’DOWD,
Bodenwood,
Rathfarnham, Dublin 14.
Avenue,

Sir, – “Should consider his/her position” – when used instead of “should resign or be sacked”. – Yours, etc,
DAVID JACOBS,
Marley Close,
Rathfarnham, Dublin 16.
Sir, – “Health and safety”. “But not while driving”. – Yours, etc,
FRANK HENRY,
Circular Road, Galway.
Sir, – People say “I refute that” when what they really mean is that they are disputing something. – Yours, etc,
CHRIS MEEHAN,
Beech Drive,
Dundrum, Dublin 16.
Sir, – “I have to say . . .” – Yours, etc,
SUSAN KENNELLY,
Newmarket-on-Fergus,
Co Clare.
Sir, – We are treating the death as suspicious, say gardaí (after victim found with his head bashed in and five bullets in his stomach). – Yours, etc,
FRANK KILFEATHER,
Delgany, Co Wicklow.
Sir, – “The bank loaned E €xyz . . .” I was taught that loan was a noun and lend was a verb. – Yours, etc,
ANTHONY P O’CONNOR,
Barton Road East, Dublin 14.
Sir, – “I haven’t read the report yet” – oft used by Ministers to forestall awkward questions. – Yours, etc,
TOM WALSH,
Ballinteer Road, Dublin 16.

Irish Independent:

* Writing in the ‘Weekend Review’, Derek Davis articulated the sentiments of many older citizens when he wrote about ‘fear’ as the driver for maintaining private health insurance.
Also in this section
Letters: Stop and think before joining drinking craze
Letters: Living in fear, cut off from the outside world
Keep challenging consensus
The comparison made by Davis between ageing people and old cars – both needing more maintenance – is a very apt description of the reality of ageing.
Paying what they see as ‘protection money’ to ensure timely access to properly resourced private health services is one way older people can reduce the sense of ‘fear’.
Another emotion that can also be readily identified is anger. Anger at the deliberate targeting by the Government of those who continue to subscribe to private health insurance rather than rely on the under-resourced public system.
Of course, it is an easier option to target one segment of society in order to provide an imaginative stealth tax revenue stream, rather than tackle the failed entity that is the HSE.
Public health patients are charged at a rate of €80 per bed night, while privately insured patients are to be charged €800+ for the same bed night.
The privately insured patient can well carry the additional cost, what with their ‘gold plated’ health insurance plans.
The minister with responsibility argues that there is no justification for a rise in the cost of private health insurance as the increased charges will only cost an additional €30m.
But the service providers have estimated the increased cost at €130m. Where lies the truth?
Since 2009, the Government has deliberately targeted those of its citizens who choose to ensure ready access to the health services they may need, through private health insurance.
Pity the same Government has not shown a similar degree of determination and targeting at those whose responsibility it is to manage the provision of the hospital care needs of the population.
PADDY ROGAN
GREYSTONES, CO WICKLOW

A WOMAN OF SUBSTANCE
* I would like to congratulate this wonderful lady Louise O’ Keeffe on her successful case in the European Court of Human Rights which helped give recognition to children’s rights. This is very personal to me, and I thank her with all my heart, for her determination and courage.
I do not remember one happy day of my school life. Most of my school childhood memories are of corporal punishment. The thing to remember is that any kind of childhood abuse, be it sexual or otherwise, remains with the child for the rest of their lives and makes it much more difficult to survive in life afterwards. You are, without doubt, a courageous and wonderful lady.
NAME AND ADDRESS
WITH EDITOR

NOT COUNTING ON MATHS
* In the recent ‘less religion, more literacy/numeracy’ debate, sometimes I get the impression that some people think maths is real and religion is airy fairy. When I was a boy, some days, instead of going to school, I went to the local livestock mart with my father. One day, he bought two heifer calves. He paid a good bit more for one than the other. Since then, I have never trusted that one plus one equals two. And on some mart days, my father never bought or sold a calf, but we never came home after buying or selling a negative number of calves, bull or heifer.
JOSEPH MACKEY,
KILKENNY WEST, GLASSON, ATHLONE

DRINK AND SOCIAL MEDIA
* The papers on Monday reflected on the reality that Ireland’s relationship with alcohol has taken another twist. The ‘Neknominations’ phase that has been gaining popularity amongst Irish youths has now taken the life of 19-year-old Jonny Byrne from Carlow, with 22-year-old DJ Ross Cummins also dying of an alcohol-related incident. But who is to blame?
I would attribute the blame to three factors: social media, lack of education and the Irish drinking culture. It is undeniable that without social media, a craze like this could not spread like wildfire. Youths need to be made aware of the dangers of social media and the Government needs to acknowledge the reality that cyber-bullying occurs on a daily basis.
R DALY
KINSALE, CO CORK

BAILING OUT FLOOD VICTIMS
* Isn’t it telling that one former finance minister (deceased) could give €30bn overnight to save just one bank, while another (living) cannot even come up with €10m to bail out (literally) much of the citizenry of his own country? Apparently, the situation does not even warrant an emergency cabinet meeting. From my perspective, 1,500km away, that would be a “no-brainer”.
LIAM POWER
SAN PAWL IL-BAHAR, MALTA

NOT CLEVER, NOT FUNNY
* Why does RTE insist on treating viewers like idiots? I am referring to their latest failed venture into comedy where viewers are expected to watch so-called funnymen for almost two hours on programmes such as ‘Next Week’s News’ and ‘Trojan Donkey’.
I believe one of them has a slot at Vicar Street.
At least there you have a choice. Unfortunately viewers have no such choice except to reach for the remote control.
The only people who think the programme is funny are the panellists. I believe God created the world in seven days. Then, thankfully, he created the remote control.
EILEEN MALONE
RATHFARNHAM, DUBLIN 14

SHARE THE BUS LANES
* Having moved to Ireland from California, I’ve never been able to understand the attitude to bus lanes.
In California they are known as HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lanes and are open to any vehicle carrying two or more occupants.
Sure, initially there were abuses, the most common being to carry an inflatable doll on the front passenger seat, but once the California Highway Patrol had copped on to this, the abuse was, er, deflated.
On the I-80 corridor into San Francisco, the HOV lanes require a minimum of three people per vehicle. However, at the suburb of Hilltop there is a Park ‘n’ Ride (eh, Dr Varadkar, where are the Dublin Park ‘n’ Ride sites?) where people queue to be picked-up by private cars thus making a complement of three and allowing use of the HOV lane, which in peak hours by-passes the toll booths of the Bay Bridge.
All very efficient.
Operational only at commute times, with the requisite number of occupants, the California HOV lanes are open to buses, coaches, taxis, limos, cars and motor-cycles, etc.
Why are there no such equivalents in greater Dublin?
MICHAEL DRYHURST
BALLINDERRY SCHOOL HOUSE FOUR MILE HOUSE, ROSCOMMON

A SPORTING CHANCE
* Just when you thought it might be “safe to go back in the water” we now find that Kenny Egan is trading in his boxing gloves for a career in politics, while Mick Wallace (TD) might be moving in the other direction to a career in sport, as he has recently been togging out in a football jersey in the Dail.
The country may be falling apart but it’s great entertainment!
SEAMUS MCLOUGHLIN
KESHCARRIGAN, CO LEITRIM
Irish Independent

6 February 2014 Charles and Marj
I go all the way around the park listening to the Navy Lark. Our heroes are in trouble, again. They have to organize a party   Priceless.
Pick up old books, Charles and Marj come for coffee, thermabloc arrives
Scrabble today Mary wins, just.  and get under 400, Perhaps I will win tomorrow.

Obituary:
Sir Cyril Townsend who has died aged 75, was a liberal Conservative who represented Bexleyheath for 23 years, surviving an attempt to deselect him after he helped bring about Margaret Thatcher’s downfall in 1990 by campaigning for Michael Heseltine.
To many the ultimate Tory “wet”, Townsend was a protégé of Edward Heath, inheriting part of his constituency when he entered Parliament at the February 1974 election which saw his mentor ousted from power. His support for Mrs Thatcher’s government was fitful, and he harboured animosity towards Norman Tebbit for his views on Europe, immigration and the BBC.
Exuding what Andrew Alexander saw as “an air of weary reasonableness”, he was strongly pro-European, supported the Palestinians and the Greek Cypriots and pressed after the Falklands conflict for reconciliation with Argentina.
Townsend opposed Mrs Thatcher’s “Fortress Falklands” policy, saying Britain could not indefinitely support a “tiny village-colony 8,000 miles away”. He was one of the first MPs – with Labour’s George Foulkes – to re-engage with politicians in Buenos Aires, being pelted with eggs for his pains.
Coming from a family with Irish roots (and with a cousin in the Republic’s foreign ministry), Townsend combined a personal unionism with increasing dismay at the deteriorating relationship with Dublin under Mrs Thatcher. His opposition to the broadcast ban on Sinn Fein leaders did not stop the IRA including him on their death list.
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Townsend opposed cuts and freezes in benefits and fought the abolition of the Greater London Council, saying a slimmed down version could house “the last and least in our society”. Denouncing Sir Geoffrey Howe’s deflationary Budget of 1981, he said: “I did not come into politics to be a member of the Kamikaze Pilots’ Association.”
Yet Townsend joined a Right-wing revolt against what he considered an over-friendly deal by Tom King with the TUC. Nor was he among the dozen Tories reckoned by the whips to be at risk of defecting to the SDP. He did, though, eventually break with the Conservative party, joining the Liberal Democrats in 2005.
A former regular Army officer, Townsend pressed for a robust stance against the Soviet Union. He joined Mrs Thatcher in calling for a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics after the invasion of Afghanistan, warned as late as 1988 that the Red Army still had “an aggressive posture and capability”, and cautioned John Major against excessive defence cuts. Backbench Tories eight times elected him vice-chairman of their defence committee.
Cyril David Townsend was born in Woking on December 21 1937, the son of Lt-Col Cyril Townsend, severely wounded at Dunkirk when his son was three, and the former Lois Henderson. Educated at Bradfield (where he appeared in a play with the future Labour Foreign Secretary and SDP leader David Owen) and Sandhurst, he was commissioned into the Durham Light Infantry.
He saw active service in Cyprus during the Emergency and in Borneo during the confrontation with Indonesia, and in Berlin guarded Rudolf Hess (Townsend later chaired the all-party committee for Hess’s release). After two years as ADC to the governor and commander-in-chief in Hong Kong, and two more as adjutant to 1st Bn DLI, he left the Army in 1968.
Townsend joined the Conservatives in Totnes, and in short order was picked by Heath as one of his personal assistants. When Heath led the Tories back to power in 1970 Townsend crossed the river to become political secretary to Sir Desmond Plummer, leader of the GLC, doubling as home affairs desk officer at the Conservative Research Department.
Boundary changes led Heath to leave Bexley for the safer new seat of Sidcup, and Townsend was adopted in 1972 for what was now Bexleyheath. The seat was reckoned marginal, but despite the Tory defeat in the snap “who governs Britain?” election, mistimed badly by Heath, Townsend took it by 3,686 votes. By his final campaign in 1992, he had built his majority to 14,086.
In a “hung” House, Townsend was the only Tory to vote for a Labour rate settlement that benefited his constituents. He was appointed to the Select Committee on Violence in the Family, and in 1977 promoted a Bill to curb child pornographers which reached the statute book as the Protection of Children Act, 1978. When Labour Left-wingers blocked it over an unrelated argument, Michael Foot, Leader of the House, promised to make sure it went through.
When Mrs Thatcher came to power in 1979 Townsend had no hope of a ministerial post, given his ties to Heath. He did become PPS to Reg Prentice, Minister of State for Social Services, but resigned after six months over tougher immigration rules for Asian fiances.
After heavy losses in the 1989 Euro-elections, Townsend blamed Mrs Thatcher’s Eurosceptic Bruges speech, saying the Conservatives had to re-establish themselves as the “party of Europe”.
The Prime Minister was heading the other way, however, and after her “No, No, No” to closer union which triggered Sir Geoffrey Howe’s resignation, Townsend urged Heseltine to challenge her. During the subsequent contest he worked for Heseltine, despite activists in Bexleyheath having opted 4-1 for Mrs Thatcher. When Major emerged victorious, Townsend pledged his support. Weeks later, he survived a move to deselect him by 168 votes to 113.
He spent his final term on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee and chairing the UN parliamentary group. He left the House in 1997 with a knighthood after failing to secure the Conservative nomination for the redrawn seat of Bexleyheath and Crayford.
Townsend represented the Commons at skiing and tennis. He chaired the British-Cyprus Parliamentary Group, the Conservative Middle East Council and the South Atlantic Group, which he co-founded. From 1995 to 2002 he was director of the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding, and contributed to Arabic newspapers.
Cyril Townsend married Anita Walshe in 1976. They had two sons.
Cyril Townsend, born December 21 1937, died November 20 2013

Guardian:

The story of modern Russia is the story of dramatic, almost seismic change. Russian voices, both literary and journalistic, have always striven to make themselves heard above the clamour of their nation’s unfolding story – commenting on it, shaping it and, in doing so, contributing to the political and intellectual shape of the world far beyond their country’s borders. But during the last 18 months, Russian lawmakers have passed a number of laws that place a chokehold on the right to express oneself freely in Russia. As writers and artists, we cannot stand quietly by as we watch our fellow writers and journalists pressed into silence or risking prosecution and often drastic punishment for the mere act of communicating their thoughts.
Three of these laws specifically put writers at risk: the so-called gay “propaganda” and “blasphemy” laws, prohibiting the “promotion” of homosexuality and “religious insult” respectively, and the recriminalisation of defamation. A healthy democracy must hear the independent voices of all its citizens; the global community needs to hear, and be enriched by, the diversity of Russian opinion. We therefore urge the Russian authorities to repeal these laws that strangle free speech, to recognise Russia’s obligations under the international covenant on civil and political rights to respect freedom of opinion, expression and belief – including the right not to believe – and to commit itself to creating an environment in which all citizens can experience the benefit of the free exchange of opinion.
Aki Kaurismäki, Abdizhamil Nurpeisov, Alejandro Sánchez-Aizcorbe, Alek Popov, Aleksandar Hemon, Alexander Gorodnitskiy, Alexey Simonov, Ali Smith, Alix Ohlin, Anders Heger, Anders Jerichow, Andrea Reiter, Andrei Nekrasov, Andrej Nikolaidis, Angel Cuadra, Annabel Lyon, Anthony Appiah, Antonio Della Rocca, Ariel Dorfman, Arnon Grunberg, Bei Dao, Bei Ling, Bigeldy Gabdullin, Carl Morten Iversen, Carme Arenas, Carol Ann Duffy, Cary Fagan, Charles Foran, Charlotte Gray, Chen Maiping, Ching-His Perng, Christine McKenzie, Christoph Hein, Clayton Ruby, Daniel Cil Brecher, Daniel Leuwers, Daša Drndic, David Bezmozgis, David Malouf, David Van Reybrouck, DBC Pierre, Debbie Ohi, EL Doctorow, Edward Albee, Eeva Park, Elfriede Jelinek, Elif Shafak, Ellen Seligman, Emile Martel, Entela Kasi, Eric Lax, Erwin Mortier, Eugene Benson, Eugene Schoulgin, Evelyn Juers, Francine Prose, Francois Thisdale, Françoise Coulmin, Fred Viebahn, Freya Klier, Gabrielle Alioth, Gao Yu, George Melnyk, Gert Heidenreich, Gioconda Belli, Gloria Guardia, Günter Grass, Günter Kunert, Guy Stern, Haroon Siddiqui, Helaine Becker, Helen Garner, Herkus Kuncius, Hori Takeaki, Ian McEwan, Igor Irteniev, Ilija Trojanow, Indrek Koff, Ingo Schulze, Irina Surat, Jane Urquhart, Janice Williamson, Janne Teller, Jarkko Tontti, Jean-Luc Despax, Jeffrey Eugenides, Jennifer Clement, Jennifer Egan, Jennifer Lanthier, Jo Glanville, Jo Hermann, Joanne Leedom-Ackerman, John Ashbery, John Massey, John Ralston Saul, Joke van Leeuwen, Jon Lee Anderson, Jonathan Franzen, Jonathan Lethem, Josef Haslinger, Jostein Gaarder, Jukka Koskelainen, Jukka Laajarinne, Julian Barnes, Karen Connelly, Katherine Govier, Kätlin Kaldmaa, Kirsty Gunn, Kjell Westö, Klaus Staeck, Kyo Maclear, Larry Siems, Laurel Croza, Laurence Paton, Lauri Otonkoski, Lawrence Hill, Leena Parkkinen, Linwood Barclay, LIU Di, Lorna Crozier, Louise Dennys, Lucina Kathmann, Ludmila Ulitskaya, Ma Jian, Ma Thida, Magda Carneci, Margaret Atwood, Margie Orford, Marian Botsford Fraser, Mark Harris, Markéta Hejkalová, Markus Nummi, Marsha Skrypuch, Masha Gessen, Max Alhau, Michael Guggenheimer, Michael Krueger, Michael MacLennan, Michael Ondaatje, Michelle de Kretser, Miriam Cosic, Myrna Kostash, Nadezda Cacinovic, Neetha Barclay, Neil Bissoondath, Neil Gaiman, Nelofer Pazira, Niels Barfoed, Nino Ricci, Ola Larsmo, Oleg Khlebnikov, Olga Kuchkina, Orhan Pamuk, Patricia Storms, Patrick Lane, Paul Auster, Per Wästberg, Peter Godwin, Peter Normann Waage, Peter Schneider, Peter Stamm, Peter von Bagh, Philip Slayton, Philippe Pujas, QI Jiazhen, Raficq Abdulla, Ralph Giordano, Raymond Louw, Rein Raud, René Appel, Riikka Pelo, Robert Chang, Rohinton Mistry, Ron Deibert, Russell Banks, Salman Rushdie, Sarah Slean, Sergey Gandlevskiy, Sheila Heti, Sheree Fitch, Simon Racioppa, Siri Hustvedt, Sirpa Kähkönen, Sjón, Smagul Yelubay, Sofi Oksanen, Sreko Horvat, Steven Galloway, Susan Coyne, Susin Nielsen, Suzanne Nossel, Sylvestre Clancier, Tanis Rideout, Terry Fallis, Thomas Keneally, Tienchi Martin-Liao, Tomica Bajsic, Tone Peršak, Tony Cohan, Tony Kushner, Ulrich Beck, Uwe Timm, Valery Nikolayev, Veronika Dolina, Vida Ognjenovic, Vilja-Tuulia Huotarinen, Vincent Lam, Vladislav Bajac, William Nygaard, William Schwalbe, Wole Soyinka, Yang Lian, Yann Martel, Yuri Ryashentsev, Zhang Yu, Zhao Shiying, Ching-Hsi Perng

I am deeply concerned by the response of Fakhraddin Gurbanov, Azerbaijan’s ambassador to the UK (Letter, 30 January), to Anastasia Taylor-Lind’s interview and photograph (My best shot, 24 January) showing a wedding in the historically Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. I’ve visited Nagorno-Karabakh 80 times, many during the bitter war from 1991 to 1994, and I witnessed Azerbaijan’s attempted ethnic cleansing of Armenians, including firing 400 GRAD missiles a day on the civilians in the capital city of Stepanakert, and numerous atrocities, including the slaughter of civilians in the village of Maragha in 1992. I saw the homes still smoldering, decapitated corpses, charred human remains, and survivors in shock. In a nearby hospital I met the chief nurse who had lost 14 members of her extended family including her son, whose head had been sawn off. As Mr Gurbanov suggested Ms Taylor-Lind should widen her perspective by speaking to displaced peoples within Azerbaijan, so I suggest he speak to the survivors of Maragha. Azerbaijan’s aggression against Nagorno-Karabakh has turned into a policy of attempted attrition through economic and military intimidation, with aggressive propaganda threatening further military offensives. This policy prolongs the suffering of civilians displaced by the conflict – both Azeris and Armenians, leaving many in limbo and in poverty.
If Azerbaijan’s government removes the threat of renewed military action, supports the shaky ceasefire and pursues confidence-building measures, then perhaps opportunities for peace-building could develop, including provision for displaced peoples to return to their homes – a matter about which the ambassador claims to feel so strongly.
Caroline Cox
House of Lords
• The ambassador of Azerbaijan says that Taylor-Lind should visit Azerbaijan to see the plight of displaced people there. It is not that easy. Even a short visit to Azerbaijan requires a visa, photos, a letter of invitation, a confirmed hotel booking and an eye-watering minimum visa fee of £100. It is also disingenuous to says that anyone wishing to visit NK should do so through Azerbaijani authorities. You can only visit NK from Armenia and if you have a NK visa in your passport you will be barred from visiting Azerbaijan.
Joseph Cocker
Leominster, Herefordshire

It’s a pity Nick Harvey and his senior ex-army friends learnt so little about the nature of deterrence and the reality of operating nuclear submarines during their time in the MoD (The tide turns for Trident, 4 February). Had he listened more, he would not have led the Liberal Democrats to adopt such a ludicrous (a favourite word of Harvey’s!) policy for the UK’s nuclear deterrent capability. The party’s adoption of a part-time deterrent – sometimes you have one, sometimes you don’t – will deter no one and only cause dismay with our allies in the US, France and the rest of Nato. His sloppy solution is based on the false premise that operating Trident is a capability that can be switched on and off just like that. It cannot. It takes time and constant tuning of crew, submarine and equipment to ensure safe and effective operation of the Trident system.
Furthermore, when Harvey’s submarines are sitting in port rusting away waiting for a crisis, they are a target not a deterrent, hugely vulnerable to conventional attack. With one submarine at sea all the time, availability and certainty of a retaliatory capability is guaranteed; a fundamental return which the British taxpayer should expect from their investment. The UK has already climbed down several “rungs” of the nuclear ladder such that we now deploy a truly minimum deterrent, indeed the smallest of all the declared nuclear weapon states. To cut further would be folly.In short, a part-time deterrent just will not do.
Tim Hare
Commodore, Royal Navy (MoD director of nuclear policy 1999-2002)
• The main people speculating about a Labour “wobble” on renewing Britain’s deterrent submarines are Conservative ministers and a Lib Dem MP who desperately want our cutting-edge manufacturing programme to be scrapped (Lobby ship unions over Trident, Philip Hammond tells unions, 2 February). As part of a government that has faced both ways on the deterrent and kicked the decision into the long grass at considerable cost to taxpayers, they should concentrate on keeping their own house in order rather than inventing problems to make mischief for their opponents.
Talk of Labour reopening this debate is utter baloney, as the shadow defence secretary made abundantly clear in the Commons this week. Vernon Coaker said the party is as committed as it has ever been to the policy it set in government. That is right for the security of future generations in a world where we cannot tell what threats the UK will face in 30 or 40 years’ time, and vital to rebalance the economy towards the kind of advanced engineering and manufacturing jobs that submarine-building will sustain in every part of the UK.
John Woodcock MP
Labour/Co-op MP for Barrow & Furness
• The politicking to preserve the Trident replacement spend of £100bn contrasts with the shipbuilders in the rest of the EU – Finland, France, Germany, Poland and Italy. They are competing in world civil markets turning out hi-tech ships, including for the UK: cruise liners, ferries, tugs and offshore vessels. Meanwhile the UK continues to produce vastly expensive nuclear subs and aircraft carriers, wholly funded by the exchequer, arms that can’t be used and nobody wants, except politicians, others with vested interests, and those who prefer to live in a past when there was an empire to defend. Anti-EU rhetoric will lose more British manufacturing jobs to continental Europe and the far east, making the UK ever more dependent on arms sales.
Robert Straughton
Ulverston, Cumbria

On Tuesday, Qusai Zakarya, the Syrian activist and author of the Hunger Strike Under Siege blog , along with other opposition leaders and activists from Moadamiya, accepted the Syrian regime’s offer of a face-to-face meeting as part of a deal for them to be allowed to leave the besieged area. Qusai’s group were taken to a hotel in central Damascus for a meeting – thought to be with officials from the Ministry of Reconciliation and the Fourth Armored Division Headquarters. Opposition leaders have continued to call for breaking the siege. However, the government demanded that certain activists in Moadamiya leave as a condition of a truce and because of pressure from residents of Moadamiya, who have lived in conditions of starvation for months and want the food supplies being offered by the government, Qusai and other activists agreed to leave to meet government officials. The group’s safety was guaranteed by the regime as part of the deal. It is crucial for their safety that the Syrian government is aware that the eyes of the world are on this meeting.
Owen Beith
London

