30 July 2014 Feet

I jog around the park I still have arthritis in my left knee, but I manage to get round the park. A very very dry day

Scrabble Mary wins, but gets under 400. perhaps I will win tomorrow.

Obituary:

Guardian:

I agree with Simon Jenkins (Comment, 25 July), but I disagree that, “He (Putin) may be a nasty piece of work”. Given the vastness and complexity of governing the largest country in the world, and relative to the many psychopathic lunatics who have ruled in Europe, President Putin usually shows restraint, balance and thoughtfulness. Is Cameron, the daily-U-turn champion, doing a Napoleon or merely trying to drive up sales for the arms industry?
Noel Hodson
Oxford

• Polly Toynbee’s failure to clarify that there are huge differences between those exploiting the tax relief system and those staying within the spirit of the Enterprise Investment Scheme (Comment, 29 July), makes it harder for UK producers to raise money. A recent report by Oxford Economics estimated that film production in the UK would be 71% smaller without film tax relief – currently the industry generates close to £5bn towards UK GDP. The EIS is meant to stimulate investment in SMEs (classically high risk startups) by giving tax relief to higher-rate taxpayers. It is not a tax avoidance scheme so long as the investor can still lose more money than if they hadn’t invested. The problem within the film industry is those companies that guarantee returns, don’t generate content, and use creative accountancy to inflate budgets.
Suzie Halewood, producer
London

• The 101 Ranch Real Wild West Show from Oklahoma (Letters, 26 July), was a feature of the Anglo-American Exposition at White City, London, in 1914. War was declared as the expo was winding down. Horses and vehicles from the ranch were requisitioned for the war effort. Buck Jones from the original War Horse film started his show career at the ranch and Wild West Show. A famous member of the show was the black cowboy Bill Pickett, who made two movies. He was definitely here in London in 1914. There is a lot more background to the War Horse legend.
Alex Bowling
London

• Christina Patterson (Comment, 26 July) might also compare Karl Ove Knausgård’s My Struggle with Maxim Gorky’s autobiographical My Childhood (1913), in which he recalls his bitter struggle in a quarrelsome family, being beaten at home and abandoned by his mother, and “sent out into the world” at the age of eleven. Yet, with his insight and characterisation, as his translator Ronald Wilks observes, Gorky “comes to terms with a squalid, cruel and depraved world”.
Dr Mark Stroud
Llantrisant, Glamorgan

• Why is the Isle of Man no longer featured in your Commonwealth Games medal table? We Manx should be told.
Doug Sandle
Leeds

Your article on deferring the state pension (Money, 26 July) says that “in purely financial terms, deferring currently represents a very good deal”. True that a person who today defers for one year is rewarded with a pension 10.4% higher. But they lose one year’s pension for ever – which means that they must live nearly 11 more years before recovering the money lost, much less gaining. For example, if the pension is £100 a year, a person who doesn’t defer will receive £1,100 over the next 11 years (11 x 100). A person who defers for one year will receive £1,104 (10 x 110.4). Is a gain of £4 after 11 years “a very good deal”?

In your example, a weekly pension of £150 a week, a pensioner who doesn’t defer will receive £78,000 over 10 years (150 x 52 x 10). If they defer for five years, they will receive a pension 52% higher (£228 a week), but they will receive it for only five years. So they receive £59,280 (228 x 52 x 5). So they actually lose £18,720 by deferring. Only after 15 years do they show a small gain of £1,560. This means a man retiring now must live to 80 and a woman to 77 to gain a penny from deferring their pension for five years. At the lower rate of reward for deferral recently announced, they must live to 88 and 85 respectively before they break even. Even at today’s low interest rates, it is far better to take your pension and save it than to forgo it. This is a serious matter. I know people who deferred on the basis of newspaper advice and realised their huge mistake only when it was too late.
Geoffrey Renshaw
Department of Economics, University of Warwick

• There cannot possibly be enough people with the skills in the Pensions Advisory Service and Citizens Advice Bureau to give useful, impartial guidance to all on how to manage their personal pension pots, which begs the questions, how and at what cost can this be achieved. The only way to deliver this advice efficiently and cost effectively is online, but there is no detail as to how this might work and how advice can be tailored to individuals’ requirements through such a generic portal. In short, this is a great idea but if it is not executed well, that is all it will remain. Next April is just around the corner and failure to finalise details quickly is a big gamble for the government – which risks not only people’s pension money, but a potential public policy train crash just before the general election.
Michael Whitfield
CEO, Thomsons Online Benefits

Your editorial (29 July) says “there are serious reasons why fracking is likely to be part of Britain’s future” but misses many reasons why it shouldn’t be. Fracking in the UK will just add to a stock of fossil fuels we cannot afford to burn if we want to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Shale gas won’t magically replace coal: the government’s chief scientist has said that without a global climate deal, new fossil fuel exploitation is likely to increase the risk of climate change.

The government’s headlong rush to frack is predicated on the process being safe. But many of the UK’s regulations are inadequate. Fracking is banned in France and a more precautionary approach is being taken in Germany on environmental grounds.