If what you want is to understand Michael Gove as a public figure in charge of the nation’s educational needs, there is little point in debating what he might call his “ideas” (Letters, 4 February). One needs rather to focus on three things. First, and notwithstanding the acquired, but now melting, patina of Oxford cleverness, his manifest stupidity, apparently incorrigible. Only an idiot could seriously maintain that a day will come, causally engineered by none other than Michael Gove himself, when it will be impossible to distinguish state schools from fee-paying schools – a deft account of the sheer idiocy of this view is provided by Peter Wilby (Comment, 4 February).
Second, his fantasy life, that of a man lost in translation between past and present, and more precisely the fantasy, bordering on obsession, of the arriviste, wannabe toff drooling over the lexicon of long ago while dreaming of the glory days of “prep” and “lines”. Third, the political ambition. Despite all the guff about linking educational “standards” and “social mobility”, everything that Gove does as secretary of state for education serves a very precise purpose. Gove wants to be the next leader of the Tory party and one day perhaps prime minister.
How do you use the education brief to best serve that end? By playing to the Tory right and making an educational offer to those sections of the electorate which, in the context of recession, no longer feel able to afford private education for their children. It is only a matter of time before the sharp-elbow classes swamp the academies and the free schools. Reintroducing the “common entrance” exam at 13 (another of the terms in the vocabulary of Gove’s regressive fantasy life; the common entrance, I ask you!) will seal the deal on that front. The rest is dross. Gove is not only the silliest member of the government; given that his compulsions and ambitions are currently shaping the future of millions of children, he is also the most dangerous. The priority has surely to be not debating him, but getting rid of him.
Professor Christopher Prendergast
King’s College, Cambridge
• Your article on Michael Gove’s visit to the London Academy of Excellence (The headteacher who gives Gove hope for free schools, 3 February) suggested that the LAE’s “success” offered hope to the government’s troubled “free” school programme. Perhaps. Such success however offers no hope to the majority of students in Newham. On the contrary, “success” for the LAE comes at the expense of the vast majority of students who work hard to gain places at colleges such as mine.
Shocking figures from the Sixth Form College Association show that, over three years, £100m has been cut from 93 sixth form colleges with 150,000 students. However, nine free schools, with a total of 1,557 students between them, had £62m poured into their coffers. Our college has 2,600 students. In reality, these elite, selective institutions pride themselves on who they don’t teach. They are premised on exclusion. This makes their comparative success look rather underwhelming. The LAE’s five A/A* GCSE entry requirement and selection procedure ensures only those judged as the most deserving of the “deserving poor” enter their doors – held ajar by those sponsoring bastions of privilege and inequality, Eton and Brighton College. They have descended on east London, casting a cloak of fake philanthropy over the system of educational privilege they are determined to defend.
My college faces further cuts. Students learn in classes of 22-24 rather than the 8-15 at the LAE and “free” schools. Yet we send 700-800 students to university – including to the top UK universities – many of whom the LAE would not deign to admit into their classrooms. Michael Gove used the LAE as a platform to criticise teachers, schools and colleges who offer life chances and opportunities to students of all abilities and buttress a privileged educational elite that values wealth and status above human potential.
Rob Ferguson
London
• Tristram Hunt must show revolutionary zeal by bringing down the “Berlin Wall” in education – in the opposite direction. Only 7% of young people are privately educated. Let them join the majority in the state system by tearing down the bastions of the privileged few, fee-paying schools – 93% of the nation’s young people wouldn’t even notice as it would be school as usual for them. Be bold Tristram, fight Gove’s fire by offering free high quality education for all!
Linda Karlsen
Whitstable, Kent

Independent:

Your report (3 February) that the Education Secretary has cut £100m from the sixth-form colleges budget over the past three years, and has at the same time spent over £62m on just nine new free schools, makes disheartening reading.
Does not Michael Gove have any comprehension of the value of sixth-form colleges and the amount of work they put in with their 16- to 19-year-olds studying for their A-levels? The results can be remarkable. Just take Hills Road Sixth Form College in Cambridge: it sends more of its pupils to Oxford and Cambridge than any other establishment in England. One wonders how many students from the free schools will reach such high attainments.
Since he has been in office, Mr Gove has, in my opinion, done more damage to the education system in England than any previous secretary of state that I can remember.
As an aside, Mr Gove never went to school in England, and yet he thinks he has a divine right to tell us how to educate our children.
Emeritus Professor Anthony Milton, Whaddon, Cambridgeshire
My concern is that the proposed admission of two-year-olds to schools might result in a lowering of standards; I think we must know whether these young people will be permitted to attend without proper uniforms. I’m sure we all hope not. It is not beyond the capability of responsible parents to obtain nappies in the appropriate school colours. Will these toddlers be excused the rigorous punishments suggested by our esteemed education leader? Again I am sure there is a consensus that this would be unacceptable.
My aspiration is that this would be a golden opportunity for these youngsters to become trilingual in English, Latin and Greek, which would surely make possible a classical renaissance in Britain. This longed-for achievement would doubtless be the envy of the whole world (with the possible exception of North Korea).
Lee Dalton, Weymouth, Dorset
Seeger, singing for freedom
Terence Blacker misses rather a lot of points in “We can no longer protest like Pete Seeger” (1 February).
In the 1950s and ’60s – certainly the decade from Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott, which brought Dr Martin Luther King to international prominence, to the passage by LBJ of the Civil Rights Act – music was what powered the movement.
Blacks sang in church, on marches, in jail, on buses, and they were joined on the “freedom rides” to desegregate the Greyhound buses by their white brothers, many of them students. They sang to keep their spirits up, to keep fear at bay – not because they were so naive as to think songs alone could change the world.
Seeger sang for many causes: the poor and oppressed everywhere, black and white; against Senator McCarthy, to whom he refused to name names; against Vietnam; against Iraq; and for environmentalism. During his McCarthy-enforced exile from the American mainstream, he retreated to summer camps, where he taught a generation of kids the sort of music that would inspire the nationwide folk revival that in turn inspired Bob Dylan.
He was a good man, never complacent, never cynical, unlike many carping journalists.
Liz Thomson, London N10
When world events seemed random and disjointed, I often found in Pete Seeger’s lyrics a clarity which cut to the core.
It even seemed to work in the week of his death, in the unlikely setting of sport, when Andy Flower resigned as coach from the England cricket team and Tim Flowers stood down as coach of my own team, Northampton Town.
Seán O’Donovan, London N18
Lead in petrol: it was a crime
Your article on falling crime rates ranges across a variety of possible explanations without recognising that the evidence linking lead in petrol with violent crime is compelling (“The mysterious case of why crime is falling in Britain”, 24 January).
Crime rates worldwide rose after the Second World War in line with the use of lead in petrol, which peaked at 400,000 tonnes per annum in the early 1970s. Reduction in violent crime has been observed in all developed countries studied since then, and correlates very closely with the removal of lead from petrol with a lag period of approximately 20 years.
Thus in the US lead was removed between 1976 and 1980, and crime reductions occurred during the 1990s. Mayor Giuliani in New York was given credit for this, but in fact violent crime was falling before he took office and continued afterwards. In the UK and other EU countries lead was removed between 1985 and 1995 and we are now seeing the benefits in our own crime statistics two decades later.
Lead is a neurotoxin that exerts its maximum effects in utero and leads to disinhibited behaviour in adolescents and young adults. It explains most of the variance in violent crime since the Second World War.
Dr Robin Russell-Jones  (Chair of the Campaign for Lead Free Air, 1984-89), Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire
View from the modern Catholic pew
What a bizarre article about Catholicism from John Walsh (4 February). He freely admits that he no longer believes in Catholicism and hasn’t practised for ages, but tries to tell us what will be found in the Catholic pews today. Maybe as a journalist he should ask believers why they are there, rather than guessing.
I go to church because I believe that God loves us and sent Jesus to save us. I am happy because Pope Francis’s appointment allows us to refocus on that eternal truth. Of course any human person or institution has many failings, but with friends and fellow travellers we can attempt to recognise where we are wrong, and move forward together in that love.
If Mr Walsh, as he is always welcome to do, came and visited our parish, I hope he would find a warm community ready to share joys, and to support in times of sorrow. Bells and smells are a matter of taste, rather than a central tenet of belief.
Dr Gemma Stockford, Hassocks, West sussex
HS2 costs the same, but looks better
Your report (5 February) states that the new chairman of HS2 intends to reduce costs by, among other things, “trimming the amount of money set aside for contingency costs”. However, this does not represent a real saving, rather it is a presentational change.
“Contingency costs” are simply a recognition that over the lifetime of this huge project (nearly 20 years to 2033) some unanticipated costs will arise. Reducing the provision for them will simply increase the eventual overspend – but it looks good now.
Keith Robinson, Beckington, Somerset
The winter floods have nearly drowned David Cameron and may have washed up the Conservatives’ prospects at the European elections. The weather disasters of recent weeks have also exposed the flaw in the theory of the “Big Society” on which the Tories launched their 2010 general election manifesto.
In testing times, there is no alternative to decisive centrally driven action by government, not agencies nor an army of part-time volunteers. Perhaps that is why the Prime Minister has finally woken up to the catastrophe engulfing the West Country and at last decided to chair a Cobra meeting? Leaving it to society plainly did not work for the people of South-west England.
Anthony Rodriguez, Staines, Middlesex
Steve Richards, in his column of 4 February, finally realises that man-made climate change is real and that something should be done about it. Having had this revelation, he spoils it by suggesting that, instead of trying to do something about the fossil fuel usage which is driving the situation, we attempt to treat the symptoms by dealing with the consequences of extreme weather more effectively.
It won’t do, and if your columnist truly recognises the extent of our peril, he should be calling for far more action on fossil fuel usage. Rome is burning, yet he merely calls for a different song on the violin.
Helen Waldie, Brentwood Essex
Flood defence budgets slashed, roads to be abandoned because of a lack of funding to repair them, and deteriorating care for our elderly folk. Does this have to be the face of 21st-century Britain? I think not.
Although I only work part-time, if it would improve the lives of my fellow countrymen and women, even just a little bit, then I am prepared to pay a couple of pence more in the pound on income tax. Is anybody else?
What is needed urgently is real politics, mature leadership and a pragmatic debate on income tax.
John Leach, Halberton, Devo

Times:

Testing for 4-year-olds will serve to exacerbate England’s crisis in children’s mental health
Sir, The news that the government intends to introduce school tests for 4-year-olds (report, Feb 1) confirms the worst fears of educationists who, since 2007, have predicted that the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum would inevitably lead to the “schoolification” of early childhood.
England already has one of the earliest school starting ages in the world, with around nine in ten countries’ children starting school at 6 or 7. England also has a crisis in children’s mental health, which this change will only exacerbate; and it is ironic that our Far Eastern competitors are now rowing back from their own hot-housing systems, having discovered the damage they have wrought in children’s lives.
Wise educators know that anything resembling a “test” is one of the worst ways of finding out what a young child is able to do.
Dr Richard House
University of Winchester
Sue Palmer
Author, Toxic Childhood
Kim Simpson
The Montessori Studio, Kew
Sir, Where have the members of the government been for the past few years? For some considerable time before I retired from teaching five years ago, baseline assessments — or, to use the more emotive word, “tests” — have been carried out in both nursery and reception classes. Hardly a new idea, and, apart from taking up time and putting pressure on teachers, it is hardly a situation that stresses the children at all.
Contrary to what some may like to believe, teachers do actually have an interest in assisting and watching the progress of their pupils.
Ann Cross
Newcastle upon Tyne
Sir, A recent project in primary schools in the Midlands, which compared children’s development in a range of basic physical skills (balance, posture and motor skills) with national curriculum results, revealed that children with immature neuromotor skills were performing in the lowest quartiles on educational measures and vice-versa. These findings follow earlier research which revealed a link between children’s physical skills and educational performance.
Until 30 years ago all children were assessed by a school medical officer at rising 5 years of age, who carried out simple tests of balance, fine motor skills, vision and hearing. These tests were phased out in the 1980s, with the result that children with immature neuromotor skills pass through school poorly “equipped” to realise their potential. Testing children’s cognitive skills without also examining physical development in relation to chronological age, runs the risk of misinterpreting underlying reasons for children’s performance.
Sally Goddard Blythe
The Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology
Sir, Mr Gove should be listening to experienced teachers and long-time students of child development. These will concur that marked differences in physical, emotional, social and linguistic development are seen in infant school. It is known that there has been a decline in the general ability in the range of their vocabulary and ability to converse — more than likely due to many very young children being plonked in front of the television rather than being engaged with, being read to or being told stories daily.
Peter H. Reeve
Retired primary school teacher,
Sheringham, Norfolk

One hundred years after the start of World War One, great acts of personal distinction still go unacknowledged
Sir, The centenary of the start of the Great War is a good time to recall great acts of personal distinction, some still unacknowledged.
During that war my family lived in London. In his autobiography my relation, your distinguished correspondent Louis Heren, described “growing up poor in London”. His grandfather (my great-great-grandfather) Anton Friederich August Heren was born in Speyer, Germany, in 1843. Louis’ uncle Anton Robert Heren died in September 1914 on his return from the Battle of Mons and was given a military burial in Brighton.
Another uncle, “Blind Uncle Lou”, is believed to have been blinded in a gas attack in Flanders and invalided home.
Edgar Speyer was a German banker who took British citizenship in 1892. A friend of Asquith and Churchill, he was made a baronet and Privy Councillor. It was Speyer who saved the Proms from bankruptcy in 1902 and continued to fund the Proms until 1915, when he left for the US amid an onslaught of accusations of treachery and spying. He returned in 1921 to face a controversial judicial inquiry, after which he and his family were stripped of their citizenship.
Speyer’s case cries out. Apart from saving the Proms, he was also a founding father of the London Underground and of the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge — he was instrumental in funding both of Scott’s expeditions.
In this centenary year one thing we may get right is our commemoration of individuals whose lives were irreversibly altered by the war. It is high time to recognise Sir Edgar Speyer’s part in our cultural and social history and to reinstate his name in the places where it is due, as representative of the many Germans who contributed to our national life and did not betray their adopted country.
Louise Heren
Reybridge, Wilts

It’s not only golf balls that crows are prone to drop on their travels, irritating though that is — they like all sorts of treasures
Sir, The rules of golf are clear (letter, Feb 4): if a crow picks up your ball and drops it, you play the ball (not the crow) where it was left by the crow.
I know, as almost every ball I hit is picked up by a crow and taken into nearby woods, where I hack away until I realise what a silly game golf is.
Len Horridge
Leeds
Sir, Our dilemma may have now been solved.There seemed no explanation as to how a set of false teeth appeared overnight on the lawn in our walled garden. It is either foxes or crows. There is, of course, the remaining puzzle: whose teeth are they?
Patricia Sandham
Canterbury

It turns out that there are many and varied reasons for carrying a stethoscope, the very least of which seems to be for medical purposes
Sir, Avoiding parking fines in London by leaving a stethoscope on the dashboard so traffic wardens think the driver is a doctor (letter, Feb 4)? It must have happened a long time ago. The vultures that operate there now would give a ticket to a corpse.
Tony Phillips
Chalfont St Giles, Bucks
Sir, My father was a GP in a small town in Scotland. Speeding to a medical emergency, he was caught by a police car. He waved his stethoscope hopefully out of the car window; the police overtook him, waving a pair of handcuffs as they passed.
Dr Liz Sowler
Musselburgh, E Lothian

The Francis report did not, in fact, say that ‘hundreds of patients died unnecessarily’
Sir, You repeat the claim that the Francis report judged that “hundreds of patients died unnecessarily” (“Thousand more nurses recruited after Stafford hospital death scandal”, Feb 5). In fact the report said: “It would be unsafe to infer from the figures that there was any particular number or range of numbers of avoidable or unnecessary deaths at the Trust.”
Dr Bob Bury
Leeds

Self-service checkouts prove that it does not always make sense to replace people with machines
Sir, A recent report found that shops with scan-it-yourself self-service checkouts are losing almost £1.7 billion a year through shoplifting. I am not surprised. I hate these self-service checkouts, not least because they may have cost someone their job.
Another way to speed things up would be for stores to adopt the system of pricing then packing immediately by till staff, who have the bags ready in front of them. They have had this system for years in other countries.
I hope this loss to companies will prove to them that it does not always make good financial sense and increase profits to replace people
with machines.
Zerine Tata
Wembley, Middx

Telegraph:

SIR – Last week, an inquest jury examining the death in 2011 of 17-year-old Ryan Clark in HMYOI Wetherby criticised a string of failures by the authorities to safeguard the life of a vulnerable, emotionally damaged boy who had been in care since he was 16 months old.
Since Ryan died, 45 more children and young people aged 24 and under have also lost their lives in penal custody. There have been 282 deaths of children and young people since 2000. The same failings are being raised time and time again.
Inquests into individual deaths are held in isolation from each other and do not address wider systemic failures in state care both within and outside prisons. The Government’s response has been fragmented and piecemeal, with little recognition of the wider public health and welfare implications, as well as criminal justice issues, raised by these deaths.
As organisations concerned about the welfare of children and young people within the criminal justice system, we are calling on the Government to establish, as a matter of urgency, an independent review with effective involvement from bereaved families in order to safeguard lives in future. How many more children and young people will die in penal custody before the Government acts?
Deborah Coles
Co-Director, INQUEST
Juliet Lyon
Director, the Prison Reform Trust
Frances Crook
Chief Executive, The Howard League for Penal Reform
Paola Uccellari
Director, Children’s Rights Alliance for England
Penelope Gibbs
Chair, Standing Committee for Youth Justice
Pam Hibbert
Chair of Trustees, National Association for Youth Justice
Hilary Emery
Chief Executive, National Children’s Bureau
Shauneen Lambe
Executive Director, Just for Kids Law
Dominic Williamson
Chief Executive at Revolving Doors Agency
Sarah Salmon
Interim Director, Criminal Justice Alliance
Puja Darbari
UK Director of Strategy, Barnardo’s
Joyce Moseley
Chair, Transition to Adulthood Alliance
Sara Llewellin
Chief Executive, Barrow Cadbury Trust
Andrea Coomber
Director, JUSTICE
Darren Coyne
Projects & Development Manager, The Care Leavers’ Association
Richard Garside
Director, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies
Susanne Rauprich
CEO, National Council for Voluntary Youth Services
Shami Chakrabarti
Director, Liberty

SIR – I enjoyed the picture of the shoe heel from c.1785 and the accompanying letter on getting rid of high heels and pointless ties. May we now be shown how late 18th-century men kept their necks looking smart and tidy?

I am saddened by the fact that the hand-painted silk ties I have presented to my husband are no longer worn.
Jean Mitchell
Bexleyheath, Kent
SIR – A tie is uncomfortable only if the collar size is wrong. And as for pointless: choosing a tie to reflect one’s mood can brighten the morning and smooth the path to the office. Wear a tie at home to reduce heating bills: it increases body temperature by around 3 degrees Fahrenheit.

Mik Shaw
Goring-by-Sea, West Sussex
SIR – Sir Harold Walker asks for designers to come up with a warm, comfortable and colourful alternative for a tie. Surely a cravat fulfils those requirements?
David Shirra
Longden, Shropshire

SIR – Following the Government’s abandonment of the judge-led Gibson Inquiry, the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), the prime minister-appointed watchdog of MPs and peers, has now been given the crucial role of investigating allegations of Britain’s involvement in the CIA’s extraordinary rendition programme.
The ISC will struggle to command public confidence on this, not least because it has already investigated rendition and erroneously concluded that Britain was not involved, only to be flatly contradicted by a court ruling the following year. The public needs to have confidence that the ISC can get to the bottom of what happened. To do that, the ISC must be, and be seen to be, more independent of the Prime Minister. At the very least, the Government should implement the recommendation of the 2009 Wright Committee on parliamentary reform that the chairman of the ISC be elected by secret ballot of all MPs, subject to a prime ministerial override of nominations.
In time, the wider membership should probably also be elected by MPs, likewise subject to a prime-ministerial override of nominations. These measures would be a step in the right direction towards strengthening public confidence in the adequacy of parliamentary oversight of our intelligence agencies.
Andrew Tyrie MP (Con)
Dominic Raab MP (Con)
London SW1
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Solar power failure
SIR – With immaculate timing, Greg Barker, the energy minister, implores us to put our pension savings into solar panels just a few days after we are told that it was the wettest, and seemingly dullest, January on record.
During the entire month, my solar- powered garden lights came on twice. They have not been a good investment so far.
Philip Moger
East Preston, West Sussex
SIR – People should be wary of Mr Barker’s advice to invest in solar panels because they would deliver a better financial return than a pension.
Solar panels do not last much longer than 20 years, so the prudent householder will need to set aside some of the income to pay for replacements, which, with modest inflation, will be over £13,000.
And future governments could easily reduce the incentives.
Terry Weston
Norwich
Freezer envy
SIR – How I envy Vanessa Travers with her freezer full of fruit and garden produce. Mine resembles a mausoleum for game birds with rows of grouse and grey-legged partridges.
My only hope of avoiding this is to persuade my husband to become a vegetarian, but there is little hope of that.
Rita Greer
Liss, Hampshire
SIR – My small freezer holds a large frozen trout, to be used to whack over the head of anyone who breaks in.
Jo Marchington
Ashtead, Surrey
Kiss me quick
SIR – Yesterday, in my local Waitrose, there was a lovely Valentine’s display, along with a range of Valentine cakes – they were best before February 13.
Paul Coley
Eastbourne, East Sussex
Keeping the peace
SIR – You report on the German foreign minister’s suggestion that groups such as Ukip threaten the peace of Europe.
If he is so concerned about the possibility of a large Ukip vote at the European elections, he and other leaders should show more understanding of David Cameron’s plea for some repatriation of powers to national governments.
Alec Ellis
Liverpool
His n’ hers
SIR – Twenty-four years ago, my husband and I went on our skiing honeymoon wearing matching Cossack hats.
For easy identification, I sewed Cash’s nametapes into each hat. the hats, complete with their nametapes, are still worn to this day.
Sally Hayes
Bookham, Surrey
Smart meters are being rushed out untested
SIR – The Department for Energy and Climate Change (Letters, February 4) is presiding over the most complicated roll-out of smart meters in the world, and in an impossibly short period of time.
The computer system to control the meters is untested and the meters themselves have yet to be trialled in pre-payment or “pay as you go” mode.
It is the consumer who is taking all the risks as they will pay for this white elephant through their energy bills.

Barry Cook
Rufford, Lancashire
SIR – My smart meter has indeed saved me money. However, universal installation is not aimed at conserving electricity but at varying charges during the day, levying premium rates as we go to work and come home to cook dinner. Hence the electricity companies will boost their profits at our expense. The DECC’s own tender documents demand that all smart meters have variable billing capability.
William Mills
Coolham, West Sussex
SIR – Saving energy is not difficult. I read my meters every two weeks and keep a record. My wife and I turn appliances off when not in use. To provide me with an expensive new meter is a waste of money.
Peter McPherson
Merriott, Somerset
SIR – We in the countryside would welcome smart meters. We would also welcome the reliable and fast digital connections necessary for them to work.
Pamela Wheeler
Kenley, Shropshire

SIR – Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, says state schools should test children using private-school exams. But Common Entrance assesses the ability of private school pupils, aged 13, prior to transferring to a new senior school. State school pupils traditionally move to senior schools at 11. So what would another major set of exams at age 13 achieve, apart from more stress for pupils and more work for teachers?
If Mr Gove wants to make state schools more like private schools he should concentrate on what really matters –investing in high-quality teaching and facilities, and promoting a culture in which pupils’ achievements are recognised.
Kate Pitcher
Norwich
SIR – We moved our son from the local public school to the local comprehensive, where the academic rigour was much greater, the bullying less and the pastoral care outstanding.
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The only facilities the state school lacked were the “extras” that were available in the private system. Music, sporting facilities, arts and debating societies all build confidence and enthusiasm, but cost a lot in staff time and resources.
If Michael Gove is serious about equal opportunities, he must provide those extras for all children, regardless of the ability of parents to pay.
Madeleine Harding
Wells, Somerset
SIR – Choice of schools in the independent sector is the most effective way of pushing up standards. Parents should also be able to choose any state school that is able to offer a place to their child.
Schools should be able to decide their own curricula and methods of discipline and select pupils. Good schools would probably expand and poor schools might close, but at least they would have to try to improve.
G E Hester
Bolton, Lancashire
SIR – As a teacher with more than 40 years’ experience, top of my list to help state schools match the private sector is smaller class sizes. Mr Gove hasn’t mentioned that.
Diana Holl
Clevedon, Somerset
SIR – If you visit a school in England, there is no mistaking a comprehensive for an independent school. The comprehensive is required to address the educational needs of children of all abilities. There will never be a level playing field while most independent schools and grammar schools are able to select on ability.
Marilyn Mullen
Gosport, Hampshire
SIR – I am delighted that Mr Gove intends to make state schools as good as private schools, but I wish he would hurry up.
I am paying for my four children to go to independent schools, and it’s not cheap.
Mark Solon
London N1

Irish Times:

Sir, – The lack of hospital consultant applications should not come as a complete surprise (Editorial, February 4th). The Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) has been very vocal about this subject for the past number of years. The fact that the HSE and Government choose to ignore the facts and warnings from the professional representative bodies is less of a surprise.
The recognition of the seriousness of the issue by HSE chief executive Tony O’Brien is a welcome development, but until significant improvements are made to consultant terms and conditions, there will be no resolution of the recruitment deficits.
Recent OECD Indicators confirm Ireland is now the lowest paid country for doctors in the English-speaking world, which is where we compete for doctors. This includes consultants and GPs. We have fewer specialists per capita than most OECD countries. Working conditions compare very unfavourably with most modern countries.
Is it any wonder that we cannot recruit? Is it any wonder our trainee doctors are emigrating in such large numbers? It is indeed a “brain drain”, and a huge resource drain. The impact on morale on those remaining in our system and on those in training, as well as on all others struggling to provide care for our patients cannot be estimated.
Irish doctors have always been a highly trained and valuable and mobile resource. Our system is currently designed to force them to leave and never return.
The short-term gain in the salary reductions and the changed terms and conditions for our doctors is resulting in significant detrimental effects on the health service and most importantly on the delivery of care to our patients. The damage will take years to undo and will prove far more costly than any of the savings generated.
It is time, in the interest of our patients and of our health system to look to significantly improve the terms and conditions offered to our doctors in order to facilitate the development of a system that we can be proud of as we move forward into the next 100 years of our State. – Yours, etc,
Dr MICHAEL FitzGERALD.
Hospital Consultant.
South Tipperary General
Hospital,
Clonmel,
Co Tipperary.

Sir, – There has been considerable debate on whether exposure to electromagnetic fields is associated with the development of cancer. The European Commission’s report (World News, February 4th) is a very detailed analysis by a group of EU experts of a large literature surrounding electromagnetic field radiation and a variety of human diseases.
The report is both detailed and comprehensive, concluding that there is little association between electromagnetic magnetic fields and cancer. In other words the risk of developing cancer from exposure to high levels of such radiation is very low or non-existent.
The report does appear to highlight childhood leukaemia as an exception. It states “that meta-analysis of studies published between 2000-2009 confirms the robustness of an approximately two-fold increased risk at magnetic fields above a level of 0.3/0.4µT”. People living close to high voltage overhead lines can be exposed to levels significantly higher than this. The report goes on to state that the epidemiological, studies carried out to date support the idea that exposure to electromagnetic fields is a possible carcinogen based on the demonstrated association with childhood leukaemia risk.
The puzzle is that there is no known biological explanation of how electromagnetic fields could induce leukaemia. Without such an explanation there are always going to be doubts about the link between electromagnetic radiation and leukaemia, but the epidemiological studies at the moment look interesting! – Yours, etc,
THOMAS G
COTTER, MRIA,
Prof of Biochemistry,
University College Cork.

Sir, – The tragic deaths of young people in Ireland and elsewhere as a result of the internet drinking game is giving rise to a media flurry of shock headlines and other reporting. No doubt, this will die down in a week or two but the families and friends of these unfortunate youngsters will bear the pain of loss for a long time to come.
While the media’s reaction to such a spectacular form of alcohol abuse is to be expected, it in many ways ignores the extent and seriousness of alcohol abuse in general in our society.
The current “shock-horror” response to the neknomination is a distraction from the widespread alcohol abuse that lies at the root of so much domestic and street violence, road accidents, sexual aggression towards young women, family breakdown and physical and mental illness. Furthermore, it is a real distraction from the power that vested interests can exercise to ensure they continue to make vast profits from the sale of alcohol. – Yours, etc,
Dr MICHAEL J LOFTUS,
Main Street,
Crossmolina,
Co Mayo.

A chara, – Unfortunately Ronan Quinlan (February 4th) has missed the point. Legislation allowing local authorities to vary property tax is an important step towards decentralising Ireland’s political structure. The Labour Party’s advocacy of such legislation is consistent with its long-standing desire for a truly democratic republic. Its local election promise to cut property tax applies only to high-priced houses in urban areas. It is not a populist measure but rather further evidence of Labour’s commitment to a fair and progressive property tax system.
Yes, Labour is already in Government. And it’s delivering! – Is mise,
CLÁR Ní
CHONCHUBHAIR,
Cearach,
Nás na Ríogh, Co Chill Dara.
Sir, – So, Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore is promising voters in large urban areas a 15 per cent cut in property tax as part of its local and European election manifestos (Home News, February 3rd). According to Mr Gilmore, this reduction will apply in those local authorities where the Labour Party is the leading party. This attempt to buy votes with voters’ own money yet again exposes the squalid behaviour of Ireland’s self-proclaimed party of ethics and brings further shame and disgrace on our legislature.
Having been driven onto the rocks and well and truly holed below the waterline, it is immoral and unpatriotic for some of those elected to steer us through the economic maelstrom to be otherwise engaged in self-serving electioneering. We have tolerated for far too long in this country politics without principles, conscience or morality. – Yours, etc,
TOM COOPER,
Templeville Road,
Templeogue,
Dublin 6w.

Sir, – I believe Minister for Justice, Alan Shatter has made a serious mistake in allowing press reporting of family law cases.
This is a small country. With social media, our friendship networks are expanding all the time. It is quite clear that everybody knows everybody else. It is heartbreaking to read the reports of family law court cases. Parents with family problems should not have their problems highlighted in the press. The judges are wasting valuable time deciding whether or not the press should be excluded. The children’s rights and privacy are paramount. They are the innocent parties in such cases and I am convinced that many can be identified from the family court reports.
No family court case should be reported upon in the press. Mr Shatter should rethink his decision to allow press reporting of family law cases. He should respect parents and especially children. – Yours, etc,
MAURA DONNELLY,
King Edward Lawn,
Bray, Co Wicklow.

Sir, – Your Editorial “The cost of corruption” (February 5th) refers to the European Commission’s findings that four out of five Irish people believe that Ireland is a corrupt country. I assume the remaining one in five consists of those who are too young to know. – Yours, etc,
KEVIN O’SULLIVAN,
Ballyraine Park,
Letterkenny,

Sir, – Fintan O’Toole offers an insight from the history of “structural discrimination” in which “motives and intentions” have not made the “slightest difference to the questions of justice, equality and universal human dignity” (Opinion, February 4th). Thus, in his view, the opponents of his own liberalising movement are wasting their time because the freedom of the oppressed always comes anyway – it’s largely a question of time.
But what he overlooks is that his side too has its “motives and intentions” and to attribute to the same-sex marriage movement an inevitable future success similar to the hard-won abolition of slavery in the 19th century is an ill-matched analogy.
William Wilberforce’s long campaign in the British parliament eventually led to the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, which targeted the British West Indies and similar places, and which later exerted moral pressure on the US-based practice, where there was much obstinate resistance to abolition just as in the UK.
But Wilberforce was motivated by his strong Christian convictions of “universal human dignity”, an expression he would doubtless not have applied to O’Toole’s “motives and intentions” in favour of same-sex marriage. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL AUSTIN,
Hazelwood, Gorey,

Sir, – Paul Vallely, in his excellent Rite and Reason article (February 4th), suggests that Pope Francis’s adherence to the principle of collegiality explains why he “is content to allow Cardinal Mueller to speak so vehemently against admitting divorced and remarried Catholics to Communion while Cardinal Maradiaga, to whom he is far closer, says the opposite”.
However, if this is Pope Francis’s strategy to allow his cardinals to “fight it out “ among themselves while he stays in the background, it is but a strategic move on his part as he kicks for time.
Ultimately as Bishop of Rome, as the leader among equals, he will have to personally decide on this issue himself and follow his pastoral conviction for a more inclusive church. – Yours, etc,
BRENDAN BUTLER,
The Moorings ,
Malahide, Co Dublin.

Sir, – Contrary to Mary O’ Mahony’s assertion (February 1st), I don’t think Ruairí Quinn mentioned anything about reducing moral education.
Religion and morality are totally separate things: one is to do with bowing to some power and belief system in the hope of attaining eternal personal “happiness”; the latter concerns justice and the constant search for ways to improve this life experience on Earth for all, here and now and for future generations. – Yours, etc,
ADAM MURPHY,
Chapel Road,
Monivea, Athenry,
Co Galway.

Sir, – Dr Ruth-Blandina Quinn (February 5th) is correct when she states, “many of these [adoption] records were misfiled, incomplete or fabricated”. We know the 1952 Adoption Act was used and abused by those in charge with “the end justifies the means” attitude. They were answerable to no-one and could do what they wanted. More adopted adults are now coming forward with proof their adoptions were illegal and this is only coming to the fore because they searched to find their birth mothers themselves. In fact, the majority of adoptions in Ireland were forced, whereby the mother was given no alternative but to hand over her child and sign adoption papers.
However, Dr Quinn goes on to state, “Far too often, adoption is perceived from the child’s perspective, not the birth mother’s”. Not in Ireland. Here the birth mother’s right is absolute and has been since 1952. The child was the last person to be thought about in adoption in Ireland in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.
Dr Quinn mistakes privacy and openness with privacy and secrecy. We can know who we are related to, know our identity, know our family, our history and yet respect our mother’s right to privacy. But, in Ireland, still, it remains privacy with secrecy.
It is not the fault of the adopted person that (in Dr Quinn’s words) “ladies now in their 70s and 80s . . . fear that knock on the door”. We didn’t ask to be someone else’s shame, someone else’s secret. That was their decision, not ours, and adopted adults refuse to carry this so-called burden on their shoulders. You cannot erase someone’s identity simply because it might make someone else uncomfortable.
My own birth mother was one of those ladies who Dr Quinn mentioned “fearing the knock on the door”. That knock came in 2011, from me, her daughter, following a year of letters and a neutral third party talking with her. I spoke to her for an hour and was then asked to leave. She admitted it benefited her and that now she can “move on” as she has nothing to fear any more. She said she always knew that one day I would come. I have respected her right to privacy. She knows how to contact me should she wish. She would be made very welcome into my life if she changes her mind.
I’m one of the lucky ones. I have answers to some of my questions – not all, but I know how lucky I am compared to others and I will do everything in my power to see the day that this lovely country of mine recognises my right as a citizen to know my identity and give me access to my file. I know my mother, I’ve met her and yet I’m told I cannot have access to my file to “protect the identity of my mother”. – Yours, etc,
GRAINNE MASON,
Marlton Demesne,
Wicklow.

Sir, – “Past its sell-by date”. Editor, take note. – Yours, etc,
GERRY JORDAN,
Rehins, Ballina, Co Mayo.
Sir, – “As if” can’t take the place of “Fat chance” and “Put a cork in it” doesn’t beat a good old-fashioned “Shut up!” No pun intended to the folks in Co Cork. – Yours, etc,
HERBERT STARK,
Carriage Club Drive,
Mooresville,
North Carolina, US.
Sir, – “Thanks for having me” and “Sorry to cut across you”, beloved of TV interviewers/interviewees everywhere. – Yours, etc,
IAN HASSELL,
Camp, Tralee, Co Kerry.
Sir, – Various different . . . –
Yours, etc,
HELENE O’BRIEN,
Sandymount Avenue,
Dublin 4.
Sir, – To “reach a crescendo”. – Yours, etc,
RICHARD FROGGATT,
Strangford Avenue,
Belfast.
Sir, – Surely worthy of inclusion in this wonderful category must be the phrase reported by the Department of Justice audit (Front page, February 4th), in describing a heading for some of Rehab’s spending from public funds in 2010 as: “Hospitality associated with advocacy and lobbying”! – Yours, etc,
PAT O’KEEFFE,
Derrygarron,
Portlaoise, Co Laois.
Sir, – The matter must be put to rest immediately. Let’s have an independent inquiry. – Yours, etc,
SEÁN Ó DEORÁIN,
Monastery Walk,
Clondalkin, Dublin 22.
Sir, – “Unexpected item in bagging area.” – Yours, etc,
RODNEY DEVITT,
Tritonville Lane,
Sandymount, Dublin 4.
Sir, – I refer to John Doherty’s sardonic letter (February 4th) regarding Scotland’s defeat by Ireland. Let us not forget that we did not distinguish ourselves last  year in Murrayfield. While Ireland is  playing good rugby at the moment , we should not get carried away. Let’s  hope that on our visit  to Murrayfield next year,  the Scots won’t send us homewards to think again! – Yours, etc,
JOE MURRAY,
Beggars Bush Court,
Ballsbridge, Dublin 4.

Sir, – I note that Dublin City Council has had to repair leaks at almost one in 50 homes where water meters have been installed by contractors working for Irish Water (Front Page, February 5th). Could this be called a stopcock-up? – Yours, etc,
PATRICK O’BYRNE,
Shandon Crescent,
Phibsborough, Dublin 7.

Irish Independent:
* AIB is starting to face reality and write off unsustainable debts.
Also in this section
Letters: Instead of reforming HSE we get stealth tax
Letters: Stop and think before joining drinking craze
Letters: Living in fear, cut off from the outside world
But no one seems interested in asking why this has taken so long, because didn’t AIB (and other banks) come up with these figures years ago when they applied to the Irish taxpayer for bailout funds?
My understanding is that this was on the basis that the billions they asked for were to write off loans that the banks indicated could never be repaid by customers and for which the original lender (the big bad German and French banks) wanted their money back.
Why is it in a small country like Ireland, every single person with a debt, no matter what their financial position, hasn’t been required to undergo a full and frank detailed financial review, carried out by an impartial organisation, that provides an official document at the end that verifies once and for all who has sustainable debts and who does not. For example, if your mortgage is more than 50pc of your net take-home pay is that sustainable? And if all of your fixed utility and living costs amount to more than 30pc, is that sustainable? From the remaining 20pc of net income can a person live properly, afford a holiday or afford to save. If not, what has to give?
It doesn’t take a genius to come up with a customer-centric format for such a financial review. It’s pretty simple, you borrow for a mortgage from AIB, AIB borrows the mortgage from a German or French bank, you repay AIB each month, AIB repays the bank it borrowed from each month, AIB takes a slice of the interest as profit, the German or French bank takes a slice and the rest goes to pay back the capital amount.
The markets crash and the German or French bank panics and wants all its loan back in one go, and gets the ECB to bully the Irish Government, who of course cave immediately. AIB goes to the Government and says the lender it borrowed from, for X list of loans, wants its money back, so can we have X billion. Given our government had already caved, that bank debt is cleared but the person who borrowed that money didn’t get a write-off of the linked debt and is still paying it back each month.
So, why hasn’t Finance Minister Michael Noonan asked AIB and the other banks what exactly they did with the billions of euro that were handed over because when AIB paid back the German and French banks, there was no debt outstanding.
It was no different to if a person took out a mortgage, but a few months later was able to go into the bank with a lump sum and clear the mortgage but AIB still charged them the monthly loan amount, even though they’d paid off the debt.
What part of debt write-off have I missed?
DESMOND FITZGERALD
CANARY WHARF,
LONDON
I NEED COMPENSATION
* I don’t like work. If I could arrange for a panelist on a TV show to describe me as suffering from Ergophobia would I be entitled to compensation?
MATTIE LENNON
BLESSINGTON, CO. WICKLOW
PROTECTING WATER BILLS
* When Irish Water comes on stream will the meters for the unfortunate people of Cork be waterproof?
And can the bills for the water charges come in plastic envelopes so that they won’t get wet in the flood-hit regions .
One can’t be too careful, and we would hate to see the fees go down the drain because the bills were as soaked as the Irish taxpayer.
TG GAVIN
DUBLIN 4
FLOODING CAN BE FIXED
* Ireland is a relatively flat island with only 5pc of the land rising above 300m in height. It is “saucer-shaped”, so that the inland part is relatively flat and low lying,while most of the mountain ranges are located near the coast.
In the central plain the bedrock consists of carboniferous limestone. The coastal uplands, in contrast, consist mainly of older rocks. In most islands a central backbone, more or less pronounced, causes the rivers to flow radially towards the coast, from near the centre margin.
In Ireland, due to the peripheral position of most of the high ground, the streams that rise on the seaward side of the mountain masses have short and mostly steep courses. Those with sources lying on the inland side, on the other hand, travel far before they reach an outlet and in some instances, have extensive floodplains.
The poor drainage is further aggravated by the pattern of deposition of glacial drift. Eskers and moraines, consisting mainly of gravels and sands, are a prominent feature of the lowlands that extends from Dublin to Galway. Within this area lie most of the raised bogs, as well as a number of large existing lakes.
What to do? It’s not rocket science and it’s self-explanatory,
Wetlands such as bogs, marshland, and floodplains if modified by anthropogenic development such as NRA motorways (even the culverts and bridges contribute to the problem) and ghost estates, will be directly negatively impacted in its ability to absorb and filter water and causing impoundment in the wetlands and elsewhere.
If successive governments had an awareness policy on flooding, (and coastal erosion) and not have destroyed the wetlands with the Land Reclamation Act, we would not be pressurising the already overwhelmed taxpayer to fork out more money on flood abatement.
The recent decommissioning of a group of p(NHA) bogs in the midlands is a retrograde step in the wrong direction and the minister responsible is incurring more hardship on future generations and their already endangered natural heritage.
IAN HESTER
ADDRESS WITH EDITOR
QUINN RIGHT ON RELIGIONS
* Ruairi Quinn’s new adaptation for primary schools to teach the children about other religions other then old Roman Catholic general conditioning is surely for this Jewish Londoner a major breakthrough in opening up a pupil’s knowledge to the outside world.
The general mono-religiosity of the past has totally coloured the views of all the various aspects of the media.
I came to Ireland in the 1970s and none of my workmates had the slightest clue about Judaism, the root religion of Christianity. There was only one groupthink in this country and if you didn’t think their way it was no way.
I was even interviewed about this subject by Pat Kenny 15 years ago on RTE radio.
I then argued that the media should open up and discuss other religions rather than constantly focus on its one dimensional outlook, as if there was not any other world outside of this island.
Maybe at last the likes of Mr Quinn is attempting to open up the long dormant past that was conditioned by past education authorities.
And a new dawn is ascending.
We non-Christians might also get to understand the total mystery of how folks who follow the diktats of the New Testament are divided into Catholics and Protestants and then allude to themselves as different religions.
VICTOR FELDMAN
JOY STREET, RINGSEND, DUBLIN 4
MY OLYMPIC PREDICTION
* May I confidently predict that at the Sochi Winter Olympics, Austria will improve on its medal haul at the London Olympics (Gold 0; Silver 0; Bronze 0).
DR JOHN DOHERTY
OPERNGASSE, VIENNA,
AUSTRIA

7 February 2014 Hair
I go all the way around the park listening to the Navy Lark. Our heroes are in trouble, again. They have to find an alibi    Priceless.
Have hair done tip, put plasterboard in wrong skip, box,
Scrabble today Mary wins, just.  and get under 400, Perhaps I will win tomorrow.

Obituary:
Eileen Joll, who has died aged 97, played a small role in the operation in which the RAF dropped into occupied France a spare prosthetic leg for the captured air ace Douglas Bader.
On August 19 1941 the then Eileen Sassoon Sykes, an ambulance driver attached to Roehampton Hospital in south-west London, was instructed to drive a prosthetic leg to No 18 Squadron at RAF Horsham St Faith, Norfolk . It was the first stage of the operation to deliver a replacement prosthetic to the legless Wing Commander Bader, who had been shot down on August 9 over northern France and had landed by parachute without his artificial right leg, which had been trapped in his downed aircraft.
The Germans offered safe conduct for a small aircraft to fly across France with a pair of spare legs, but this chivalrous offer was declined; instead the leg was dropped by parachute in the St Omer area during a bombing raid by the leading Blenheim of No 18 Squadron, escorted by Bader’s Spitfire Wing.

Eileen Mary Sassoon Sykes, was born in Manchester on November 4 1916, the younger daughter of the millionaire cotton merchant Joseph Sassoon Sykes and his Australian wife, Marjorie Benjamin, first cousin of the composer Arthur Benjamin. Sykes, a member of a cadet branch of the Sassoon family, had been born in Baghdad and arrived in England in the early 1880s, becoming a prominent member of the Manchester Cotton Exchange and a highly successful proprietary merchant specialising in the international trade in tea, opium and cotton.
Shortly after the First World War, Sykes retired and moved his family to Nice on the Côte d’Azur, from where he dedicated the rest of his life to managing his wealth, playing golf and bridge, and assembling one of the great 20th-century collections of English furniture and clocks. Initially the family lived in the Hotel Negresco but, after four years Eileen’s mother demanded that the family and its staff move into their own house.
Sykes duly acquired Villa la Sauvagère in the fashionable Nice suburb of Cimiez; the Aga Khan, a regular golfing partner of Sykes, and Charlie Chaplin were their immediate neighbours. At Villa la Sauvagère the Sykes family lived in considerable style, entertained lavishly and played host to many of the celebrities wintering on the coast, including Prince Aly Khan; Baron Nahum, the society and ballet photographer; and the stars of the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, in which Eileen’s first cousin Prudence Hyman (who danced under the name of Prunella Strogova) was a rising star.
At the age of eight Eileen was packed off to boarding school in Switzerland, and at 13 she was transferred to St Monica’s School for Girls in Surrey, an institution thought by many of its alumni to be the model for St Trinian’s. Arriving speaking better French than English, she loathed the school from her first day, and consoled herself with tennis. In the holidays she was taught to play golf by Walter Hagen, a skill she later refined under the tutelage of Henry Cotton.
In anticipation of a European war, in 1937 Sykes moved his family back to England, acquiring a large house in St John’s Wood (now the residence of the Sri Lankan Ambassador), a country house at Cookham, Berkshire, and, later, a house in Beverly Hills, California. On the outbreak of war Eileen joined the Mechanised Transport Corps, a unique organisation whose lady members owned their own cars and wore a rankless uniform modelled on a Guards officer’s tunic.
It did not take long for Eileen to tire of sitting outside government offices endlessly waiting for middle-ranking civil servants for whom the MTC acted as chauffeuses. In 1940 she traded in her smart uniform for the humble serge of an ambulance driver, working until late 1941 at the artificial limbs unit at Roehampton Hospital, and then with the burns unit at East Grinstead, where some of her pre-war friends were being treated.
After the war she married Ian Kenneth Sefton Joll, DFC, a Battle of Britain fighter pilot who, in 1944, had joined the staff of Lord Mountbatten’s Combined Operations Staff, first in London (where he met Eileen) and then in Delhi. They set up home at Hurley, Berkshire, where they entertained a wide circle of friends, among them the actor Jimmy Edwards and the ballet stars Anton Dolin and Robert Helpman. Ian Joll died in 1977 after a long battle with cancer.
On her 90th birthday Eileen’s children took her to visit the Battle of Britain Memorial on the Embankment and she quickly found not only the name of her late husband but also recognised the names of many former friends, regaling her party with heroic or salacious stories about them all.
She is survived by her son and daughter.
Eileen Joll, born November 4 1916, died February 5 2014

Guardian:

As the Sochi Games begin it is worth remembering that two of the most important political moments in Olympic history have followed failed boycott attempts (World authors join protest against Putin, 6 February). In 1936 the American Athletic Union, repulsed by Nazi Germany’s treatment of its Jewish citizens, collected over half a million signatures in favour of boycotting the Berlin Games. Only reassurances from Avery Brundage, antisemite and future IOC president, ensured American – and thereby Jesse Owens’s – participation. The story of Owens is complex, but his achievement is commonly remembered as a demolition of Hitler’s claims to Aryan superiority.
Similarly in 1968, athletes in the US called unsuccessfully for a boycott under the banner of the Olympic Project for Human Rights. Two of the most outspoken athlete-activists, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, would raise clenched-fist salutes on the medal rostrum in a powerful statement against racism and poverty. Vilified by many at the time, their dignified protest remains one of the most iconic images of the 20th century. With no boycott campaign materialising, Sochi offers athletes a unique opportunity to register disgust at Putin’s treatment of the LGBTQ community in Russia. Any athlete who finds the courage to do so will achieve a legacy that resonates far beyond their sporting success.
Gareth Edwards
Portsmouth, Hampshire
• Stephen Fry and other celebrities have rightly drawn attention to the dreadful treatment of gays in Russia. Russia, however, does not have the death penalty. The other superpower does (US executes 14th woman since 1976, 6 February). Recently a man was executed by lethal injection in Ohio. It took him 15 minutes to die. Some 3,000 are on death row, many have been there for half a lifetime. Yet not a squeak of protest, as far as I can tell, from our celebrities.
Ian Jones
London

Female genital mutilation (Special report, 6 February) is surely an archaic abomination. I would say to Mr Gove, if you found yourself in a hidden room, and an innocent child was about to be cut with a razor, would you not try to move heaven and earth to prevent it? That such practices occur in this “enlightened” country in the 21st century defies belief. You cannot justify inaction on this travesty which goes against every human right. Please make haste and support Fahma Mohamed and all campaigners in their quest to stamp out this appalling practice.
Jennifer Reynolds
Farnham, Surrey
• While the amount identified to be paid out for PPI is massive (£22bn), I note that it is “set aside” rather than paid out (Report, 4 February). Am I being cynical in suspecting that actual amounts paid out are substantially less but the extra sums set aside reduce declared profits and the resultant tax bill. Of course, corporation tax is being reduced and if the sums set aside come back on the balance sheet in forthcoming years then the tax paid is less to the tune of millions.
George Krawiec
Grimsby, Lincolnshire
• Isy Suttie thinks Phyllis Pearsall invented the London street guide, does she (Right up her street, G2, 6 February)? So why do I have a battered copy of Bacon’s Up to Date Atlas and Guide to London, published about 1933, several years before Pearsall’s A-Z? It even has a 100-page A-Z listing of streets. Pearsall had good PR, though. Still does.
Alan Burkitt-Gray
London
• May I thank Ray Collier for transporting me from my lounge to Findhorn Bay, in the Highlands, as I sipped my morning coffee (Country diary, 6 February). From the safety of my armchair, I have heard the waves and felt their power; powerful description that means I have no need to cause further disruption at the coastline and will inform my prayers on Sunday.
Rev Carole Natton
Noctorum, Wirral
• Snowdrops in full bloom, the occasional fly whizzing by in Headingley. What happened to the free Guardian calendar this year? I’ve tried everything else to get a letter printed over the last 35 years.
Khosro Jahdi
Leeds

Tony Juniper, like many commentators, correctly highlights the dangers of building on flood plains (How to really stop flooding, 2 February). But what never seems to be mentioned is why this trend will inevitably accelerate, making it much more difficult for the UK to adapt to the future adverse effects of climate change. Official figures show that the UK’s population is projected to increase by almost 10 million over the next 25 years. Staggeringly, that is around 2 million greater than the entire present population of Greater London. About 60% of this increase is expected to be due to future migration and the children of migrants.
Yet the UK is a densely populated country that today only grows about 60% of its food. The environment select committee has warned that the government is failing to protect the UK’s most valuable farmland from flooding and that this poses a risk to future UK food security. Tackling future flooding and its threat to agricultural production will therefore mean expanding the national debate way beyond dredging. It must also encompass the need to halt population growth and the implications of that for immigration policy.
Colin Hines
Twickenham, Middlesex
• Some 5 million people, 2.3m homes and 185,000 businesses are on flood plains in England and Wales (PM takes control of emergency response to floods, 6 February). Around 10% of houses in England are at risk of flooding. The real scandal is that around 10% of new homes in England are built on flood plains each year, justified by local planners by the fig leaf of Suds (Sustainable urban drainage systems) that do not work on flood plains during flooding. In Norway or France, if a planner or mayor gives permission to develop in the flood plain then they are held liable, and may go to prison. Why don’t people who buy new homes on the flood plains sue their councils or developers for selling them homes that are not fit for purpose as homes?
Councils love to put buildings like sheltered housing, schools and even hospitals on flood plains where accountability is vague. Why don’t all those affected sue the people who put their lives and wellbeing at risk for profit? There are lots of legal precedents for doing so, as in the Environment Agency v Tonbridge & Malling district council (2001), Bloor v Swindon borough council (2001) and many others. A legal precedent was set by Ryeford Homes v Sevenoaks district council (1990) where a claim was made for damages against the planning authority in respect of flooding caused by allowing over-development. Developers must be reined in. They should not be allowed to ruin lives. Why do councils do it?
Professor Sue Roaf
Edinburgh
• I note that David Cameron has promisedto do “everything that can be done” in regards to the recent flooding. Presumably this won’t extend to reducing greenhouse gases by curbing his obsession with burning new shale gas fossil fuels and investing more in renewable energy?
Mark Nickol
Chelmsford, Essex
• Climate change discourse has been constructed, by the rich and powerful, around a misguided belief that it is only the poor who are vulnerable to climate variability. The recent events in the UK prove that wealth cannot stop the wind blowing or the water rising. As the impacts of climate change start to impact both the rich and poor, perhaps we will finally see concerted action to address the threat – a threat which is likely to make the current weather events impacting the UK more frequent and intense. What we are witnessing today may be a harbinger of what we should expect for the future. This is not about engineering, or technological solutions, this is fundamentally about our violent relationship with nature and our addiction to a way of life that cannot be supported by this little planet.
Mike Edwards
Lindfield, West Sussex
• Pots are not well advised to call kettles black; and Prince Charles is not well advised to call those who are sceptical about climate change “headless chickens”. But the heir to the throne has at least done this debate one favour by demonstrating that not all climate change fanatics are lefties. It is a much more natural creed for rightists, like Charles, who dream of an ancient pastoral world where material goods were the prerogative of his ilk. As a lefty, I accept that climate change is probably occurring, and that it is probably man-made; but I worry that over-zealous measures to combat it will end up damaging the already-squeezed living standards of the mass of our people.
David Lipsey
House of Lords
• Never mind rail investment in HS2. In the light of climate change, rising tides and coastal erosion, the vulnerability to storm damage of the only rail link to the south-west of England was proved by its severance at Dawlish this week; and Network Rail report that it could be out of action for many weeks. Surely urgent consideration should be given to reopening the old Southern Railway mainline from Exeter to Plymouth via Okehampton? It served as an inland diversionary route until its closure under Beeching in 1962. Furthermore, much of the track and its infrastructure is still there.It’s reopening would certainly help in maintaining a reliable railway link to the south-west which is so vital.
Chris Bennett
Gloucester
• The austerity policies promised and followed by George Osborne have, in the opinion of many economists, resulted in a delaying of the recovery of the economy and brought about a fall in the GNP through the reduction in expenditure and incomes (Editorial, 6 February). The massive damage wrought by the recent weather may, by forcing the government to spend vast sums in public works, supply the investment prescribed by those opposed to the austerity measures and provide the kickstart and the Keynesian multiplier effects which will set the economy on an upward curve.
Francis Westoby
Hitchin, Hertfordshire

Martin Kettle (Sport, and politics, must find space for talented mavericks, 6 February) does not go far enough. Kevin Pietersen should not only be retained in the England team, but should be made captain again, for a trial period. Given the responsibility, say initially for five tests and some ODIs, he would be obliged to consider and deal with the concerns of other members of the team as well as his own. My guess is that this would bring out the best in him, both as a player and a leader. His alleged egotism and proven talent would drive him to rise to the challenge and help bring to an end England’s sad slump. Cook, a man reputed to be strong, sound, modest and committed, but somewhat unimaginative, could be a supportive vice-captain.
David Evans
Wallasey, Wirral
• Martin Kettle argues that, whatever the dressing-room difficulties, Kevin Pietersen should remain part of English cricket because of his valuable free-thinking. But it was not his freedom of thought that was so disturbing, it was his freedom from thought.
Michael Holroyd
London

We are pleased that your paper has chosen to focus on our borough of Enfield over the next couple of years (Saving Enfield, 3 February). However Aditya Chakrabortty has started on the wrong foot. He has put only a foot in one part of the borough, Edmonton, rather than base his analysis on the whole borough, which includes our two constituencies of Enfield North and Enfield Southgate. Edmonton certainly does have deep-rooted problems. The economic and social legacy of previous government failures is particularly stark there. But across the borough there is a growing recovery as the ingenuity and hard work of local people, inward investment by new companies, and investment in education, housing and welfare reform begin to bear fruit.
In response to the question you posed in your headline “if living in Enfield holds them back”, increasing numbers of constituents are answering with a resounding No. Take jobs: unemployment is lower than at the time of the last general election and more people, particularly young people, are in work than ever before. Or crime: the up-to-date position is that crime is down, serious youth violence has reduced by 19% and we have 65 more police with another 25 to follow. Or small businesses, where one company alone has reported over 60 start ups last year taking advantage of government backed loans.
It’s true that the 2011 riot in Enfield Town and the north-east of the borough (not Edmonton) was a major blow. But most rioters came from outside Enfield and the community responded magnificently by supporting local high street businesses, feeding the local economy and rebuilding civic confidence. It’s also true that we face significant social challenges, particularly in relation to housing and health. We hope the council and clinical commissioning group can make good use of the £3.3m new homes bonus and an extra £33m health and social care funding. While we can reminisce about our manufacturing heritage, there has been significant business investment, not least in the north-east of the borough with Sony – whose entire plant was burnt down – reinvesting, and Kelvin Hughes relocating in Enfield Lock.
Far from Enfield holding people back, Enfield is well placed to support growth through government investment in infrastructure, including the newly approved rail expansion to Angel Rd (Edmonton) and subsequently to Enfield Lock, the redevelopment of the A406 area, and the planned Meridian Water housing and business development. You may like to spend time on the so-called Enfield experiment, but in the meantime our constituents are increasingly getting into jobs, off welfare and growing businesses due to a government that has a long-term economic plan.
Nick de Bois MP
Con, Enfield North
David Burrowes MP
Con, Enfield Southgate
• Aditya Chakrabortty’s moving account of the recent history of Enfield missed one important innovation associated with the area: the state management scheme, or nationalised pubs, serving the Royal Small Arms factory at Enfield Lock between 1916 and 1922. With pubs closing in droves and pub tenants now complaining that under pubco private enterprise, profits are made from increasing their rents rather than providing cheap beer, it is time that this tried and tested system was revived. Pubs also create jobs people like.
DBC Reed
Northampton

Independent:

Climate change discourse has been constructed, by the rich and powerful, around a misguided belief that it is only the poor who are vulnerable to climate variability. The recent events in the UK prove that wealth cannot stop the wind blowing or the water rising.
As climate change starts to impact both the rich and poor, perhaps we will finally see concerted action to address the threat – a threat which is likely to make the current weather events in the UK more frequent and intense. What we are witnessing today may be a harbinger of what we should expect for the future.
This is not about engineering, or technological solutions, this is fundamentally about our violent relationship with nature and our addiction to a way of life that cannot be supported by this little planet.
Dr Mike Edwards, Lindfield, West Sussex
We are a densely populated island. In order to supply our nation with vegetables, fruit, milk and meat, we have learned to farm more difficult landscapes. They may be the harsh uplands of Exmoor, Cumbria or Scotland, the flood-prone East Anglian Fens, or the Somerset Levels.
The farmers of these regions do not exist in isolation – they rely on their stockmen and women, their tractor and combine drivers, and their fruit and veg’ pickers to assist their businesses. These workers typically live locally to the farms, and these small communities may have a local shop, a pub, a garage, a school, and residents who work for these businesses and other support industries.
It is no more valid to criticise people for living on the Somerset Levels (letter, 3 February), where land drainage has become a finely tuned infrastructure over many generations, than it is to criticise people who live in the upland areas, where snow and ice are a frequent hazard, and occasionally in extreme weather extra support is needed from the emergency services.
When nature tests our defences, and a community is in need, we should all rally round to help. Without the rural community, providing food for our tables, we would all suffer the higher costs and greater dependence on imports. It’s not a case of town versus country, and a choice of where to live – we are all in this together.
Dave Bearman, Stawell,  Somerset
The Great Western main line between Exeter and Plymouth has been severed once again by weather conditions. It shows the folly of the Beeching cuts in the 1960s when the alternative (Southern Railway) main line, which ran via Okehampton and Tavistock, was severed.
I travelled on this line many times as a young matelot in the early 1960s and can vouch for the scenic beauty of this route. It would be better to spend some of the billions earmarked for that glorified white elephant, HS2, in restoring this missing link.
Roger Padfield, Cardiff
What state schools need to offer
As the headmaster of an independent school rated outstanding by inspectors, I certainly recognised some truths in Archie Bland’s caricature of the real “Berlin Wall” between state and private (5 February).
The effect of children’s early upbringing is profound when it comes to education, and there is no doubt in my mind that children who have received love, conversation and stability as babies start school streets ahead of those who have experienced neglect, instability and lack of human interaction. The argument that it is this that causes the gulf in attainment is clearly attractive, as shown by the massive online majority strongly agreeing with the article.
The same day as I read this piece, the parents of two children at a local primary school, also rated outstanding, visited me seeking places. Mr Bland would argue that their children, who have had excellent starts in life and the best state education available, will gain no advantage by moving – so why did they come? It is here where, I believe, Michael Gove is right.
As excellent as their children’s school is, the state primary system is simply not geared up to provide the opportunities available in the best independent schools. Primary children thrive on high expectation and ambition. They devour specialist teaching in areas such as science, computing and languages. They need to play music and sport, to experience competition, to take part in drama, to create art, to explore poetry and have the time to tackle open-ended questioning and go beyond the curriculum. Only if we can replicate this model in the state primary sector will we give all children the advantages currently enjoyed by the few.
Nicholas Bevington, Headmaster, Town Close School, Norwich
That all schools should strive for excellence is incontestable. Until the Government invests massively in re-siting, rebuilding, refurbishing, and re-equipping a vast number of state schools, and improving the staff-pupil ratio, I find that Mr Gove has no credibility.
John McLorinan, Weston super Mare, North Somerset
New age of warfare without risk
In modern warfare at least 15 civilians are killed for every combatant. As the machines take over, with unmanned aircraft (“The Few become none”, 6 February) and with unmanned tanks and submarines on the way, the tally will become 15-0.
At least the military could take some pride that they put their own lives at risk. We and our American friends will soon be able to kill people in large numbers without moving from our home bases. Difficult to take pride in this.
We are urged to celebrate this “extraordinary achievement in British engineering”. Count me out.
Jim McCluskey, Twickenham, Middlesex
It’s great to learn that we now have a force of fantastically efficient  drones that can take out our enemies without any loss to our armed forces. No doubt we will get lots of lucrative orders from our allies, such as Saudi Arabia, and make a lot of money for “our country”.
Let’s hope that our enemies don’t get their hands on some too and decide to target our top politicians or monarchy because of what we  stand for.
Derek Siggs, South Yorkshire
‘Ailing’ radio 3  in good shape
I was surprised to read that BBC Radio 3, is “ailing” (“Radio 3 requiem: 6 Music to overtake ailing station”, 6 February) when our recent spring season launch demonstrated the fine creative form we’re in, with new drama, jazz and world music programming through to live classical music concerts every night.
The BBC is also the organiser of the BBC Proms and Radio 3 exclusively broadcasts every one of those Proms concerts live.
Our listening figures remain stable at around 2 million per week, as they have since Rajar records began. Audience figures are only one measure of success, and there is no pressure from within the BBC for Radio 3 to increase its audience.
We do not chase ratings, but I am delighted that the station has experienced recent growth in its distinctiveness and audience appreciation figures and remains a vital part of the UK’s cultural landscape.
Roger Wright, Controller, BBC Radio 3, Director, BBC Proms, London W12
Shifting blame on to rape victims
Both Vicky Bayley and Phil Isherwood (letters, 4 February) ostensibly agree that rape is wrong whilst effectively blaming the victims for “choosing to put themselves at unnecessary risk” and “contributory negligence”, respectively.
Would anyone argue that a black teenager who entered a pub known to be frequented by white teenagers was complicit in any violent attack which might have occurred? No, I didn’t think so. Rape is less about sex than it is a hate crime. Arguing that a woman bears responsibility for a rape because she is drunk, is analogous to the contention that she “asked for it” because she was wearing a short skirt.
The “common sense” argument is just another way of shifting blame on to female victims.
Sarah Crooks, Derbyshire
Multi-tasking at the wheel
If Baroness Blackstone (The Big Questions, 1 February) stood near a busy road for 10 minutes or so, she would realise that the law banning drivers from using mobile phones is often ignored. A ban on smoking with children in the car is likely to achieve a similar level of compliance.
Thomas Williams, Dorney, Buckinghamshire
Lynn Hutchings’ letter (5 February) about the driver who was texting while lighting a cigarette reminded me of the time I was following a car during the morning rush-hour. The occupant was using both hands to apply eye make-up while steering with her elbows. I watched open mouthed with admiration and horror in equal measure.
Peter Spilman, Snitterfield, Warwickshire

Times:

Sir, “House price boom to last 10 years, signals Osborne” (Feb 5) must be the most depressing headline ever. Unless and until the average wage can buy the average house we are never going to see our children adequately housed. Despite the Chancellor’s good intentions on housing supply, governments failed to see through the con of house price inflation, while, to be fair, we were willing dupes. His Help to Buy scheme props up prices that are still ludicrously overblown. The only winners over the past 20 years have been the professionals whose bonuses have been linked to property’s selling prices. If parents wish to help their children buy homes, parents can empty their pension pots or conveniently die.
There is a twin solution. Learn the lesson of the sub-prime mortgage fiasco and re-introduce “moral hazard” to the lexicon of money lending while enabling the builders to satisfy the demand for homes. Mr Osborne is right when he seeks to simplify the planning process but he has a long way to go. His “green shoots” appear to be taking root; it is crucial that the benefits of this are invested into industry and commerce, not in bigger mortgages.
Mark H Levy
Knutsford, Cheshire
Sir, George Osborne’s dedication to building more homes is welcome, but ordinary families will remain priced out of home ownership as long as he continues to pursue a policy that is causing house prices to rise four times faster than wages.
By offering high loan-to-value mortgages, Help to Buy merely treats the symptoms of this crisis. We will only truly fix the housing market when we wean ourselves off our addiction to rising house prices, and poll after poll shows that the British public recognises this. The Chancellor’s “methadone mortgages” might give some people access to home ownership, but as prices spiral ever upwards many more will see their dream of comfort, stability and independence slip further away.
Dan Wilson Craw
London SW12
Sir, The Chancellor says that house prices are likely to rise for at least another decade. So mortgage and rent costs will remain at unprecedentedly high levels, and both parents of most families must work harder, and for longer, to pay the bills — all at the expense of a “normal” family life for their children.
The forced continuation of exceptionally high debt levels means that real (inflation adjusted) interest rates must remain negative, in order to keep the average household solvent. As a result those same families, who are now struggling to pay their bills, will find it even harder to save for their retirement than their parents did. That, no doubt, will be a major crisis a couple of decades or so from now.
No one, except highly indebted landlords, benefits from this situation, or would vote for it if they were asked what a reasonably structured economy and (at the indivual level) a happy family life should look like.
The Government says that it is unable, or unwilling, to correct this most basic aspect of our economy and the Opposition (when it was in Government) created and even welcomed these conditions in the first place. The Liberals look on, inertly, from the sidelines and Ukip probably doesn’t care anyway. What are politicians for these days?
David Boorer
Llandovery, Carmarthenshire

Unified command, the pivot of successful military action, is an enduring principle of war fighting despite technological progress
Sir, Jeremy Larken’s lucid letter (Feb 3) highlighting the myth perpetuated by the RAF and fellow air power enthusiasts that “air power is indivisible” is long overdue. I go further; the very term “air power” is a flawed concept which has led to the inefficient and ineffective use and misuse of air borne military capability. The sheer complexity of warfare in the technological age necessitates the “indivisibility of command”. Admiral Larken implies this a priority. Unified command, the pivot of successful military action, is an enduring principle of war fighting despite the chimera of technological progress over the centuries. Indeed the expensive, cumbersome and artificial 20th century organisational anomaly, namely the RAF has been the root cause of the unnecessary loss of life, prolongation of military conflict and utter waste of precious resources. It is now bolstered by a massive industrial lobby contributing to the ultimate “self licking lollipop”.
We can no longer afford to be hobbled by this dysfunctional, expensive and ineffective use of scarce resources. The myth of the indivisibility of air power has to be extinguished along with its its alter ego; the RAF itself.
Paul Fisher
Durban-Corbieres, France

The price of bottled water might be part of the problem here, rather than the lowering price of cheap alcohol
Sir, Your report (“Time called on beer sold for less than water”, Feb 5) surely says as much about the extortionate mark-up on bottled water as it does the availability of cheap alcohol.
Paul Granger
Alresford, Hants

At a time when suppliers need to restore trust, it is important that energy companies comply with Ofgem requests
Sir, I would like to make it clear that Ofgem and the Office of Fair Trading make no apologies for asking energy companies to provide the information to assist with the first of the annual assessments of competition in the energy market (“Energy chiefs lash out as Ofgem looks into trades”, Feb 3). At a time when suppliers need to restore trust, it is important that these companies comply with these requests rather than sniping at the regulators for doing their job.
Ofgem and the OFT take a proportionate approach to gathering information and we have not asked for information on every single trade. However, we will not hesitate to acquire the information we need for our review.
This is a wide-ranging review looking at how well competition in the markets for gas and electricity is serving the interests of households and small firms.
Andrew Wright
Interim Chief Executive, Ofgem

In terms of average legal expenditure per person England and Wales rank 10th out of 14 advanced European economies
Sir, The Ministry of Justice defends cuts to the criminal justice system by claiming that ours is one of the world’s most expensive legal aid systems. This is not true. The National Audit Office concluded that spending on criminal justice as a percentage of the state budget in England and Wales was exactly on the European average of 0.33 per cent. In terms of average legal expenditure per person England and Wales rank 10th out of 14 advanced European economies.
We believe that the savings sought by the MoJ can be achieved without cuts, however there is a problem of access to information. The MOJ is suppressing important reports, by KPMG and Otterburn Legal Consulting, which analyse proposed changes in the supply of defence work, and the Legal Aid Agency will not disclose its raw data or its financial models.
We call on the MoJ to release the reports before it publishes the consultation response and we call on the LAA to allow expert analysis of its data base. Without disclosure how can there be an informed debate as to whether the cuts and reforms are sustainable or irreversible harmful?
Nicola Hill
Chair, National Justice Committee

Telegraph:

SIR – As the providers of housing for all diocesan bishops in the Church of England, the Church Commissioners consider the sustainability of the ministry of any bishop of crucial importance. Their homes should be places of rest and privacy.
In Wells, the Bishop’s Palace had 61,100 visitors in 2013. In addition, 53 events were held there, including festivals, fairs, medieval falconry and outdoor theatre. The commissioners share with the Palace Trust, which is responsible for day-to-day running of the palace, the hope that visitors and activity will continue to increase.
It is right that issues such as privacy for a new bishop are considered and whether it is sustainable for him and his family to live in an increasingly busy tourist attraction. In this instance, the commissioners are aware that their decision has not been popular. It must, however, be balanced against wider considerations.
Rev Arun Arora
Director of Communications, Church Commissioners
London SW1

SIR – No one doubts the huge effort put in by Environment Agency staff during the past few weeks, but landowners, like all private property owners, should have the right to defend what is theirs. We propose a three-point plan.
Emergency European aid should be drawn upon to provide financial assistance to farmers and home owners who have faced uninsurable losses.
A major remedial programme, funded by the Government, is needed to restore main rivers and channels to their capacity, to be started as soon as weather permits.
A fully funded and sustainable management system should be put in place to allocate costs, resources, rights and responsibilities fairly between the different parties, central and local government and internal drainage boards.
Henry Robinson
President, Country Land and Business Association
London SW1
SIR – Now that the rail link between Exeter and Plymouth – and therefore the whole of Cornwall – has been cut off by the storms and is likely to be out of action for a considerable period, it is surely time for the Government to divert funds projected for HS2 to building a new inland rail link with the South West.
Is it not a priority to provide a safe and reliable service between London and Plymouth rather than saving 20 minutes on the routes to Birmingham?
Hubert Pragnell
Canterbury, Kent
Royal family’s privacy
SIR – Your report “Question of privacy for the Duchess as Palace yields to the paparazzi” suggests the Royal Household has changed its stance on the publication of paparazzi photographs.
Our position is clear and unchanged. We believe that members of the Royal family have the right to go about their day-to-day private lives without constantly being pursued, photographed and published. We ask that editors comply with their own codes of practice, those of the industry, and work within the law.
This has nothing to do with “image control” or “yielding to the paparazzi”. We never sanction or approve the use of paparazzi photographs. More to the point, of course, we would much prefer that none were taken in the first place.
Ed Perkins
Communications Secretary to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and Prince Harry
London W8
Texting in class
SIR – Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, says that he wants to improve discipline, which is sadly lacking in many schools. I believe the often-used phrase is “low-level disruption”.
He could make a start by banning mobile phones and other devices from classrooms. How are pupils going to learn anything when they are busy texting?
Stephen Bowers
Rudgwick, West Sussex
Selective hugging
SIR – I agree with Rowan Pelling regarding the “hug culture” pervading society.
My hugs are reserved for my immediate family. But what is the best way politely to deter an acquaintance who is clearly intent on full body contact? One does not wish to appear standoffish.
Frances Williams
Swindon, Wiltshire
Corporate crime
SIR – David Green, the head of the Serious Fraud Office, is right to be pushing for a change in the law on companies whose employees break the law. However, this Government does not behave as though it considers white-collar crime to be a priority. If it did, the SFO wouldn’t have to appeal to the Treasury for a £19 million emergency
bail-out just to carry on with its caseload.
Mr Green’s proposals would receive a far warmer reception from Labour, which recognises that Britain has an enforcement problem with corporate crime – the SFO hasn’t landed a single corporate conviction in the past three years. We also recognise that other jurisdictions do this better, and we have a lot to learn from them. The change Mr Green recommends – making companies liable for frauds their staff commit on the job – is essentially what they have in America. It is the centrepiece of Labour’s policy review – Tackling Serious Fraud and White Collar Crime.
So far, ministers haven’t shown the slightest inclination to carry out the reforms that Mr Green, I, and many others have been calling for.
Emily Thornberry MP (Lab)
Shadow Attorney General
London SW1
Demonising sugar
SIR – Sugar. Sugar. Sugar. Who thought up that diversion? Sugar has been with us for 500 years.
What is new is the manufactured fat used for frying almost everything. It is in nearly all cookies, biscuits, cakes and pastries, bagels, buns, sauces, snacks and ice cream.
Read the small print before buying: if it has got vegetable oil in it, then put it back.
Dr George Yuille Caldwell
Singapore
SIR – In the drive to encourage us to eat less sugar, could the many television chefs be persuaded to use artificial sweeteners?
Allan Littlemore
Sandbach, Cheshire
Name-tape revival
SIR – I have done my share of label-sewing and I never expected to start again in my sixties (Letters, February 5). But with a husband who has lost three walking poles, two rucksacks, hats, scarves and gloves, labels have again proved their value.
I recommend iron-on ones for clothes, and stick-on ones for items of equipment.
Betsy Everett
Askrigg, North Yorkshire
Paper, hair and silk: the best way to dress a neck
SIR – The best neckwear? I would suggest a beard – a proper one, not the scruffy designer stubble.
Edward Huxley
Thorpe, Surrey
SIR – Either wear a tie with the shirt properly done up at the neck or wear an open shirt. Wearing a tie with the top button of the shirt open may be comfortable, but it looks very scruffy.
Duncan Rayner
Sunningdale, Berkshire
SIR – Just after the Second World War, detachable collars were the norm. One could wear the same shirt all week and just change the collar. For half a crown a dozen, one could buy stiff white paper collars, discarding them when they were dirty.
When working on a farm in 1939, I recall seeing one of the farm labourers putting on a dickey – a stiff shirt front about a foot square with an attached stiff collar. He donned a tie and put on his Sunday best jacket – no shirt – and went off to church.
Sid Davies
Bramhall, Cheshire
SIR – How can one tell which regiment or public school a chap belonged to if he isn’t wearing a tie?
Terry Critchley
Knutsford, Cheshire
SIR – Why the negativity about ties? I own more than 100, each assigned a number. Drawing a random tie from my lottery bag each morning is the highlight of my otherwise depressing pre-work routine.
Eugene Smith
Harrow, Middlesex

SIR – Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, heralds the dawn of a new, open NHS culture following Robert Francis QC’s report into Stafford Hospital. As evidence, he cites 1,000 whistleblower reports a month, a number that is rising. But whistleblowing is symptomatic of the old secretive culture that Mr Francis criticised.
At present, the whistleblowers reporting poor care are doing so behind a veil of anonymity. That makes the NHS look more like a police state than an open culture.
David Drew
Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands
SIR – If it takes whistleblowers to introduce care into a caring profession, then the NHS is recruiting the wrong type of person.
Related Articles
When palaces are unsuitable for modern life
06 Feb 2014
Colin Bligh
Rusthall, Kent
SIR – When will those in authority understand that the real problem with the NHS is not the surgeons, doctors or nurses but the bloated management.
A thorough, ongoing investigation is needed into how the service is managed; management numbers could probably be reduced by 50 per cent, more than enough to fund the nurse shortfall.
Donald A Wroe
Ulverston, Cumbria
SIR – While the majority of NHS staff deliver fantastic care, some patients are still being let down when they are at their most vulnerable. One in six patients say doctors talk in front of them as if they weren’t there, and a third of cancer patients say their hospital room or area is not always clean and tidy. Treating people like this does nothing for a patient’s morale.
While Jeremy Hunt rightly observes that “it takes time to change culture”, there are simple steps that can be taken to encourage cultural change. Today, Macmillan is releasing a report that highlights patient-led, practical solutions with a proven track record of improving patient experience. For example, some hospitals have filmed patients talking about how they were treated by staff, who then watch it.
Every member of staff in the NHS should be supported in adopting these solutions if we are serious about putting patients at the heart of the service.
Ciarán Devane
Chief Executive, Macmillan Cancer Support
London SE1
SIR – Mr Hunt has announced, as one of the changes he has put in place as a result of the Francis inquiry last year, that there are to be “names above beds”, showing who is in charge of that particular patient.
Thirty years ago, this was the norm; all patients had the name of their consultant visible at the head of the bed. Perhaps it is time to reinstate ward sisters and matrons too?
Malcolm Freeth
Bournemouth, Dorset

Irish Times:

Sir, – In 2000 my wife and I visited our son in Groningen, in the Netherlands, where he was studying at university. This fine city is 5.2 metres under sea level. It is still dry there. So whose finger is stuck in the dyke?
Ireland wake up and dry up. Perhaps we should invite the Dutch to replace the IMF and troika to really look after our liquid assets. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL McCULLAGH,
Mountpleasant,
Ballinasloe,
Co Galway.
Sir, – As concerns move from coastal flooding to our rivers, it is worth noting that the best flood defence is to hold the water at source.
Instead of baring our uplands in order to make sure that every hectare is “available for foraging” as required under the EU Area Aid, farmers should be encouraged to avail of forestry grants which should include existing scrub, the precursor to native woodlands.
A study in the UK published last year records that water sinks into the soil under native broadleaf trees at 67 times the rate at which it sinks into the soil under grass. This is because the tree roots transform the ground into a spongy reservoir that will absorb water and release it slowly.
Contrast this to foraging animals which concentrate intense pressure beneath their hooves, poaching the ground and compacting the soil into a hard pan which sheds rain as quickly as it falls.
These changes in grants would be revenue neutral, forestry grants simply replacing the current area aid. All that is lacking is the vision to make these changes, which would not only greatly alleviate riparian flooding downriver but reverse the widespread biodiversity destruction that is being forced on farmers to avoid loss of Area Aid grants.
Such a programme would not only alleviate flooding without expensive and limited engineering solutions, but would also provide essential wildlife corridors and amenities for recreational users. – Yours, etc,
TONY LOWES,
Friends of the Irish
Environment,
Eyeries,
Co Cork.
Sir, – The current United Nations report on the abominable abuse of children within Roman Catholic institutions underlines again the need to confront such crimes with the best resources of my church (Breaking News, February 5th).
There are still large parts of the RC world where the necessary radical reforms have not taken place.
In view of his exemplary record in tackling clerical child abuse in the diocese of Dublin, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin would seem an ideal person to implement the Vatican’s promise to protect all within its care. He would offer a guarantee of action rather than rhetoric. – Yours, etc,
JOHN FEIGHERY SVD
North Circular Road,
Dublin 7.
Sir, – Few people who have read media reports and commentary on the recent UN Committee report on the Holy See’s obligations in the matter of children’s rights will doubt its credibility. However, for those who read and scrutinisze the document itself, it raises rather than relieves uncertainty about its trustworthiness.
As far as it draws on the work of established investigative commissions and their fruits, such as the Ryan Report in Ireland and the Winter Commission in Canada (p14), the UN report’s findings should be taken seriously. However, it seems plain from reading the document that the UN Committee has done almost no investigation of its own. In fact, the text is seriously weakened in those places where it makes wholesale recommendations – such as urging the church to “review its position on abortion” (p12) – based on single, widely-reported instances.
Some of the proposals are simply eccentric. On p13, the committee exhorts the Holy See to re-assess its position on “adolescents’ enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health and overcome all the barriers and taboos surrounding adolescent sexuality that hinder their access to sexual and reproductive information.”
I don’t know what to make of this foggy suggestion, except to say that I attended state-funded Catholic schools from 1997 to 2004 in several countries and I was never deprived of information concerning my “enjoyment” of these matters.
As to the committee report’s motions to renovate the church’s teachings on contraception (p13), homosexual conduct (p5), and illegitimacy (p5), the committee clearly strays from delivering what could and should have been an objective report, and instead provides a weird compendium of “What’s-Wrong-With-Catholicism.” – Yours, etc,
Dr SEAN ALEXANDER
SMITH,
Clon Brugh,
Aiken Village,
Sandyford,
Dublin 18.

Sir, – “The latest returns showed the State collected nearly €650 million less than expected in tax last month” (Front page, February 5th). The anomaly was blamed on the introduction of SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) system which slowed down the Revenue Commissioners’ collection of VAT, corporation tax and employers’ PAYE and PRSI.
Instead of payments being processed within two or three banking days it will now take seven banking days.
Where will the funds be held during this time and who will benefit from the overnight rates?
Another banking contribution to the economy! – Yours, etc,
BRIAN R BUCKLEY,
Oughterard,
Co Galway.

Sir, – I identify with much of what was reported in the recent Sex Talk series (Peter McGuire, Education, February 4th).
The only formal sex education I received in the late 1990s was a single science class on the reproduction system in Junior Cert year. In my Leaving Cert year, during a religion class, the priest showed us a grainy film of an abortion, along with some very biased interviews promoting a particular ideology. The school had a Catholic ethos and was headed by a priest, reporting to the bishop, who in turn reported to Rome – not Dublin. Relationships and Sexuality Education was not on the curriculum.
The school I attended condoned institutional bullying, homophobia, racism, sexism and corporal punishment, though happily the latter was weeded out during my stay. The lessons of the abuse scandals go unheeded; who really knows what goes on behind closed classroom doors? The Minister for Education and their civil servants certainly don’t. However, they have achieved one success in sex education – previous generations were dispatched from the school system ignorant, whereas now they exit ill-informed. I guess that is some progress. – Yours, etc,
Dr JARLATH MOLLOY,
Saffron Central Square,
Croydon,

Sir,– Your Editorial (February 6th) is welcome. I applaud its sentiments, but I have difficulties. You wish contributions to have “some reasonable approximation to an arguable truth”. Reasonable? Arguable? Truth? Even Christ didn’t claim these attributes for the gift of Faith. Like many others, I challenge the rationality of the premises of various “Faiths.”
To suggest that such premises deserve equal treatment with scientific observations is to go along with arguments such as: “creationism” is a theory deserving of equal time in science class with that other “theory,” evolution. Logical thinking is hard to teach under such circumstances. – Yours, etc,
DESMOND B JOHNSON,
Forest Hills,
New York, US.

Sir, – The proposal to close Exchange Dublin, on the grounds of it “generating anti-social behaviour” (Home News, February 1st) raises serious questions regarding how this issue is being tackled in our city. While we welcome last week’s commitment by Dublin City Council and Temple Bar Cultural Trust to support the development of Exchange Dublin, we believe the best way to do so is through co-operation with this deserving initiative by keeping the doors of Exchange Dublin open.
Exchange Dublin is an all-ages, inclusive, open arts and cultural space. The safe, drug-free, non-alcohol environment enables young people to socialise and develop their creativity. Participatory cultural events and workshops support democratic practices and civic empowerment through artistic expression.
Despite the challenge of a lack of resources that affects so many arts spaces in the present economic environment, the volunteers of Exchange Dublin have provided an event and social space to thousands of people over the past four and a half years, contributing enormously to the civic well-being of our community.
We believe in a vision of the city with arts and culture available to everyone. We believe that locking one of the few spaces that has provided inclusive cultural participation is a grave mistake.
By removing Exchange Dublin, and offering no ongoing alternatives to its multi-users, Dublin City Council is inevitably furthering the anti-social behaviour it claims it is trying to combat in the area.
Surely closing a social space is anti-social? – Yours, etc,
MARK CUMMING,
Comhlamh; THEO
DORGAN, Poet and writer; JESSE JONES, artist; Prof KATHLEEN LYNCH, Equality Studies, UCD; SHANE O’CURRY, European Network Against Racism; GARRATT MULLEN, Show Racism the Red Card & SHANE FITZGERALD, We’re Not Leaving Campaign,
North Circular Road,
Dublin 7.
Sir, – In response to Michael Austin’s letter (February 6th), I cannot claim to know William Wilberforce’s “motives and intentions” towards same-sex marriage; however, I do know that my Christian convictions of “universal human dignity” fuels my support of marriage equality. – Yours, etc,
RICHARD SCRIVEN,
Ballinlough, Cork.
Sir, – Noel Whelan (Opinion, January 25th) worries about the “intolerance” of liberal activists who level accusations of homophobia against those who do not support same-sex marriage.
Yet the fact homophobia has been defined as “an extreme and irrational aversion to homosexuality and homosexual people” does not mean that this is the only form homophobia takes: it wears many masks, including that of mild-mannered men and women who proclaim to feel loving concern for gay people, while maintaining that homosexual activity can never be compatible with a moral way of life.
It is neither surprising nor unreasonable for supporters of marriage equality to contend that the arguments of many of their opponents are based on assumptions about the nature of human sexuality and the ethical standing of homosexual relationships that are deeply repugnant to a liberal perspective. There are many in our society who will never accept same-sex marriage, or that homosexual activity can ever be compatible with a moral way of living. They are entitled to their views, and to vote with their conscience, but if they live in hope that those of us who find such beliefs homophobic will refrain for speaking out against them, they should expect to be disappointed. – Yours, etc,
BRENDAN O’CONNELL,
Cowper Road,
Rathmines, Dublin 6.

Sir, – In your Editorial, “Dangerous Games” (February 5th), the writer plays a very dangerous game by disregarding the truth in stating “this [neknomination] game, which the drinks industry has now forsaken, is a manifestation of the creativity and effectiveness of alcohol promotion and society’s vulnerability to exploitation”.
Suggesting the drinks industry in any way supports such activity is irresponsible, misrepresentative and offensive.
The drinks industry has consistently condemned the irresponsible consumption of alcohol.
The drinks industry is extremely careful not to target minors in any of our marketing or sponsorship activities. That is why we have developed some of the most stringent co-regulatory codes of practice anywhere in the world for alcohol marketing. Indeed, in many cases, Ireland is used as a testing ground for advertisements or marketing campaigns in other countries as companies know that if their ads are acceptable to the Irish market then they will be perfectly suitable for other countries.
Since 2002 we have funded and supported Mature Enjoyment of Alcohol in Society (MEAS). MEAS has two key objectives: to foster responsible promotion of alcohol within the drinks industry and to promote the responsible consumption of alcohol among consumers. Through its strict voluntary code MEAS regulates the promotion, packaging and sampling of alcohol products by the industry. Through drinkaware.ie MEAS brings the message about responsible consumption to the public, with a particular focus on young adults. Indeed, MEAS was among the first organisations to draw attention to the horrific potential dangers associated with neknomination in this country over a fortnight ago.
We are a legitimate and responsible industry. It is unfair and ill-founded to demonise an entire industry, and an insult to the many thousands of people who work in that industry, to claim that we in some way are encouraging alcohol misuse. – Yours, etc,
KATHRYN D’ARCY,
Director, Alcohol Beverage Federation of Ireland,
Baggot Street,
Dublin 2.

Sir, – I have no gripe with Garth Brooks, his music or his fans. I knew Croke Park was there when I purchased a property in 2007 and attend GAA games at Croke Park with great regularity. I am, nonetheless, somewhat disturbed at the potential disruption foisted upon the residents this coming July.
I enjoy Championship Sundays and having to negotiate the traffic on those days is a small price to pay for the enjoyment garnered from such occasions. However, to impose this extravaganza on residents for five consecutive days, including three weekday working days (and more for many) leaves a significant responsibility with the GAA to ensure maximum co-operation, communication, and assistance with and for residents.
The association will make a lot of money this July. Will it step up to the plate? – Yours, etc,
BEN HEADON,
Distillery Road,
Drumcondra,
Dublin 9.

Sir, – I was interested in the report of Prof Jürgen Habermas’s address to the SPD in Germany (“Habermas warns Germany risks undermining EU”, Derek Scally, World News, February 4th). He articulates what everybody, except this Government, has been thinking and saying for the past five years. Why was this report relegated to page 11 and not on the front page for everyone to read? – Yours, etc,
SHAUN R McCANN,
Clanbrassil Terrace,
Dublin 8.
Sir, – Phrases or cliches to be expunged include “Pushing the envelope”, “Singing from the same hymn sheet”, “Thinking outside the box” and “Down to the wire”. – Yours, etc,
LEONARD PELAN,
Castlesize Close, Sallins,
Co Kildare.
Sir, –   “Warren Gatland should have selected O’Driscoll”. – Yours, etc,
PADRAIG DOYLE,
Pine Valley Avenue,
Dublin 16.
Sir, – A man is helping police with their inquiries. – Yours, etc,
LAURI Mac DERMOTT,
Carragh Hill, Galway.
Sir, – Have I stepped up to the plate this time? My last effort unfortunately did not cut the mustard. – Yours, etc,
BID O’GORMAN,
Maudlin Court,
Thomastown, Co Kilkenny.

Sir, – “Heavily pregnant”,  as opposed to? – Yours, etc,
GERRY McDONNELL,
Green Park,
Dublin 12.
Sir, – Nothing is so useless as a general maxim. – Yours, etc,
FRANK FOLAN,
Labasheeda,

Irish Independent:

* Michael McCarthy (Sports Pages, February 5) bemoans the chronic discord and ambivalence attached to Ireland’s competing – but less than competitive – rugby anthems.
Also in this section
Letters: Why are we paying debts already written off?
Letters: Instead of reforming HSE we get stealth tax
Letters: Stop and think before joining drinking craze
As long as the farce continues – the Ulster boys standing in stone-faced defiance of ‘Amhran na bhFiann’; those with half an ear justifiably refusing to aid and abet Ireland’s Dirge – the national team will never realise its full potential.
Mr McCarthy goes on to suggest Phil Coulter might clear up the mess by essaying a replacement – but surely that would be to risk another paean in the neck.
And anyway, there’s no need; we have an anthem ready made, beautifully formed, and perfectly fit for purpose – indeed, the most poetic, most melodious, most stirring rugby anthem on the planet.
I refer, of course, to ‘There is an Isle’, long the signature of Shannon RFC but entirely adaptable to the national rugby team or teams, as indeed to the island at large.
And one can guarantee that if and when sung pre-match with feeling – as, for example, by the wonderful Suzanne Murphy – it would leave not a nape hair unstiffened and hardly an eye unmoistened in Lansdowne Road.
I recognise that those responsible for the inane cheerleading and pyrotechnics that lately mar big games in Dublin 4 are unlikely to go with such a progressive change, even though it might mitigate another serious problem.
If, as seems possible in my opinion, Munstermen are soon to be entirely excluded from Joe Schmidt’s selections, a song from rugby’s heartland would leave a once-proud province with at least some token investment in the national cause.
RICHARD GALLAGHER
CALLAN, CO KILKENNY
ECONOMIC WOES
* An expectation that logic can be applied to the economic system seems to be Desmond Fitzgerald’s problem (Letters, February 6). He seems to expect that government money going into a commercial entity should do something other than simply disappear without detailed explanation.
We live in a world of panic and mayhem where the “market” has turned into a grand production of illusion and trickery. Confidence tricks rather than wisdom can often be seen to hold sway.
The worth of a company or even a country or countries can be determined by how we “feel” about it on the day, and everyone wins by playing “chicken”, talking up worth then jumping off before reality crashes the party.
If it was kids doing it, it would be all over the headlines calling for an end to “Marketnomination”.
Our system of values seems to have become disconnected from reality; otherwise the Government would have bought the Irish residential home mortgages from the bank at fire-sale prices, and passed the saving on to homeowners. This would have reset the Irish system, at a lesser cost.
What about Europe? I think the outpouring of gratitude from our European neighbours for putting our interests below that of the big European banks has shown what a great decision that was.
PAULINE BLEACH
WOLLI CREEK, NSW, AUSTRALIA
* Desmond Fitzgerald’s letter complains about what he calls ‘the big bad German and French banks’ for loaning this country so much money that it went broke.
He then asks the question as to what part of debt write-off has he missed. I do not think he missed anything since there was no write-off.
Among the many things missed by Mr Fitzgerald, and indeed by practically everyone else at the time, was that the scale of the original borrowing from whatever foreign banks was reckless and should not have been undertaken.
A LEAVY
DUBLIN 13
HEALTHCARE CRISIS
* What is happening to healthcare in this fourth-world country? We pay through the nose for it, with covert and overt taxation, and what do we get? People being left in hospital corridors on trolleys to die alone. Do we get value for money? Or is it all being wasted on bureaucracy?
There is no dignity, humanity or kindness in hospital treatments, and it needs a new solution. We are not cattle to be herded into rooms, and left for hours on end waiting to be seen by consultants.
It’s about time they pulled their fingers out from their fat wallets and gave us what every person is entitled to: proper, first-world medical health services.
ANTHONY WOODS
ENNIS, CO CLARE
TAKING ON THE STATE
* I believe that every Irish citizen is proud of Louise O’Keeffe, who throughout the last 15 years had the temerity and the courage to take on the State represented by politicians, the judiciary and the legal profession.
Now, instead of mealy mouthed, legally framed and meaningless apologies, maybe Kenny and Gilmore, as well as those honourable judges involved in the High Court and the Supreme Court cases, would explain in simple terms why an innocent person was hounded, and in the end, how they, with all their resources, got the outcome so horribly wrong.
Perhaps they would also tell us how much taxpayers’ money was wasted. And, oh yes, we would also like to know if anybody will be held accountable.
JOHN LEAHY
WILTON ROAD, CORK
KNOWN UNKNOWNS
* The best way to describe the latest furore over the high-wattage pylons and whether they are safe or not is to use the words of former US Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld.
There are known knowns; there are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns; that is, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don’t know.
Setting aside the medical known unknowns, my view is that the pylons are just plain ugly. Ireland’s landscape is beautiful – why destroy the beauty with something that can be buried and unseen?
KEVIN DEVITTE
MILL STREET, WESTPORT, CO MAYO
SMOKING IN CARS
l Your motoring editor Eddie Cunningham writes: “I may be wrong, but there appears to [be] a lot of people smoking in cars. More than before, I am inclined to think.”
Mr Cunningham says there should be a “blitz of massive fines, possibly bans, for anyone found smoking while others are in the car with them”.
We don’t condone smoking in cars with children present. It’s inconsiderate at best, but the number of people doing it has fallen dramatically. Legislation, accompanied by fines and other penalties, would be a huge and unnecessary over-reaction.
Perhaps I could refer Mr Cunningham and your readers to a study by the UCD School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Population, which involved observing 2,230 drivers over three time periods in two Dublin locations.
The study found the prevalence of mobile telephone use was 2.56pc and just 1.39pc for smoking.
This was reported by the Irish Independent on April 10, 2013, under the headline, ‘Ban on smoking in cars would have little impact, says study’.
JOHN MALLON
FOREST EIREANN, CORK
Irish Independent

8 February 2014 Sandy

I go all the way around the park listening to the Navy Lark. Our heroes are in trouble, again. Taffy can get promotoon if only he can get rid of Pertwee Priceless.

Sandy comes to visit a bit more work done upstairs

Scrabbletoday Mary wins, just.and get over 400, Perhaps Iwill win tomorrow.

Obituary:

Jean Miller, who has died aged 84, was a former professional dancer, actress and supplier of game pies to gastronomes; and though she did not begin painting until she was 68, her dazzling landscapes of red hills and blue sheep around her home town of Hay-on-Wye attracted a following well beyond the Welsh borders.

She was born Jean Raley on August 12 1929 at Saint Helier, Jersey, where her father was a teacher. Her parents separated when she was a baby and she was brought up by her grandparents, her mother and her Aunt May (subject of many affectionate portraits) in Folkestone. Her grandfather, Claude Counsell, had studied at the Slade and trained as an artist in Paris before becoming headmaster of Feltonfleet boys’ prep school in Folkestone. Jean was educated there until she was nine, learning football and boxing as well as French and Latin.

When the school was bombed out, the family moved to Windsor, where her uncle John ran the Theatre Royal. Her first professional role there was as a Seed Pearl in Aladdin’s Cave. Briefly, Jean was educated at a girls’ school in Windsor. She then won a scholarship to the Bellair School of Dancing in Godalming (later the Guildford School of Acting) but left at 16 because “there really wasn’t anybody about. We were rather hungry most of the time.”

At 17 she auditioned at the Ambassador Theatre, London, for a part in Sweetest and Lowest (“the naughtiest show in town”), with Hermione Gingold. The job required her to act, dance and sing. She went on tour with Dame Flora Robson and once shared a dressing room with Margot Fonteyn.

At Windsor Rep she met her husband, Michael Miller, who played Henry VIII to her Anne Boleyn in 1066 and All That, staged for the Festival of Britain in 1951. He proposed on their second date and they married six weeks later. The separations of a dual acting career did not suit them, so they moved to Jersey to live the good life, renting a Georgian house for £4 a week, planting a market garden and going bust. Michael Miller returned to the theatre; Jean brought up their three children in the Chilterns.

When a serious car accident brought an end to Michael’s career and most of their income, the Millers lived on their wits. They started to go to auctions and to deal in prints. Jean, a natural and inventive cook, catered for film directors and made game pies for Justin de Blank in London. She told Cecily Sash, who interviewed her for the book Jean Miller’s Paintings (2008): “I discovered that if you put pheasants and grouse into pastry you could charge six times more than if you put beef and bacon in.”

Michael Miller died in 1987, and 10 years later, exhausted by catering, Jean Miller moved to Hay-on-Wye. She joined a painting class at the local community centre, then briefly attended Hereford Art College but was not popular (possibly because her pictures were), and walked out. Some students remarked that she was “too old”.

Aged 68, her real painting life began. She became a local celebrity and more or less ran an open house. “She loved the fun of a late-blooming career, of the commercial side, of people liking her work and her company,” said a friend, Emily Jones. “When you bought one of her pictures, you were buying a bit of her, really.”

In 2006 Miller was diagnosed with breast cancer and struggled with ill health ever after. “The maddening thing,” she said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph in 2008, “is that just as you reach an age of being vaguely wise, you pop off, leaving the next generation to learn everything for themselves. I wouldn’t want to pop off at the minute because I’m so busy.” She painted for a further six years, right to the end. Her son and two daughters survive her.

Jean Miller, born August 12 1929, died January 10 2014

Guardian:

Thank you, Simon Jenkins (Germany, I’m sorry. This is the British at their worst, 31 January) for expressing what no German dares to say, lest we are branded war-deniers or humourless. The British obsession with war not only fills bookstands and the school curriculum, but results in open, unchallenged racism. As a German teacher I am invariably greeted with “Hitler!” or “Nazi!”, because that’s the only thing young British people learn about Germany. My son who is half Indian/half German has only ever suffered racist remarks because of his German origin. In more than 30 years living in Britain I have not once been asked about Germany’s recent past as a divided country (of which I could tell from own experience), but countless times about my experiences and opinions of the Nazi regime of over 70 years ago. Britain, which takes pride in its credos of diversity, tolerance and anti-racism, still has a long way to go to fight its anti-German prejudice and this sanctimonious, self-congratulatory, war-worshipping festival is not helping.
Christine Fuchs
Chigwell, Essex

I was very pleased to see the Guardian launch its campaign against FGM (End female genital mutilation, 6 February) and can only agree with the call for secondary heads to teach students about the practice before the summer holidays. As a Conservative spokesman for women’s rights and gender equality in the European parliament, I am pushing the FGM agenda in Europe, where we have approximately 500,000 girls at risk. However, a lack of awareness and the hidden nature of this crime are holding back the campaign to protect young girls in the UK. I believe education in schools is one of the best ways to give girls at risk information to help them resist FGM and to address the cultural drives behind this practice. This week, we passed a resolution that demands action to end the horror of FGM and places emphasis on the fact that this barbaric practice happens to children. Next week, I will be holding a prevalence event, the first of its kind, which will be a chance for all member states to co-operate together and exchange information in the fight against this brutal practice.
Marina Yannakoudakis
Conservative MEP for London

• I run a maternity hospital in Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland. Every day I see the impact FGM can have on women’s health, and their ability to give birth safely. Thanks to the stability afforded by our separation from Somalia, this is a scourge we have been able to start tackling. I train young women to become midwives in their local communities. In order to pass their exams, they have to commit to help end the practice. Thanks to this initiative and many others, a recent Unicef study found that only 25% of girls aged one to 14 have undergone FGM in Somaliland, compared to 99% in Somalia. This number continues to decrease, but too slowly. There is still much work to be done, and women in the Somali diaspora can help by being at the forefront of this cultural change. The decisions they make affect attitudes in the country of their birth. Girls like Fahma Mohamed, who are bravely speaking out in newspapers such as yours, as well as online, may help to make a difference back in Somalia. By bucking the trend, they may start one of their own.
Edna Adan
Director, University Hospital and former foreign minister of Somaliland, Hargeisa

• I have observed in Nigeria the ill-effects of FGM, which include bleeding, infection, scarring, psychological scarring and impairment of sexual functioning. I remember a woman enduring an extremely painful labour, trying in vain to push out her baby – obstructed by scarring of the vulva, a problem which was easily solved in hospital. I have three practical suggestions for those who wish to help this campaign. Firstly, do not call it circumcision, as the ActionAid advertisement in the Guardian does. It is not circumcision. This encourages people to think it is the equivalent of male circumcision, which it is not. FGM involves, at the least, removal of the clitoris. In some areas, such as east Africa, it involves the removal of the major and minor labia with stitching up to close the opening, leaving a small hole for the expulsion of urine and menstrual blood. Such a closure has to be opened by further surgery to allow sexual intercourse. All this without consent or anaesthesia. Secondly, sign the petition at change.org. Thirdly, read any of the books by Waris Dirie or Fauziya Kassindja’s book Do They Hear You When You Cry.
Michael Cox
(Retired gynaecologist) Nuneaton

• It is to be hoped the very welcome debate about FGM will also be extended to the opposite sex. Circumcision is just as much a form of child abuse. This outmoded practice confers no proven benefits and should not be a rite or ritual that is accepted in modern society.
Jan Arriens
Bishop’s Castle, Shropshire

• Can we stop speaking of the practice as having been “outlawed” in 1985, as if it had been lawful until then? It may have been the subject of specific legislation in 1985, but it was and remains grievous bodily harm contrary to section 18 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. It is difficult to see why it should not also be prosecuted as sexual assault.
Naomi Cunningham
Polegate, East Sussex

• Prosecutions are necessary to demonstrate it is illegal. Just pick up your pen, Theresa May.
Ruth Lewis
Middlesbrough

Independent:

Owen Jones (6 February) suggests a third way for Scotland – a federation within the Union offering more autonomy – and I suspect the Westminster government will suggest something similar if the independence campaign continues to gain momentum and the country looks like voting “yes” on 18 September. For many north of the border this will never be sufficient.

Independence for me will mean control of our own destiny: no more danger of being dragged into illegal wars at the behest of the Americans in the mistaken belief that the UK is still a world power; no more spending billions on dangerous, obsolete nuclear weapons while public services are cut; and no more squandering oil revenues on right-wing policies, when they could be invested in the future.

Full powers, rather than just more powers, will mean a seat for Scotland at the top table in the EU – and it will be in the EU, despite the scare stories. Independence will also mean Scotland won’t have to leave the EU against its will because of votes elsewhere in the UK.

Oh, and an independent Scotland won’t have that expensive, unelected and undemocratic abomination, the second chamber.

Most important of all: the devolved powers proposed by Owen Jones would mean a sitting Westminster government retaining the right to grant or remove powers at whim, while Scotland continues to depend on the political and economic benevolence of a government it probably didn’t elect and whose ideologies it seldom supports.

Pauline Taylor, Elgin, Moray

Owen Jones says: “The debate about Scotland’s future is one, of course, that the Scottish people alone have to determine.”

As a Scot, born and educated in Dundee, I will have no vote. I am now resident in England. I lived for 20 years in Australia, three years in Argentina and two in Germany. We Scots travel!

It is not the Scottish people who will have the vote, it is the people resident in Scotland, and it would be interesting to know how many of those are actually Scottish.

Dian Elvin, Witney, Oxfordshire

Price of building on flood plains

Dave Bearman (letter, 6 February) makes many good points, but in his defence of the use of flood plains for agriculture, he stops short of attributing blame to the seriously guilty parties who allowed, and still allow, building on flood plains: local councillors.

Along with many others I fruitlessly campaigned a quarter of a century ago against housing and industrial developments on water meadows around the River Linnet where it flows through Bury St Edmunds. Even at that time it was obvious that to reduce the area available for temporary storage of winter rains was bordering on the criminal. But business and commercial short-term interests won, and still win.

Today the Bury Free Press reports:  “Steve Mableson, Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service’s station commander at Bury, said: ‘The River Linnet has broken its banks and flooded the local area involving some 14 houses surrounded by water, some may also be flooded.’ ”

Eddie Dougall, Walsham le Willows, Suffolk

It is all very well for Dave Bearman to say that we are all in this together. As far as the Somerset Levels are concerned, of course the farmers should live there; they always have and the old houses were built high to avoid flooding.

The problem lies not with them but with the non-agricultural community, commuting to the surrounding towns, who live in modern houses on the fringes of the islands, where flooding is more likely. They have no need to be there.

Chris Harding, Parkstone, Dorset

How can HS2  go ahead now?

In the light of the devastating storm damage to the essential rail link to the south-west of the country, surely paying £46bn to save 20 minutes journey time getting from Birmingham to London must be utter lunacy against the dire need for a new and improved rail bypass for Dawlish. It can only be vested political interests to think or act otherwise.

Peter Gerdes, Crowborough, East Sussex

I am pleased that Roger Padfield found the scenery from the train via Okehampton to his liking (letter, 6 February). I’m sure the residents of Cornwall and south Devon would agree, were it not for the present dire situation which denies them the vital rail link via Dawlish which is so essential to their livelihood. An alternative rail link to the peninsular is a matter for urgent consideration and this should be addressed without delay.

However, to cite this situation as an excuse for scrapping HS2 is short-sighted. HS2 represents an opportunity to construct an urgently needed rail link to, hopefully, prevent similar disruption to our transport network, this time before it becomes an emergency.

John Wess, Malvern, Worcestershire

Small firms have big advantages

Your editorial “Big is beautiful” (28 January) is built on the assertion that “there is no moral or economic advantage in having a job created by a small or medium-sized business over one that grows out of a big company”. This is complete nonsense.

A moral case for small businesses can easily be built around the greater opportunity for individual fulfilment that small firms offer. Lots of small firms mean many more entrepreneurial jobs in the economy. Lots of individuals with greater responsibility for their own jobs and futures provide the foundations for a richer, more informed and more mature democracy.

The economic case for creating jobs in small firms rather than large is more Darwinian, but also extremely strong. Large populations of small and medium-sized firms allow market processes to operate more quickly: firms are born and die quickly – they can double in size or vanish overnight, and they lack the political lobbying power to delay inevitable change. An economy made up of small firms is more flexible in a challenging and competitive world than a similarly-sized economy of large firms.

I write from personal experience, having spent half my career in global corporations, and more than a decade running an SME. You only need to look at sectors like energy and banking in the UK to see the economic and moral case for smaller firms writ very large indeed.

Matthew Rhodes, Leamington Spa, Warwickshire

The changing Catholic Church

As another former altar server of the early 1960s and now a priest for over 30 years, I can say that John Walsh’s article “The Francis factor” (4 February) does have some vague echoes of the truth in it for me, though like much media portrayal of the Catholic Church, it is more caricature than reality. I believe the Catholic Church he recalls had begun to change long before Pope Francis came along.

“Catholics love being told what to do,” John Walsh says. Well that may be true for some strict conservatives or older Catholics, but a clergy-conducted tour of life is not what most Catholics want, in my experience.

They know that I do not have the answers to all their questions, and they do not expect me to provide them; moreover, they appreciate my honesty when I tell them that. They may see me as a leader, but they also see me as a companion in the journey of faith, as much in search of what is good and true as they are.

Simple dirigiste answers to complex moral issues are neither what they want nor what they get, from me or most of my colleagues, but rather advice and guidance as best we can give it in the light of the Gospel.

I hope Pope Francis continues to foster the many changes which the Catholic Church is undergoing for the better, but it would be as wrong to credit him with too much, as it would be to have too great an expectation of what he might achieve.

Canon Terence Carr, Prestatyn, Denbighshire

Multi-tasking  at the wheel

Recent letters remind me that in 1955, while driving my first car (an ancient Austin 7) along a straight road, I steered with my knees while rubbing a flake of tobacco and filling a pipe; neither of these two operations can be performed in an agitated fashion, so you will understand that the road was deserted and the car was travelling at its cruising speed of 25mph. The lighting of the pipe also needed, briefly, two hands.

What a mad, happy world it was in those carefree, traffic-free days.

Ted Clark, Leamington Spa, Warwickshire

At last, a banker we don’t hate

I would like to praise the chief executive of Barclays Bank, Antony Jenkins, who turned down a massive bonus. He is truly a man of honour, which in banking is a very rare breed. I think it is only right to let him know that the general public does take notice and remember the actions of  such people, just as they never forget the actions of grabbers who take unjustified bonuses.

Dave Croucher, Doncaster

Times:

Sir, Louise Ellman, chair of the Transport Select Committee, has said that everyone in the country will benefit from HS2. I wonder how taxpayers in Plymouth and Exeter feel about this project when, even at the best of times, the rail journey from Exeter to Plymouth takes over an hour, and the M5 stops at Exeter. Now, of course, they are marooned.

I suggest that HS2’s £42 billion could be better spent on satisfactory transport links to the South West and other benighted communities.

Elizabeth Balsom

London SW15

Sir, On Nov 10, 2010, Norman Baker, the Transport Minister, told MPs that “Network Rail does not believe that the railway sea defences in the Dawlish area are likely to fail in the foreseeable future, thanks to the works carried out and ongoing maintenance and monitoring.”

It is time to reinstate the missing 20 miles of track on the old inland London & South Western line between Exeter and Plymouth. This would maintain rail connections to Cornwall, provide rail links to Okehampton and Tavistock, relieve road congestion, and boost tourism.

Jonathan Neil-Smith

Guildford

Sir, This is not the first storm to close the line at Dawlish, though it used not to matter so much as there was an alternative route via Okehampton and over Dartmoor. Indeed Southern and the GWR used to run one train a day over each other’s line so that crews were familiar with the route. Sadly when accountants close public services they never take into account the costs of disruption over the years.

Bryan Simmons

Bratton, Wilts

Sir, The mainline to the west of England was only built along the sea front at Dawlish because Brunel could not get agreement from the landowners to his preferred inland route. Now is the time to take this weak link out of the network once and for all and to reroute this section of the line. Re-establishing of this vital link is of national importance. Surely the enhanced planning powers recently announced to expedite the approval of critical projects can be used to accelerate this crucial project?

Tom King

Lymington, Hants

Sir, Damage to the main West of England railway line at Dawlish will take several weeks to repair, but violent winter storms like the one that caused that damage are likely to become commonplace in future. Perhaps those who protested in vain against the closure of the alternative line between Exeter and Plymouth via Okehampton in the late 1960s had a point?

John Chapman

Hythe, Kent

Sir, The railway along the South Devon coast may have reached the end of its useful life. The 30 miles west of Newton Abbot, in terms of curvature and gradient — long stretches are inclined at between 1 in 36 and 1 in 42 — is the most vicious main line in Britain. The ideal solution would be a new line between Exeter and Plymouth, inland to avoid Dawlish yet serving also Torbay directly, which the present line does not. With a new bridge over the Tamar to replace Brunel’s near life-expired 1859 Royal Albert Bridge, rail travel to and from South Devon and Cornwall would be revolutionised.

Robert H. Foster

Winterburn, N Yorks

Telegraph:

SIR – The England and Wales Cricket Board has compounded the problems that face English cricket, following the disastrous tour Down Under, by dismissing Kevin Pietersen.

SIR – The medieval assemblage of ecclesiastical buildings still in use for their original purpose at Wells is the most complete and unspoilt in England.

SIR – Why does Baroness Morgan of Huyton think that retired politicians are suitable to run large organisations? To do so requires managerial and commercial skills, which most politicians conspicuously lack.

Irish Times:

Sir, – Michael McCullough (February 7th) wonders how the Dutch can manage to live safely in Groningen, at 5.2 metres below sea level, when we have such difficulty with a wee drop of rain filling our rivers.

The difference is that the Dutch, unlike the Irish, ensure that the land they build on is well protected from flooding before their planning departments grant planning permission to build. – Yours, etc,

DAVID DORAN,

Royal Oak Road,

Bagenalstown,

Co Carlow.

A chara, – For many years climate scientists have been predicting an increase in extreme weather globally as the planet heats up.

As Ireland is hit with its own extreme weather and flooding causing untold misery and expense, is it too much to  hope that decision-makers and all of us will wake up to the need to get real about addressing climate change and building infrastructure for this new reality?

Meanwhile , I note an interesting offering in my local supermarket. Blackberries flown all the way from Mexico are now available in Irish shops. Spot the connection, anyone? – Yours, etc,

CLAIRE OAKES,

Bellinter,

Navan, Co Meath.

Sir, – Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan’s assertion that some parts of our coastline could be surrendered to the sea because “We’re in an era where we have finite resources” (Front Page, February 6th), rings hollow.

Financial resources would seem to take preference over our natural resources. It’s a very sad and short-sighted perspective, giving little hope to those who live in our coastal areas and give generously of their own time and energy to build a tourism product that makes a significant contribution to the national economy. – Yours, etc,

CORMAC MEEHAN,

Main Street,

Bundoran, Co Donegal.

A chara, – The draft contract for providing free medical services for children under six is an aspirational document. It is difficult to argue with its aims in seeking to move healthcare away from treating illnesses to prevention. Most if not all family doctors would support this.

It is also a radical document. The administrative burden in this 60-page document would seem to preclude family doctors from having the time to see any sick people, which is radical.

Given that Ireland has the second lowest number of family doctors per capita in the OECD (approximately two-thirds of what we need) and many practices are severely stretched to manage the existing workload, it does not seem credible that this contract could be introduced without having a detrimental effect on patient access and safety.

In the UK patients wait approximately two-three weeks to see a GP and they have over four times the funding that we have, (2 per cent of health care budget here versus 9 per cent). Unfortunately the contract also contains a “gagging clause” that will prevent us from highlighting these safety issues and advocating for our patients for fear of “denigrating” the HSE.

It makes one wonder if they should have discussed it with the various GP organisations before they drafted it rather than discussing it afterwards. – Yours, etc,

SÉAMUS McMENAMIN,

Family Doctor,

Baile Atha Luimnigh,

An Uaimh,

Sir, – Ned Monaghan writes (February 3rd) that “typically, Catholic children in America are educated in their Christian faith through Sunday school after church, or daily after school”.

He does not mention the comprehensive Catholic school system (both elementary and high schools) which exists throughout the US.

Moreover, these schools are for the most part highly regarded and indeed enjoy the admiration of educationists both Catholic and others alike. I presume this omission to be an oversight on Mr Monaghan’s part, but it may be useful to remind readers of this large and significant strand in the US school system. – Yours, etc,

TOM STACK,

Milltown Road.

Dublin 6.

Sir, – I read Frank McNally’s entertaining article (An Irishman’s Diary, February 7th) on Freud and the origins of the quote that the Irish are impervious to psychoanalysis. The article mentioned that Freud had apparently split his psychoanalysis into two categories: the Irish and non-Irish.

Many years ago I did a student exchange in Kollegium Kalksburg in Vienna, where I was improving my German. One morning while speaking to my Austrian friends in class about things Irish people liked to do, I referred to “Die Iren” which I understood to mean “the Irish”. For reasons unknown to me at the time, this caused a lot of laughter among my classmates.

It was finally explained to me that “irre” in German means mad or crazy and that my pronunciation was more like “die irren”, which in German means the lunatics or the madmen.

It seems to me that Freud’s distinction was most likely between the “mad” and the “non-mad” rather than “Irish” and “non-Irish” but of course, the big joke for my classmates was that to them, the term was interchangeable! – Yours, etc,

KEVIN LYNCH,

Iona Avenue,

Drumcondra, Dublin 9.

Sir, – Conor Pope writes that the internet site, which promulgated it round the world, has no responsibility for “the neknomination craze” and its tragic consequences (Opinion, February 7th). The fact that more money is made as a result of what happened tells us where the responsibility lies.

The bigger the outrage and the more tragic the consequences the more publicity there is for the site.

Conor Pope, however, reduces the blame to “the twin forces of drink and idiocy”. It goes much deeper than that.

The internet chat sites cultivate our sense of entitlement to the level of the moronic. Their owners are billionaires as a result.

Contrary to Conor Pope’s assertion, therefore, the self-obsessed, self-indulgent, arrogant, intolerant sense of entitlement, cultivated by internet mass media, is the responsibility of those who are benefiting from it. – Yours, etc,

A LEAVY,

Shielmartin Drive,

Sutton, Dublin 13.

Sir, – Fintan O’Toole’s article (Opinion, February 4th) contains two flaws. First his claim that motive and intention make no difference when it comes to questions of justice and equality does not stand up to the scrutiny of history. Our understanding of justice and equality is what it is today because of the motives and intentions of those in previous generations who worked for change. We would not know what we now know or stand where we now stand were it not for their motives and intentions. Motives and intentions always matter.

Second, he seems unaware that it is not just Aristotle and Lincoln who are prisoners of the systems and structures of their times – Fintan O’Toole is too. There is no high tower for 21st-century newspaper columnists that allows them to deliberate outside of their own inherited structures. Like the rest of us, Fintan O’Toole is a prisoner of his moment and place in the big story. Time will show whether all or any of our ideas and beliefs were of long-term value. In the meantime, motive and intention will continue to matter a great deal in determining the shape of the justice structures we leave from our moment in history. – Yours, etc,

SEÁN MULLAN,

Smithfield Markets,

Dublin 7.

A chara, – To those of us who lived through vilification by the Roman Catholic right in the 1980s “culture wars” an accusation of homophobia might seem positively mild.

We were told we were “anti life” in the run-up to the so called Pro Life Amendment. We were told we were “anti family” during the debate on the first divorce referendum. We “cared nothing for the welfare of children” at the time when Barry Desmond was introducing fairly innocuous amendments to our family planning legislation. And we were advocates of “perversion” when we called for the repeal of anti-gay legislation. More recently a Fianna Fáil politician accused us of having “spat in the face of Christ”, though that was under Oireachtas privilege.

We never sued. Pity. I know lots of good causes that might have benefited! – Yours, etc,

BRENDAN RYAN, (Senator

1981-93, 97-07),

The Orchards,

Montenotte, Cork.

Sir, – Having listened to the eloquent and moving speech delivered from the stage of the Abbey Theatre, I wonder if Panti Bliss could be persuaded to run for public office just as she is, without having to check herself at the traffic lights. – Yours, etc,

MIKE LAWLOR,

Admiralty Way,

Teddington,

Middlesex, England.

Sir, – It is unfortunate that the debate about same-sex marriage in this country has begun in earnest with a series of claims and counter-claims about personal attitudes and beliefs. What is really needed at this point in time is a critical national dialogue about the social norms, assumptions, and structures that foster (sometimes unknowingly) discrimination and oppression on the grounds of sexual orientation and/or gender identity. This will require a great deal of individual and collective soul-searching.

Ultimately, the question we must ask ourselves is whether we believe that some in our society should be relegated to second-class citizenship simply for being true to who they are. Or, on the contrary, do we believe that Irish society should be an inclusive community that treats all people equally regardless of gender, sexual orientation or attraction? – Yours, etc,

LAURENCE DAVIS,

Parnell Road, Dublin 12.

Sir, – The Government recently changed employment permit rules for non-EEA (European Economic Area) doctors, and now charges them €1,000 per year, every year, for the privilege of working here. Currently our health service is heavily reliant on their skill, care and professionalism to keep basic front-line services running and emergency departments open.

Many will resent paying, choose to join colleagues who have already left this country for better conditions abroad, and spread the word about Ireland’s increasing unattractiveness for non-EEA doctors. As a result, when the HSE finds recruitment for our hospitals even more difficult at the next NCHD changeover this July, could anyone really be surprised? – Yours, etc,

Dr THOMAS Mac MAHON,

Emergency Department

Registrar,

St Vincent’s University

Sir, – Eamonn McCann’s latest attack on Israel (“Everyone is an anti-Semite for Israel’s ultra-Zionists”, Opinion, February 6th) conveniently ignores the fact Israel is the only UN member that Iran has threatened with annihilation.

Are Israelis right to detect anti-Semitism at work when they are uniquely singled out for criticism? Stephen Harper, the Canadian Prime Minister made this point in a speech to the Knesset on January 20th: “Of course, criticism of Israeli government policy is not in and of itself necessarily anti-Semitic. But what else can we call criticism that selectively condemns only the Jewish state and effectively denies its right to defend itself while systematically ignoring – or excusing – the violence and oppression all around it?”

What are we to make of the fact that in recent months McCann has written three entire columns criticising Israel or Israelis in the strongest terms? I don’t recall a single one in a similar vein about North Korea. He devoted one column to Saudi Arabia and his few references to Iran seem quite muted in comparison to those about the world’s only Jewish state, a country the size of Wales.

Why does he take at face value statements by Iran? This is a country long-practised in the Shia doctrine of taqiyya, a form of dissimulation not unlike the “mental reservation” so often deployed in the past by the princes of the Roman Catholic Church. Iran supports Bashar al-Assad and arms and finances Hezbollah and Hamas. Iran stones women to death and hangs sexually abused girls like Atefah Sahaaleh, dissidents and homosexuals from construction cranes so that they slowly choke to death. This continues under the so-called “moderate” President Hassan Rouhani. – Yours, etc,

KARL MARTIN,

Bayside Walk,

Bayside,

Sir, – The large map illustrating the article “Mapping the past: old worlds being opened up by technology” (Science, February 6th) is said to show a Swedish attack in Germany. This attribution is not correct. In fact it depicts the fateful siege by the Swedish army of the Norwegian fortress Fredriksten in 1718.

Fateful, because it was during this siege that the Swedish King Charles XII was shot. His death resulted not only in abandoning the siege and the army’s retreat from Norway, but it also effectively ended Swedish Great Power ambitions in Europe.

Norway was at that time under the Danish crown, and King Charles war in Norway was thus in reality a war against Denmark, then a long-time Swedish arch enemy. – Yours, etc,

PETER OSVALD,

Stepaside Park, Dublin 18.

Sir, – Chris Connolly (Opinion, February 7th), states, “*Some prefer a broader definition: any actions that differentiate between people on account of sexual orientation must be homophobic, just as any actions that differentiate between people on account of race must be racist.”

Substitute discriminate for differentiate and that would be a definition which would then properly frame the debate. – Yours, etc,

GERRY MOLLOY

Bellevue Road,

Glenageary, Co Dublin.

Sir, – I did not interrupt you . . . – Yours, etc,

RONAN CAHILL,

Moyne Road,

Ranelagh,

Dublin 6.

Sir, – Garth Brooks, yet another date added. – Yours, etc,

AOIFE SOMERS,

Park Lane,

Sandymount,

Dublin 4.

Sir, – “Very unique”, “More unique”, “Most unique”. Really? – Yours, etc,

PAUL LENNON,

Lisnagade Road,

Banbridge,

Co Down.

Irish Independent:

* The recent report issued by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has said what many within and beyond Ireland have long felt: that the Vatican protected the perpetrators of child abuse at the expense of the victims.

Also in this section

Ireland’s calling out for a new rugby anthem

Letters: Why are we paying debts already written off?

Letters: Instead of reforming HSE we get stealth tax

Weighing up the evidence from across Europe and elsewhere, this conclusion was inevitable. On the heels of the Strasbourg ruling in the O’Keeffe v Ireland case, reflective of the Ryan, Murphy and Clones inquiries into clerical child abuse in Ireland, there are now substantive findings that the Catholic Church, like other religious organisations, perpetuated a code of silence to preserve the reputation of the church and the clergy.

This need not be interpreted as anti-Vatican clergy-bashing but an opportunity for the church to make good on its promises to co-operate with secular authorities on behalf of children.

The underlying issues are too important for the church to now play the part of victim. By removing all paedophiles from its ranks and reporting them to law-enforcement agencies, it helps ensure existing and future school children can be educated and trained in a safe environment.

Rather than seeing inquiry recommendations as undermining the authority of the Vatican, this is the time to place children’s welfare above the institutional church because the message so far is that the Vatican has not taken seriously the significance of child abuse and the need to implement robust structures to prevent further instances.

By making concrete changes in the way the church handles abuse cases and putting some muscle into its own commission on child abuse, it has the chance to claim some moral authority and enter a new era in protecting the most vulnerable within its parish.

MARIE PARKER-JENKINS

PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF LIMERICK

NO ANTHEM CHANGE

* On reading Richard Gallagher’s letter (February 7), one might be forgiven for thinking that the anthem of Ireland is in some doubt. It is, of course, ‘Amhran na bhFiann’. It is not ‘Ireland’s Call’ or any other ditty.

The historic name of Lansdowne Road has been replaced by the name of an insurance company and our national flag appears to have morphed into a mobile phone advertisement. A second draft of our national anthem is not needed and if our proud sporting history is diluted anymore by so-called sponsors, then the Irish rugby team may become unrecognisable.

RORY O’CALLAGHAN

CEANNT FORT, KILMAINHAM

ECONOMIC UPHEAVAL

* The Government announced the establishment of LEO, Local Enterprise Office, with branches embedded in every local authority and 210 dedicated staff to combat the problem of unemployment.

Laudable aspirations but the equivalent of sandbags to combat climate change. There is general agreement that climate change is a reality of the present, which must be adapted to. There is an even greater change occurring in economic activity, certainly in the short term, but the world refuses to acknowledge, adapt to or talk about such things.

Economic activity has changed greatly in the past two centuries; the genius and success of invention and innovation have immeasurably improved the lot of the human race.

Progress has come from subsistence, misery and a struggle for survival to a world of longevity, lush abundance, security and choice. It has been a rollercoaster of ideas, invention, building, production, innovation, work and constant growth.

World population has increased multi-fold and well-being and affluence surpass even the wildest dreams of the most optimistic throughout the ages. But the very success of all that hectic activity is the factor that is bringing that phase of economic activity to a close.

Most, if not all, the ambitions of economics have been achieved. The world can now produce everything it wants or desires in great abundance.

Technology achieved its enormous production power by eliminating dependence on human labour. The tyrant of hard, backbreaking, soul-destroying work is banished forever.

The tragedy and great danger is that as technology improves, an increasing number will never be allowed work at all if the world fails to change its ideology on work. Work to be done has always been the catalyst for creating jobs. Employment precipitated wages and the increasing number who no longer eked out a subsistence living for themselves secured an entitlement to share in the communal wealth of the world.

As long as there was sufficient work, there was adequate employment to sustain coherent society. If we persist with the work/job ideology of history, there will not be enough work. The world must regard employment as a method of distributing wealth with dignity rather than a prerequisite for creating wealth.

PADRAIC NEARY

TUBBERCURRY, CO SLIGO

BAN ON SLAPPING

* In Miriam Donohoe’s article entitled ‘Parents need support in raising children, not a ban on slapping them’ (Irish Independent, February 7), she asserts (from external research) that children will grow into well adjusted adults if their parents are firm disciplinarians and slapping is done within an authoritative parenting style. However, this is a contradiction in itself.

An authoritative parenting style is defined as one where parents listen to their children, encourage independence and place fair limits and consequences on their children’s behaviours. Any discipline under the authoritative parenting style is measured and consistent, it is not arbitrary or violent (Santrock, JW 2007).

If slapping occurs as a common form of punishment then the parenting style can be more accurately described as “authoritarian”.

The authoritarian parenting style is obedience-orientated where orders are expected to be followed without explanation. Punishments are used rather than discipline, and the breaking of rules results in immediate punishment. This particular style of parenting often results in children displaying aggression, lower levels of self-esteem and a tendency to associate obedience with love.

Overly punitive responses (including slapping), regularly used within the authoritarian parenting style, do not allow a child to feel nurtured.

The ISPCC wants to see an Ireland where all children are listened to and valued. But what value do we place on our children if we feel the need to slap them in response to our own frustrations at their behaviours?

The ISPCC and the Children’s Rights Alliance are calling on the Government to introduce a ban on slapping and to run a positive parenting campaign where parents can access information on the more effective alternatives to slapping.

ANDREW JACKSON

NATIONAL ANTI-BULLYING CO-ORDINATOR, ISPCC,

LOWER BAGGOT STREET, DUBLIN 2,

WATER WASTE

* Back in the day, when the gentry were in control and the peasant population got too large to keep under the boot, they would pack a lot of them on to sail ships and transport them to the other side of the planet.

Our island is suffering under a plague of too much water. I suggest the Government should contact hot places where there is a chronic shortage of water and offer to transport tanker-loads of our surplus water to their ports for a reasonable price.

I can see just one snag here: the Government would decide it would be a good idea to call in consultants, who would come up with a report in five years at a cost of zillions that would suggest that it’s too early to come to a decision but that we should bring in consultants from abroad.

Then the foreign consultants would finally issue a report, costing trillions, which would state that water cannot be carried in sea-going tankers at this time. And Fianna Fail, putting on a straight face, would accuse the Government of wasting taxpayers’ money.

PADDY O’BRIEN

BALBRIGGAN, CO DUBLIN

Irish Independent

9 February 2014 Sharland
I go all the way around the park listening to the Navy Lark. Our heroes are in trouble, again. An old Flame of Captain Povey’s reappears  Priceless.
Sharland comes to visit a bit more work done upstairs, phones and 1 monitor picked up.
Scrabble today Mary wins, just.  and get under 400, Perhaps I will win tomorrow.

Obituary:

Andrew Stuart, who has died aged 85, oversaw the fraught transfer to independence of the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) during the so-called “Coconut War” with France; he also had long experience as an African colonial and post-colonial administrator, and was later Britain’s Ambassador to Finland.
The Coconut War erupted when Stuart was forced to quell a rebellion by bow-and-arrow-wielding cargo-cult devotees on the eve of Vanuatu’s independence in July 1980. At his request 200 Royal Marines of 42 Commando were sent to the South Pacific island nation by Margaret Thatcher from their base in Plymouth.
Stuart then ensured that the Marines stayed for three weeks after July 30, independence day, paving the way for a successful peacekeeping operation by troops invited in from Papua New Guinea by Vanuatu’s first independent Prime Minister, Walter Lini.

Stuart and his colleagues believed that, had they not acted as they did, Vanuatu might have remained a colony – in the hands of the French. The French and British had been partners since 1906 in the 74-year-old “condominium”, or dual system of government, that prevailed in the 80 volcanic islands scattered across 500 miles of sea.
As the British Marines set off, French paratroopers were travelling to the same destination from a far closer base, France’s New Caledonia possession only 300 miles to the east. The cargo cult rebellion, led by the bearded, semi-literate Jimmy Stevens on the New Hebrides’ Santo island, caused tension between the two European rivals right up to the moment when the last colonial flag was lowered.
Stevens, a Melanesian “Big Man” and leader of the francophone “Nagriamel” cult, was objecting to the election in 1979 of Father Lini, an Anglican priest, and his English-speaking Vanuaaku Pati party to lead Vanuatu’s first independent government.
In protest, Stevens and his near-naked henchmen occupied Luganville, an old American Second World War base with an airstrip, 20 miles south of Stevens’s settlement of Vanafo, where, with promises of jeeps and refrigerators in return for wives, he had established his “Republic of Vemarana”.
Stuart became convinced that his Gallic counterpart, Inspecteur-General Jean-Jacques Robert, and others egged on by ministers in Paris, were supporting Stevens’s rebellion with the aim of holding on to the colony for France
Stuart stood 6ft 7in tall (loftier still in his red and white, cockatoo-plumed Governor’s sola topi) and loomed above the dapper Insp-Gen Robert (even in his képi). For two years after their arrival in 1978, the two men had struggled from their separate residencies to remain on good terms despite the differing demands of their masters in London and Paris.
But as independence approached, Stuart repeatedly found that Robert was taking action in day-to-day affairs without informing him. Further violence, and the shooting dead of a French-speaker on Tanna island (where a different cargo cult revered the Duke of Edinburgh), convinced the French that the British had been planning a coup de maître based on the prestige of the British Royal family, to wield continuing influence in the region. A lengthy French memorandum detailing this purported British scheme was found left behind after independence.
As July 30 neared, the French asserted that their newly-arrived paratroopers had so calmed the situation that no British military force was required. But Stuart insisted to London that the Marines, by then in Hawaii, should continue to the New Hebrides’ capital Port Vila. Stuart unilaterally changed the airstrip regulations to allow the Marines’ extra-heavy VC10 to land.
But the arrival of the Marines at the scene of Stevens’s rebellion was preceded by a secret visit to Stevens by Insp-Gen Robert. The two men had agreed that the British forces — who were expecting to be opposed on landing — would instead be greeted at the airfield by dancing girls with garlands of bougainvillea.
The Marines then came under French command, and were restricted to guarding the only remaining colonial flagpole, while the rebels whooped unchecked. A few Marines nevertheless managed quietly to slip away under cover of darkness to destroy Stevens’s separate Vemarana flagpole and flag by slicing through the metal shaft.
Stuart wrought his final act of diplomacy, and triumph over his French rival, by removing his glasses when faced with a letter from Father Lini (also sent to Robert) which ordered the expulsion of both French and British forces. Stuart was thus able, while apparently still ignorant of the letter’s contents, later to offer the transitional services of the Marines to the new state, which Lini accepted.
Andrew Christopher Stuart was born at Ludlow, Shropshire, on November 30 1928, the son of the Rt Rev Cyril Edgar Stuart, Anglican Bishop of Uganda, and his wife Mary Summerhayes. He was educated at Bryanston School in Dorset before reading Law at Clare College, Cambridge. After National Service in the Royal Navy he joined the Colonial Administrative Service in Uganda in 1953, staying on for a further three years after independence in 1962.
He was awarded the Colonial Police Medal in 1961 for obtaining the arrest of a spear-wielding, self-styled “prophet”, Kigaanira, by climbing up a hazardous rock while distracting the troublemaker with the polite reciprocal greetings of the local language, Luganda.
After being called to the Bar by Middle Temple in 1965, Stuart joined the Diplomatic Service, and was posted as First Secretary and Head of Chancery in Helsinki, Finland, until 1968. He joined the Asian Department, and by 1972 was head of the Hong Kong and Indian Ocean Department, before serving as counsellor in Jakarta, Indonesia, until 1978.
He was appointed CMG in 1979.
After leaving the New Hebrides, Stuart served as Ambassador to Finland until 1983 . He retired from the Diplomatic Service that year and until 1990 was Principal of the United World College of the Atlantic in Wales. His book Of Cargoes, Colonies and Kings was published in 2001.
In 2004 Stuart was one of the 52 distinguished diplomats who signed a letter composed by the then ambassador to Libya, Oliver Miles, deploring the Middle Eastern policymaking of the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
Stuart married first, in 1959, Patricia Kelly, whom he had met in Uganda and with whom he had two sons and a daughter. She died in 2008, and he met his second wife, Susan Lines (née Houghton-Brown), while giving lectures on a cruise ship. They married in 2010, and visited his old haunts in Vanuatu and in Uganda, where in 2012 they attended the 50th anniversary celebrations of independence.
Andrew Stuart is survived by his wife, and by the three children of his first marriage.
Andrew Stuart, born November 30 1928, died January 27 2014

Guardian:

You carried two articles about the forthcoming referendum on Scottish independence in last week’s Observer: the first by Daniel Boffey (“‘They say that Scotland and England have different values. But that’s not true’”, News) and the second by Will Hutton (“Stay united and Scotland could be key to a better, fairer Britain”, Comment), both of which focus on difference or the lack of it and the uses to which it might be profitably put.
In Boffey’s article, Alistair Carmichael asserts that the Yes campaign has turned nasty. He does this by association and by inference but with no hard facts.
He really ought to have reflected that Better Together, the No campaign, has been negative from the off with its self-titled Project Fear, designed less to promote the union than to scaremonger the imagined downsides of independence.
But perhaps more pertinently his interview contained not a single word on why he believes we would be better together other than some unprovable – either way – statements of shared values. It’s not about whether the values are shared or not, it’s how grown-ups make grown-up decisions for themselves based on those values.
Hutton, disappointingly, has joined the ranks of a number of English centre-left commentators who of late have asserted the need for Scotland to remain in the union to redress some of the union’s perceived failings.
Hutton implies that there is a different value system at work in Scotland that, with Scotland retained within the union, will support a frustrated English centre-left project. It can hardly be the function of Scotland to save England from the English.
Are we to understand, then, that the union’s shared values offer nothing to Scotland but more of the same, or that Scotland must remain in the union so that its different values will enable it to become the union’s (England’s) conscience, pace Hutton?
Ye’re haein a laff.
Roger Emmerson
Edinburgh
Will Hutton makes several cogent points as to why a growing number of “we in Scotland” feel the need for independence. He then makes one very bad point and draws a false conclusion.
First, the bad point. He argues that underpinning the drive towards independence is some kind of atavistic anti-Englishness. That’s an argument best consigned to the dustbin of 70s history, along with the other one about the SNP being “tartan Tories”. I know this because I made the same charges myself as a Labour party member at that time.
More importantly, however, having identified some of the drivers of the independence debate, he then fails to follow the logic and in effect tells us to hang on for something better. We were told that at the time of the Thatcher/Major governments, so we hung on and we got Blair, who in essence continued on the same track. To quote the Who: “Won’t get fooled again”.
Donald John MacInnes
Glasgow
The Scottish secretary argues that England and Scotland share the same values.
That may largely be true but something overriding that is the different directions in which the two societies are heading. England becomes increasingly Eurosceptic, has little desire to check growing inequality, is anti-immigrant, suspicious of welfare and big government, panders to a divided education system and tends to favour age over youth.
Scotland, under a popular SNP government, pursues different policies. Most significant is the consensus growing round ways to tackle inequality at its root, by taking back for the community what the community has created and has not been earned by an individual, namely the increase in land value.
Here lies the ratchet that benefits the rich and impoverishes the rest of us. Voting “no” would leave Scotland in the hands of prejudices it does not like.
Alan Laurie
Ludlow

This winter’s extreme floods prove how vital it is that the government gets a strategic grip on flood planning. The places hit hardest, including the southwest’s main rail link and the Somerset Levels, have been known to be vulnerable for decades and in need of sustainable long-term plans to reduce flood risk. The contrast with the east coast, where, despite some damage, careful planning prevented a repeat in December of 1953′s horrific coastal flooding, is telling. The government’s climate change committee spelled out that we need to start planning seriously for higher seas and heavier rainfall.
It is frustrating to see politicians criticising the Environment Agency, which has the vital role of working alongside local communities to find solutions to these huge challenges. Ultimately, it is governments that have set the policies that have hamstrung flood planning in some vulnerable areas: allowing homes to be built and failing to make both homes and farmland more resilient to floods. Cuts to the Environment Agency merely risk reducing it from a flood-management body to an emergency response service and making future floods even more damaging.
Mark Lloyd
Chief executive, Angling Trust
Martin Harper
Conservation director, RSPB
Martin Spray
Chief executive, Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust
Stephen Trotter, Director for England, The Wildlife Trusts
Bring back rent controls
Even if we discourage foreign oligarchs from buying up properties, it will be little consolation to working Londoners to know that in future they will be squeezed out of living space by good old, native, tax-avoiding, mega-rich Brits. In the end, the only workable solutions are: firm control of rents (as in pre-Thatcher days); money made available to restore existing empty social housing stock; a geographically based system of land value tax (Vince Cable’s mansion tax is too unwieldy); forcing councils to use existing empty dwelling management orders. And all this before we concrete over another square foot of our green and pleasant land. The options are continuing boom and bust, economic and employment dysfunction and eventual social breakdown.
David Redshaw
Gravesend, Kent
Legal aid cuts lead to injustice
The shameful decision to deny public funding to the father of a 15-year-old boy who died in a prison cell is not an isolated case (“Legal aid: indefensible cuts”, Editorial). Inquest is seeing the impact of legal aid cuts in a pattern of decisions where traumatised bereaved families, involved in a complex process about which they have no choice, are increasingly denied funding, given very limited funding or required to make large contributions so that their questions can be asked. The protracted and intrusive process frequently leaves funding decisions to the last minute causing further unnecessary distress.
Contrast this with the public funding provided to teams of lawyers representing the interests of the prison service, healthcare providers and other local or national government agencies, often present together at the one inquest.
Any justice system needs to ensure equal access to justice for all. Where someone dies in the care of or at the hands of the state this is fundamental. The inquest is usually the only public forum in which custodial deaths are subjected to any public scrutiny.
Deborah Coles and Helen Shaw
Co-directors, Inquest, London N4
Religion’s role in causing war
Tony Blair’s article (“Religious difference, not ideology, will fuel this century’s epic battles”, Comment) prompted widespread debate on the issue of religion and conflict. Philip G Cerny (Big Issue) concedes that religion is a factor, but he is incorrect to imply that it is always secondary. And even if that were the case, a secondary factor can still be an important one.
Around the world, the numbers of those identifying as religious continues to increase. A third of countries in 2012 experienced high levels of religious hostility, according to the Pew Research Centre. In all, 44 civil wars between 1940 and 2010 were classed as religious according to research by leading professors and fellows in the publication God’s Century: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics. In 2014, a number of countries, including Nigeria, Syria, Burma and Thailand, are experiencing elements of religious tension.
If we accept that religion is even a factor worth considering in this context then we must seek a better understanding of the role it is playing. As a foundation, we seek to fill this void.
Charlotte Keenan
Chief executive, Tony Blair Faith Foundation, London W2
Sugar – like it or lump it
The problem with added sugar is that it is the last of the trio of junk food components that make poor quality food taste seductive (“Food crusaders’ new challenge: cut sugar to save NHS £50bn a year”, News). Now that some reductions in fat and salt have been achieved, food manufacturers will do anything in their power to resist controls on sugar content. If they fail, then junk food will be revealed for what it is – tasteless and barely edible.
Peter Deadman
Hove, Sussex

Independent:

The article “Ignore Brand and vote, teens urged” (2 February) fails to “engage with” Brand’s insights (and with the frustration of those who care but feel impotent).
The electoral reform movement puts forward conflicting messages:
1. They inform us that the vast majority of us would be wasting our time voting (because current voting processes will ignore most our votes).
2. They urge us all to register and vote.
Teens are not fools. They will not buy this muddled pair of messages. Brand is right in his analysis, however, he failed to provide a constructive alternative. The electoral reform movement should promote the following strategy:
1. Urge citizens to register (to show you care, and want to engage).
2. Urge citizens to vote (to show you care, and so on).
3. Urge citizens to spoil their votes (to show your disgust and that you want to engage).
4. Campaign for legislation to force official results of elections to include “voted but spoiled”, “registered but did not vote”, and “eligible but did not register” in addition to the votes cast.
5. Until the state enforces honest reporting of results, the electoral reform movement should join forces to calculate/estimate and republish honest versions of each result, so that all those registering, voting, and spoiling will know that their actions will be recorded and reported (they may well be shown together to have “won” many elections).
6. The Independent newspapers should lead this campaign, should recruit ambassadors, and should publish the honest versions of the election results (as above) as part of that campaign.
Tim Knight
Bristol
Very refreshing to read such an intelligent, honest essay on the general refusal to tackle climate change (Paul Vallely, 2 February). The ruling class would never willingly tolerate re-ordering a financial system that entailed ceasing to make money the arbiter of all things. An alternative, sane economic system would weigh economic outcomes in terms of the well-being of the earth and all living beings. Destructive fantasies of limitless growth measured in GDP or any other numerical yardstick that waves a triumphant flag in the middle of a wasted world would be anathema.
Derek Robertson
Gateshead, Tyne and Wear
When Dr Beeching so ruthlessly closed many of the branch lines of the wonderful rail network that had taken years to construct, many thought he was acting in too much haste without any thought to the future.
The concerns shown at the time have now been illustrated perfectly with the problem currently facing railway travellers in the South-west.
If Dr Beeching had not closed so many other lines in Devon there would be alternative routes from London to Plymouth and Cornwall, avoiding the line running by the sea and through Dawlish.
Colin Bower
Nottingham
It is plain wrong to tell customers “not to bother growing plants in peat-free compost” (“For peat’s sake…”, 2 February).
Green composts can provide the same level of nutrients while controlling liverwort in container-grown shrubs and without the need to add chemical wetting agents. Crucially, they help divert green waste from landfill, preventing methane emissions which damage the climate. But it is vital that customers know how to distinguish quality.
We run the compost and home composting certification schemes. Customers can have confidence in green compost products bearing these logos. The results would be very different if Which? repeated the exercise using only certified compost products.
Jeremy Jacobs
Technical director, Organics Recycling Group, Renewable Energy Association, London SW1
DJ Taylor is being somewhat churlish about the songs of Pete Seeger (2 February). I agree that some of his lyrics now sound a bit cringeworthy and dated, but he was a child of his time. And just as Haydn inspired the magic of Mozart, so Seeger helped unlock the greatness of Bob Dylan, who took protest songs and music in general to hitherto unimaginable heights.
Stan Labovitch
Windsor, Berkshire
Have your say
Letters to the Editor, The Independent on Sunday, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5HF. Email: sundayletters@independent.co.uk. Online: independent.co.uk/dayinapage/2014/February/9

Times:

THE situation with care workers’ wages is as dire as — or perhaps worse than — Camilla Cavendish suggests (“Tomorrow we shall all suffer for paying care workers so little”, Comment, last week). I have been working as a carer on a zero-hours contract and end up with about the minimum wage. After an interesting and well-paid career this is the most rewarding work I have done.
I fear the article will make little difference as it is not a sexy subject and those who have to rely on the service have by then lost their voices.
Name and address withheld
On the receiving end
I worked in various care homes for eight years and was kicked, spat on and had my hair pulled  by patients. I never once saw abuse by my colleagues. We sat with the dying, washed them and held their hands, but when there were just three of us and 28 patients, time was very limited.
We were paid a pittance and had little respite during 12-hour shifts. Cavendish’s excellent article reveals the demanding job of caring; it is time carers were paid properly and nurtured.
Ellie Targett, Leominster, Herefordshire
Miles apart
Some years ago I did agency care work at local (a 50-mile radius from where I live) residential and nursing homes. I was paid 22p a mile to get to the workplace. Every year I was able, via my tax return, to claim the difference between that sum and the 40p the taxman allowed. An agency care worker who tried to claim recently was told by the Revenue that she was not a professional and couldn’t claim expenses for getting to and from a shift.
Jane Alexander, Appleby-in-Westmorland, Cumbria
Solitary confinement
Loneliness is a big problem facing those who live at home and need substantial care. Ours is one of 122 voluntary groups in Hampshire, with 3,600 volunteers who visit people weekly.
Loneliness often leads to mental health problems and seems to speed up dementia. When carers are so poorly paid and under serious time pressures, they can hardly be expected to spend time chatting.
David Cockshoot, Fareham, Hampshire
Low blow
I own a community care company and over 20 years have witnessed many changes and countless attempts to identify the needs of the elderly to keep them safely in their own homes, but little to establish the needs of the workforce. About 70% of all revenue is spent on the wages of carers and the margins available in the industry are slim.
With the price pressure from local authorities it is always the carers who will suffer, simply because the provider has little or no room to manipulate its profit margin. We now have a situation where recruitment is extremely difficult. The message seems to be that being a carer is not only low-paid and with unsocial hours, but also considered of low value by many because of the bad publicity the industry has attracted.
Morris Schwartz, Reading, Berkshire
Age concern
The timing of Cavendish’s article was apposite: in the following days we heard more about the pitiful and inadequate payments councils are willing to make to independent care agencies. We face a sad and dangerous reality: the nation is ageing and the government is trying to prepare for this with the Care Bill but the problem is already upon us.
The elderly social care system is at risk of collapse unless the government enables councils to pay care providers at a level above the cost of care. While my agency and other ones strive to invest in our staff, most are forced to do as Cavendish describes and lean on the goodwill, patience and sense of personal responsibility of individual carers. That situation is wholly unsustainable.
Paul Dunn-Sims, By email
Off the scale
In a civilised society it is how we care for the weak, disabled and sick that defines us. It is interesting to compare the pay scales for care workers with those of health service managers.
Andrew Montgomery, London SE21
We must slam the diplomatic doors on disrespectful Karzai
MEN and women of the international forces have died and been disfigured in the war in Afghanistan. The despicable comments made by President Hamid Karzai (“Afghan leader ‘scorns’ UK dead”, News, last week, and “Karzai tells US to sling its hook”, World News, January 26) should remind us of the depths to which men of his ilk will sink in their efforts to curry favour with the Taliban.
Is it not time for the niceties of diplomacy to be replaced by table-thumping hard talk? Karzai should be told that when the day of reckoning comes he will not be offered a haven where he can spend his ill-gotten gains.
Gordon Caulfield (former Royal Marine), Coventry
History repeating itself
It is sad, though inevitable, that Karzai scorns what the British Army has done to help his country. I served as a soldier in a similarly futile exercise at the Suez Canal. We slunk out in defeat to the jeers and catcalls of the triumphant Arabs. The casualties were relatively light and the real cost was ignominy.
Had I served in Afghanistan and lost a leg or more, I would not feel philosophical but furious, even betrayed. This conflict — which even a glance at history shows was impossible to win — came about because Tony Blair’s overriding mission was to be invited by George W Bush for a weekend at Camp David.
Jeremy Scott, London SW3

Salmond off track with his promises
DOMINIC LAWSON is wrong to imply that Alex Salmond has promised absolutely everything possible to Scottish voters to entice them to say yes to independence  in September’s referendum (“Perhaps it’s time to start minting some bawbees, Mr Salmond”, Comment, last week). Even this silver-tongued politician has not promised to make the new Edinburgh trams run on time.
Peter Bryson, Ilkley, West Yorkshire
Currency exchange
Lawson was quite correct to ask that Salmond produce a plan B for a Scottish currency. The only quibble I have with the article — as many Scots would — is that the appeal to Salmond in the last sentence should not have read, “Come on, big fella, put your money where your mouth is”, but rather, “Come on, fella, put your money where your big mouth is.”
Phil Johnson, Bishopton, Renfrewshire
Wishful thinking
Salmond’s published statement on how independence would succeed was nothing more than a wish list. So many of his intended “actions” — retaining sterling, keeping the Queen as head of state — are not available to him to decide in the first place.
Geoff Taylor, Pouzols-Minervois France
Prostate benefits of chemotherapy
AS AN oncologist for 40 years I am enthusiastic about the potential benefit of adding enzalutamide to our arsenal of treatments for prostate cancer, which employed in optimal sequences can add years of life for many men. However, in those 40 years I’ve also seen vast improvements in oncology and the chemotherapy drugs available, as well as the near-elimination of nausea or vomiting as a major toxicity. It is striking therefore to find that general perceptions have changed so little and disturbing to find representatives of key prostate charities emphasising the “agony” of, and being “half-killed” by, chemotherapy. This is a disservice to patients, many of whom will still need and benefit from chemotherapy.
Professor Richard Kaplan, MRC Clinical Trials Unit, University College London Hospitals
Splashing out for UK flood defences
THE government is to be congratulated on its decision to allocate a further £130m to repair and restore our country’s flood defences. As independent board members of the Environment Agency we will ensure that the organisation continues to invest these resources in line with government policy.
We have great sympathy for all the victims of flooding and the devastation brought to their lives. We are also concerned that the blame for problems outside the agency’s control is being directed at our chairman, managers and staff.
Robert Light, Peter Ainsworth, Karen Burrows, Emma Howard Boyd, Richard Leafe, John Varley, Jeremy Walker, Independent Board Members, Environment Agency.To see the full letter, go to thesundaytimes.co.uk/letters

Points
Red flag
I enjoyed the article on Bob Crow and his Brazilian holiday (“Basking Crow plots Tube pain from Brazil”, News, last week). While I was shocked to learn that he lives in social housing, despite earning a six-figure wage, perhaps the most enlightening fact was that he sunbathed for three hours without reapplying lotion. Dan Katte, London SW18
Floating voter
Given the choice, would the British public vote for the government to spend billions on a new rail system to clip 32 minutes off the travelling time between London and Birmingham or for a national flood defence infrastructure (“Opening the floodgates”, Focus, last week)?
Charlie Dobson, Bristol
On the menu
India Knight (Comment, last week) could not be more wrong about hospital food. How many people provide in their own homes a choice of four starters, five main meals and three desserts each day for lunch and dinner, plus tea, coffee or Horlicks several times a day? That is the fare at Blackpool Victoria Hospital. The food is nutritious, varied and well cooked, despite the need to provide several hundred meals a day for more than 12 ethnic groups. There is no requirement for Jamie Oliver, thank you.
Dr Barry Clayton, Thornton-Cleveleys, Lancashire
Hole in the art
Thank goodness Waldemar Januszczak does not subscribe to the curatorial nonsense promoting the Martin Creed exhibition at the Hayward (“Kicking against the pricks”, Culture, last week). As visual art Creed’s works are not interesting to look at. As conceptual art they are not interesting to think about. His works are not witty, as David Shrigley’s are, or shocking, as those of the Chapman brothers are, or original like Grayson Perry’s art. It is surely time for the light to be turned off permanently on these icons of vacuity.
Alan Fowler (Art Historian), Winchester, Hampshire
Unhappily ever after
At 76 I have still not fully recovered from the shock in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women books of Jo March refusing “Laurie” Laurence, who then married her spoilt sister Amy, while Jo chose her awful bearded professor (“JK admits Hermione should have wed Harry”, News,  last week). How dare these authors trample on our dreams. JK Rowling apologising does not help.
Pauline Jordan, Southwell, Nottinghamshire
Team player
So David Beckham gets up early, wakes his children and makes their breakfast (“A Life in the Day”, Magazine, last week). He then takes them to school and does the weekly shop. He makes lunch, collects the children and plays games with them after school before cooking dinner. What does Victoria do? Kay Bagon, Radlett, Hertfordshire

Corrections and clarifications
The recipe for Marco Pierre White’s passion fruit soufflé (The Classic, Magazine, last week) stated that the chef had “made headlines for drugs”, suggesting that he uses or has used illicit drugs. This was inserted in error. We accept that Marco Pierre White has not used and does not use drugs and deplores their use. We apologise for suggesting otherwise.
In “Perhaps it’s time to start minting some bawbees, Mr Salmond” (Comment, last week) we stated that Alex Salmond had worked as a Bank of Scotland economist. It was, in fact, the Royal Bank of Scotland. We apologise for the error.
Complaints about inaccuracies in all sections of The Sunday Times, including online, should be addressed to editor@sunday-times.co.uk or The Editor, The Sunday Times, 3 Thomas More Square, London E98 1ST. In addition, the Press Complaints Commission (complaints@pcc.org.uk or 020 7831 0022) examines formal complaints about the editorial content of UK newspapers and magazines (and their websites)

Birthdays
JM Coetzee, author, 74; Mia Farrow, actress, 69; Tom Hiddleston, actor, 33; Carole King, singer, 72; Sandy Lyle, golfer, 56; Barry Mann, songwriter, 75; Joe Pesci, actor, 71; Gordon Strachan, footballer, 57; Dame Janet Suzman, actress, 75; Alice Walker, novelist, 70

Anniversaries
1916 conscription begins in First World War; 1950 Senator Joe McCarthy claims 205 staff in US State Department are Communists; 1964 Beatles appear on America’s Ed Sullivan Show, attracting record 73m viewers; 1979 Trevor Francis is British football’s first £1m signing

Telegraph:

SIR – You report that camels were not domesticated in ancient Israel until centuries after they appear in the Bible, based on the discovery of bones of domesticated camels dated from the 11th to the 9th century BC. This need not “cast doubt on the Bible”.
Rare references in Babylonian texts and representations from other parts of the Near East show that camels were known in the Age of the Patriarchs, about 2000-1500 BC. Such discoveries are rare because the camel was not at home in urban societies, but useful for long journeys across the steppe and desert.
There is no good reason to suppose the stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob cannot reflect events long before the deaths of those camels, whose bones were left south of the Dead Sea in about 900 BC.
Alan Millard
Emeritus Rankin Professor of Hebrew and Ancient Semitic Languages
The University of Liverpool

SIR – The “director of communications” at the Church Commissioners would have you believe that the Bishop of Bath and Wells regularly had to fight his way through falcons from medieval hunting displays, only to find himself backstage at outdoor theatre performances before stumbling, exhausted, into his accommodation.
The reality is that, when I was Town Clerk of Wells, I worked constructively with the incumbent bishop, the Church Commissioners and the Palace Trust to enable the palace to function as the home and working place of the bishop and as a viable operation at the heart of the city.
The bishop himself was active and enthusiastic in encouraging changes to enable the building to continue in the role it has occupied for 800 years. He often initiated the local engagement that made those changes a success.
That engagement has been lacking in a process that has led to the current dissatisfaction at the Commissioners’ decision that the bishop should vacate the palace.
Keith Donoghue
Bristol
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Blowing up pumping stations took preference over saving villages
08 Feb 2014
SIR – If I were the Bishop of Bath and Wells, I doubt that I would like to be evacuated to Croscombe, four miles away. It is a pretty village, but in Wells, it all happens “within the walls” of this unique city.
The bishop can surely find rest and relaxation at the palace, even if at certain times it is open to visitors. A more serenely beautiful environment would be hard to find. Behind moated walls stands the noble palace, with a chapel. It is surrounded by greenery and pretty rills, and the gate house doors are locked at night.
It is recorded that Bishop Bekyinton (1443-1465) would carry a lute with him to a bastion by the moat walls to practise music, and find peace. There is much to be said for living in situ in such a place.
Of course, with the bishop gone, there might be money to be recouped from letting out the palace as honeymoon suites, etc.
William Critchley
Poole, Dorset
Capita Army recruiting
SIR – Capita and the Army work in partnership in recruitment and selection for the Regular Army and Army Reserve. This includes managing the recruitment process, governance and recruitment events.
Hundreds of these events, which the Army has always run, take place every month and are manned by personnel from the Army Recruiting Group, both military and civilian, and members of local units who can speak with experience to candidates about life in the Army.
The partnership recognises the need to offer a range of ways to obtain more information, or apply for a job in the Regular Army or Army Reserve.
A flexible online application form compatible with all devices, live Facebook WebTV chats, engagement with employers and an Army fitness app to get potential recruits fit enough to join, are just a few examples.
Tony Page
Managing Director, Army Recruiting Group
London SW1
Bridal dress to dye for
SIR – Christopher Howse says: “Wedding dresses are worn only once.” My wife wore hers on several occasions thereafter, having dyed it black.
William Beattie
St Brelade, Jersey
African call for help
SIR – Your report, “Murdered before the eyes of the world”, is a horrifying reminder of why the Central African Republic needs a United Nations peacekeeping force to protect civilians and help restore peace to the country.
Last week I visited London to ask your parliamentarians and churchmen to support my plea for help, a request I made with my Muslim counterparts, showing that, in the midst of appalling brutality, people of all faiths are working bravely for peace throughout our country.
When I speak to ordinary people, I don’t hear voices of hatred, only voices of fear, desperately asking for the world’s help.
Archbishop Dieudonné Nzapalainga
President of Caritas, CAR
Bangui, Central African Republic
SIR – Are we going to let in refugees from the Central African Republic?
Dick Richards
Poole, Dorset
Keeping the Union
SIR – Yesterday the Prime Minister made a speech that set out clearly the reasons for Britain staying united. As a Scotsman living and working in England, I don’t get a vote — I could wake up after the referendum to find that my country had been taken away from me forever.
Hearing David Cameron speak so clearly gave me hope that the rest of the country may care enough about the outcome of the referendum to speak up for the Union. Not all Scots want this referendum and, if the outcome is for separation, it will not just be the Union that is split; the Scottish people will be split as well.
Phil Coutie
Exeter, Devon
Prince of ties
SIR – The Prince of Wales was wearing a University of Wales tie, with stripes diagonal to the left. The RAF tie has stripes to the right.
Jon Andrews
Epsom, Surrey
SIR – The Prince’s tie was the regimental tie of the Queen’s Dragoon Guards, as he is our Colonel-in-Chief. Our previous Colonel-in-Chief was the late Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, who was appointed Colonel-in-Chief of the Queen’s Bays (2nd Dragoon Guards) when she was Duchess of York. It was her first regiment.
N K de Courcy-Ireland
London W8
MPs should vote to ban smoking in family cars
SIR – As representatives of 12 public health organisations, we urge MPs to vote in favour of the Children and Families Bill amendment, which will allow the Government to introduce a ban on smoking in cars carrying children.
Every week, more than 430,000 children aged 11-15 are known to be exposed to second-hand smoke in family cars; were official data on children aged under 11 available, this total would likely be far greater.
A ban would help protect children from illnesses that can result from such exposure, including colds, ear infections, chronic chest infections, restricted lung growth, asthma attacks, cot death and meningitis.
With similar laws already successfully introduced in countries such as Canada, Australia and South Africa, there is no reason to suggest that a ban will prove unenforceable in Britain. Suggestions that legislation will inevitably lead to more drastic state interventions on other issues insult Parliament’s capacity to assess each case on its own merits.
The only debate is therefore whether an adult’s right to smoke in a car carrying children outweighs children’s right to breathe clean, unpolluted air that won’t make them ill.
The vast majority of people support this legislation. We urge MPs to make the health of children their priority when they come to vote on Monday, and ensure this crucial measure is passed into law.
Deborah Arnott
Chief Executive, Action on Smoking and Health
Rebecca Sherrington
Chair, Association of Respiratory Nurse Specialists
Kay Boycott
Chief Executive, Asthma UK
Maura Gillespie
Programme Director for Policy, British Heart Foundation
Professor Sir Michael Marmot
President, British Lung Foundation
Professor Sheila the Baroness Hollins
Chair of the Board of Science, British Medical Association
Dr Bernard Higgins
Chair, British Thoracic Society
Dr Stephen Gaduzo
Chair, Primary Care Respiratory Society
Dr Maureen Baker
Chair, Royal College of General Practitioners
Dr Hilary Cass
President, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health
Sir Richard Thompson
President, Royal College of Physicians
Professor John R Ashton
President, UK Faculty of Public Health

SIR – After starvation in the Second World War, self sufficiency at nearly any price became the priority. Soon food mountains allowed politicians to cut expenditure on agricultural research and flood defence.
At Easter 1998, 142 constituencies in England and Wales were flooded. The Environment Agency, of which I was the first chairman, pressed the government, supported by the National Audit Office, to increase expenditure by £100 million a year, which it failed to do.
I retired in December 1999, and John Prescott appointed Barbara Young from the RSPB as chief executive. It came as no surprise when, to the relief of the Treasury, she set common sense on its head, called for pumping stations to be blown up and cut maintenance by putting environment first and food and villages second.
However, the long-term blame lies not with Lady Young but with 30 years of governments believing that there are no votes to be lost in flooding the countryside. Lord Smith seems to agree. I doubt January 2014 will change that – it will now all be the fault of climate change.
Lord De Ramsey
Huntingdon
Related Articles
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08 Feb 2014
SIR – The suggestion that the Environment Agency looks after birds before humans is nonsense. Our objective is to protect people, property and land from the damaging effects of flooding.
Responsibility for protecting the Dawlish rail line sits with Network Rail. We recently met them to discuss the Exeter flood-risk management scheme and its interaction with the rail line to Exeter. There was no suggestion by us that their work to protect the area where the line was damaged could be delayed by a study of local bird life.
On Thursday, the Government announced funding for 42 flood schemes, to protect 43,000 homes across the country. Its long-term flood defence programme, costing £344 million, will ensure 165,000 homes are better protected by 2015.
Prolonged heavy rain, gale-force winds, tidal surges and large waves have affected almost every part of England. Over the period, 1.3 million houses have been protected from the effects of flooding by the Environment Agency’s hard work.
David Jordan
Director of Operations, Environment Agency
London SW1
SIR – As a parish clerk, I was expected to conduct a risk assessment on any project we carried out. The Environment Agency seems not to have heard of such an exercise. It would have led to decisions of significant help to the Somerset Levels.
Richard Gelder
Much Hoole, Lancashire
SIR – Was the real reason for drafting in 40 Commando to Somerset to prevent Lord Smith from being lynched by the residents?
Dick Kirby
Great Whelnetham, Suffolk

Irish Times:

Irish Independent:
Madam – I am sick hearing about homophobia, and the ignorance, fear and smear that travels with it.
Also in this section
Vatican must now put children’s welfare first
Ireland’s calling out for a new rugby anthem
Letters: Why are we paying debts already written off?
Not every older, single, unattached person is gay. I am male, 60 years of age, single and currently unattached. This does not make me gay.
I am very much a heterosexual although I have never been married.
I have had many girlfriends. And no doubt, before I die I may have many more.
I don’t settle easily and tend to have some lone genes in me. However that does not make me, or anyone like me, male or female, gay.
But it does tend to make us targets of evil, ignorant people, or people we fall foul of.
Thomas Carroll,
Co Kildare
Symbolic image of O’Gara
Madam – Barry Egan’s account of the career of Ronan O’Gara (Sunday Independent, February 2, 2014) was heartwarming, reassuring and at times touching, even tender, embodying all of the ingredients for happiness and fulfilment: glittering success in his sport; a beautiful wife and lovely family; excellent prospects for the future; the observed of all observers, the glass of fashion and the mould of form, to paraphrase Shakespeare.
At one point Mr Egan asserts: “He is obviously an intelligent, even wise, man.” By any reckoning it would seem appropriate for his country to be proud of what he symbolises, and yet paradoxically, it ought to be a tad more circumspect with regard to whether he symbolises his country.
I have in mind of course the image of this paragon with both hands deeply embedded in his trouser pockets in the presence of an elderly woman head of state carrying out her official duties as a guest of his government. A state which, incidentally, over the years has played host to the exiled hordes of his fellow countrymen and women, fleeing poverty and oppression, to an extent that over six million of the population of the UK now claim Irish ancestry. In Mr Egan’s words: “He’s given us memories we will take to our grave.” I see no need to dispute that.
Recently, in one of his classically insightful and instructive articles, Eoghan Harris wrote: “Before 1916, many Irish people were content with the symbols of the British empire such as the Union flag and the monarchy” (Sunday Independent, December 1, 2013). Mr Harris is right. Even Michael Collins, in an extant school essay, wrote of the British empire in glowing terms. There were more Irishmen than English in the British army at Waterloo. The Catholic Church was an enthusiastic advocate for the Empire because of the opportunities it offered to spread the faith. I have read that as recently as the late Twenties, Irish people referred to the British navy as “our navy”.
William Barrett,
Surrey, UK
Hobbs’s analysis one-dimensional
Madam – Opinion columnists often pontificate on the lack of direct expertise of our politicians in the policy areas for which they have oversight. Therefore, it was with interest that we read Eddie Hobbs’s polemic (‘Rigging of market will hike food prices’, Sunday Independent, February 2, 2014) criticising the fact that some members of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine are farmers and primary food producers.
Perhaps Mr Hobbs will be shocked to hear that there are business people on the Jobs Committee, and teachers on the Education Committee.
His one-dimensional analysis of our report on the grocery goods sector, including a fanciful implication that we want to hark back to the protectionism of the Thirties, fails to reflect a nuanced and balanced committee report, based on public meetings with a wide range of stakeholders.
Mr Hobbs contends that we want to influence the price of the average shopping basket by use of ‘non-market forces, by lobbyists exercising power, and not by competition’. Far from it. Our rationale was to increase transparency and accountability in the supply chain.
Our committee’s report is pro-market and pro-competition, and the committee agreed that a clear, simplified and robust Code of Conduct would level the playing pitch for each sector in the supply chain.
As for the cheap jibe about a “committee stuffed with FG farmers”, the report was agreed on by TDs and senators from all parties and none, from diverse professional backgrounds. It was informed by public hearings with representatives of primary producers, processors and retailers, including the large multiples, as well as the Competition Authority and the National Consumer Agency.
These flowed into a series of commonsense, practical and actionable recommendations which, if implemented, will bolster the Irish food sector, maintain a vibrant retail sector and protect the consumer.
Deputies Andrew Doyle (Chairman), Pat Deering (Vice-Chairman), Tom Barry, Martin Ferris, Martin Heydon, Michael McNamara, Éamon Ó Cuív, Willie Penrose and Thomas Pringle; and Senators Michael Comiskey, Paschal Mooney, Mary Ann O’Brien, Brian Ó Domhnaill, Susan O’Keeffe; JOC on Agriculture, Food and the Marine,
Leinster House, Dublin 2
Critical situation
Madam – Richard Curran in his in-depth article about the chaotic situation in our health care system (Business, Sunday Independent, February 2, 2014) has highlighted what is of great concern to older people. Many are struggling to maintain their current private health insurance so that they are covered at a critical and vulnerable time in their lives. What has made a bad situation worse is the Government’s policy, which has been to start charging insurers the full price for private beds in public hospitals.
What I find surprising is that nobody has raised the unfair situation where those who have private medical cover get no credit for their PRSI contributions which entitle them to public hospital cover. The value of this entitlement should be offset against their private hospital total cost, which would reduce the bill from the private hospital insurer.
What is often overlooked is that those who choose to go private free up a bed in a public hospital for those who cannot afford private hospital cover. I shudder to think of the time lag for patients waiting for a bed in a public hospital if private medicine did not exist.
Brendan M Redmond,
Terenure, Dublin 6w
Lyric brings joy to thousands
Madam – I cannot believe how undignified some of your letter writers are. The person who resorted to calling Lyric FM presenters by ‘nicknames,’ which he thought were amusing, only served to diminish himself. Lyric FM brings pleasure to many thousands of people, and I hope the listeners and presenters will ignore the snobbery and continue to listen to and present lovely music enjoyed by so many.
Joan Toomey,
Bishopstown, Cork
Failing to grasp retailer power
Madam – Re ‘Rigging of market will hike food prices’ by Eddie Hobbs (Sunday Independent, February 2, 2014):
As farmers, we make no apology for looking for equity in the food supply chain.
As things stand, our share of the consumer spend on many fresh food items is anything but fair. Eddie Hobbs doesn’t appear to have any understanding of the unrestrained power and uncompetitive practices of the retail multiples.
Before Christmas they sold potatoes and vegetables at a giveaway price of 6 cent/kg. Consumers need to know that retailers only do this to get them in the door, then get them to buy other items and undermine the livelihoods of hundreds of vegetable growers and small, family-run fruit and veg shops around the country.
The IFA will continue its campaign for legislation for a code of practice, and we expect to see retailer legislation announced this year.
Eddie Downey,
IFA president
Payout stifles free speech
Madam – Free speech and a free and responsible press in this country is not just in jeopardy but is diminishing with the passage of time.
Is there is anybody out there who will argue that RTE’s payment of €85,000 to the six people named will not have a chilling effect on a free press and free speech? If there is, they are truly living in cuckoo land.
Vincent J Lavery,
Irish Free Speech Movement,
Dalkey, Co Dublin
MEDIA NEEDS TO AVOID LEFT BIAS
Madam – Willie Kealy wrote about the RTE payout to defamed persons. (Sunday Independent, February 2, 2014). The issue is not free speech because the defamed were accused of homophobia. Literally phobia is fear but has come to imply hatred and dismissal. He said that “pro-lifers” offered most of the abuse by using “baby-killers” for those who favoured the ill-named “Protection of Life during Pregnancy”.
Even the language used in the Dail by some pro-abortionists toward and about pro-lifers was decidedly vicious as were the small crowds in the streets, including using Savita Halappanavar as an excuse for abortion after her story was known. “Baby-killers” is not the inflammatory language I would use but what else explains a law that was passed against expert obstetrical and psychiatric advice offered to Mr Buttimer’s committee – abortion up to the last day of delivery for a mother who is suicidal?
The media just needs to avoid the usual Left biases on sexual social justice issues and not use homophobia as a word to avoid or distort the debate.
David Quinn asks for “proper civilised debate” and all of you in the media are morally bound to offer it evenly and fairly. Social media at present have no real legal or moral safeguards, except PC censorship of middle-of-the-road viewpoints.
A Proinnsias O Beachain,
Tir Chonaill
GAY COHORT LIKE A DISCIPLINED ARMY
Madam – The homosexual community, both male and female, are very militant in Ireland. They are always ready for a fight nowadays, and I honestly believe they would make a very disciplined army. Far from love and flowers being put down the rifles of opposing soldiers anywhere there are trouble spots in the world, they could kick plenty of ass if given the opportunity.
Are you listening, Ban Ki-moon?
Robert Sullivan,
Bantry, Co Cork
MORAL COMPASS SET TO CHANGE
Madam – It’s not that I’m indifferent to the ‘gay marriage’ debate (Willie Kealy, Sunday Independent, February 2, 2014), but that I’m reeling at the prospects for Irish society down the line. Nor is it, in my opinion, an equality issue, since two women or two men do not add up to one man and one woman, which is what defines marriage. Since there will be no particular moral compass to guide behaviour other than ‘what I want’, it will only be a matter of time before there is clamour for other combinations.
Agnes Hayes,
Co Galway
AOSDANA SUBSIDY IS JUST €17,000
Madam –Jody Corcoran is a journalist I admire greatly. But in his piece (Sunday Independent, January 26, 2014). about the President’s wife visiting Margaretta D’Arcy he makes an error, which we all do occasionally. The sum (Cnuas) which some members of Aosdana receive to enable them to go on with their work is not €25k pa but €17k. Recipients have to prove their need and outline their use of it so it is best looked on as a subsidy.
Anthony Cronin,
Ranelagh, Dublin 6
UPDATE ON STEM CELL RESEARCH
Madam – I write to comment on the article by Emer O’Kelly on human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research in Ireland, (Sunday Independent, February 2, 2014).
The human body is composed of trillions of cells organised into the various types of differentiated tissues, eg muscle, liver etc. Stem cells are undifferentiated cells that have the potential to transform themselves into differentiated tissue cells.
Ms O’Kelly thinks that only two types of stem cell have potential in human medicine – hESC and human adult stem cells (hASC). She agrees that hASC have a limited potential to cure disease but lauds the great and widespread potential of hESC in this regard.
Amazingly, Ms Kelly never mentions a third type of stem cell, the type that has captured most of the momentum in stem cell research since its discovery in 2006. I refer to human induced pluripotential stem cells (hIPSC).
These hIPSC are stem cells that are produced by genetically reprogramming ordinary body cells, eg skin cells, into stem cells. hIPSC are similar in most respects to hESC.
No necessary ethical problems attend research using hASC or hIPSC. Research using hESC does raise an ethical problem, however, because these stem cells must be harvested from human embryos and the act of harvesting kills the embryo. Many people have huge ethical objections to the deliberate destruction of human embryos.
These hESC and hIPSC are much more flexible than hASC and have much more theoretical potential in medicine. Prior to the discovery of hIPSC in 2006, the medically more promising road ahead with hESC research was massively cratered with ethical problems. However the ethically uncomplicated hIPSC are just as medically promising as hESC. The discovery of hIPSC has transformed the whole stem cell research landscape.
Ireland is quite active in hASC research and there is no legal problem here. Neither is there any legal prohibition against hIPSC research in Ireland. hIPSC research is just as medically promising as hESC research and, as far as I know, hIPSC work is in progress here. So, what’s the problem?
William Reville,
Emeritus Professor of Biochemistry,
University College Cork
GRID 25 REVIEW LIMITED BY TERMS
Madam – I refer to the letter from Eamon Ryan (Sunday Independent, February 2, 2014), in which he advised Colm McCarthy to include climate change in his deliberations on the Grid 25 review. Once the review group under Judge McGuinness is legally established, the next step is for Government to provide it with terms of reference. The group’s task is limited to producing a written report covering all matters contained in these terms of reference. Surely Mr Ryan, as a former minister, should know that his concerns are addressed to the wrong quarter. His advice should be addressed to Mr Rabbitte.
His comments on China and the US ignore the fact that China has opened two coal-fired power stations per week for the past four years and the recent climbdown by the EU on renewable targets was done in the context of large energy users relocating to the US as the cost of renewables makes the EU uncompetitive.
While my association holds the members of the review group in high esteem, we have serious reservations about using its findings as a prerequisite for planning consent.
UN and EU law gives the public the right to participate effectively in assessment of plans such as Grid 25.
Val Martin,
European Platform Against Wind Farms,
Co Cavan
USHERING IN GENDER BALANCE
Madam – A Quote of the Week on February 2 by Carrie Cracknell said that “women are still disproportionately disempowered in public life”. Despite being a majority in the electorate, the low proportion of our public representatives that are women is evidence of that.
If the admittedly controversial efforts to increase the number of women candidates are successful, however, the next election will give the total electorate, and not just women, an opportunity to remedy that situation.
A Leavy,
Sutton, Dublin 13
Irish Independent