Fracking is not the answer to the energy problems of cost and security. The first focus of UK energy policy needs to be an aggressive push on energy efficiency. Then decarbonising electricity, through a rapid expansion of renewable power. Gas is a transition fuel through the 2020s, but shale gas is not needed for this purpose.
Tony Bosworth
Energy campaigner, Friends of the Earth

• So Eric Pickles will have the last say in deciding whether to drill in protected areas (New strings attached to fracking push, 28 July). Luckily, the Unite trade union, organising over 1.3m workers, voted overwhelmingly this year to protest against fracking. It will support local protests against fracking and campaign for sustainable green jobs, not the slash-and-burn, short-term profit, long-term devastation of increased carbon emissions.
Tony Staunton
Unite Plymouth local government branch

• Power companies will only invest where the prospects of profit are excellent, so why not nationalise this new power source from the very beginning? We have surrendered our coal, water, gas and electricity industries to foreign companies and the process is, apparently, irreversible. Why doesn’t Ed Milliband say that all shale exploration will be done at the taxpayers’ expense – with the taxpayer becoming the beneficiary?

Barry Langley
London

• In your article (New strings attached to fracking push, 28 July) there was no mention of the huge amounts of water needed in the process for fracking shale gas and oil. This has produced well publicised disputes in the US, where underground supplies have been severely depleted by fracking companies, causing problems for farmers and other users.
Chris Roome
Staplehurst, Kent

• So, drilling rigs are acceptable, but wind turbines, which produce benign energy, are not. The community-owned, renewable sector is the way forward – benign energy production with no legacy problems, community involvement and ownership, great returns on investment, and a percentage of profits going to the local area. We have been part owners of Baywind Energy Cooperative for many years, with average returns of 6.37% – the return in 2012 was 10.4%. Go to energy4all.co.uk to see the portfolio of community-owned schemes across the UK.

Lorrie Marchington

High Peak, Derbyshire

• Methane gas from fracking is not one of the “cleaner hydrocarbons” as your leader claims. Its global warming potential is 70 times that of carbon dioxide. Evidence from the US shows shale gas electricity has a higher carbon footprint than coal burning, even when methane leakage is low.

Electricity from waste is often cheaper than that from natural gas and avoids the release of methane were the waste left to rot. Instead of paying farmers to accept fracking, they should be well rewarded for sending animal and crop waste for anaerobic digestion.

And fracking companies could follow Greenfield Energy, now drilling below the carparks of a leading supermarket chain for geothermal heat. Most scientists agree we cannot burn more than one-third of the world’s proven fossil fuel reserves if we are to slow global warming. Why exploit new, unproven gas resources of uncertain yield? At far shallower depths there is sufficient geothermal energy to heat and cool buildings.
Keith Barnham
London

• We need to reduce the amount of fossil fuel we burn. The promise of cheap energy for the next 40 years, realistic or not, will lull the public into ignoring the uncomfortable but imperative need to reduce emissions. It will also blind most people to the impact of any environmental damage resulting from fracking.
Lynda Newbery
Bristol

• I have chosen the place in countryside specially dear to me where I shall set up my anti-fracking camp. I am prepared to sleep in a tent. What holds me back is the thought that to be completely honest about what I’m doing I must give up using a private car for the rest of my life.
Richard Wilson
Oxford

The government’s work capability assessment (WCA) presumes that there are too many people on disability benefits because disabled people are too lazy or too comfortable living on benefits to work. It is founded in the idea that disabled people need to be harassed and hounded out of a comfortable life into finding work under the threat of loss of benefits.

No one is comfortable living on benefits. Disabled people are no more lazy that the rest of the population. The real reason that there are so many people on benefits is that society does not include disabled people. We do not have the same access to education, transport, housing and jobs. Social attitudes ensure that disabled people in the workplace are seen as a problem. And there are large numbers of disabled people who simply cannot work. Why should they be harassed? Why should they be hounded? Why should they have to live in fear? We know, and this report confirms, that many people have wrongly been found “fit for work” when they can’t work.

The courts have confirmed that the WCA discriminates against claimants with mental health impairments. The Commons work and pensions committee report recommends “improvements” to make the system more workable and less harmful. This is pointless, because it would not make the WCA any less wrong or any more useful. We call once again on Labour to commit to scrapping the WCA and to address the real problems that disabled people on benefits face in society. We call once again on the British Medical Association to send guidance on Department of Work and Pensions rules “29 and 35”, which allow doctors to prevent foreseeable harm being done to at-risk patients.

They didn’t improve slavery, they abolished it, because it was wrong. They didn’t amend apartheid , they ended it because it was wrong. The WCA is wrong, and it needs to be abolished.
Andy Greene Disabled People Against Cuts, Annie Howard Disabled People Against Cuts, Bob Ellard Disabled People Against Cuts, Debbie Jolly Disabled People Against Cuts, Denise McKenna Mental Health Resistance Network, Jane Bence #NewApproach, Eleanor Firman Disabled People Against Cuts, Ellen Clifford Disabled People Against Cuts, Gail Ward Disabled People Against Cuts, John James McArdle Black Triangle Campaign, Katy Marchant Disabled People Against Cuts, Linda Burnip Disabled People Against Cuts, Nick Dilworth #NewApproach, Paula Peters Disabled People Against Cuts, Rick Burgess #NewApproach, Roger Lewis Disabled People Against Cuts, Roy Bard Disabled People Against Cuts, Wayne Blackburn #NewApproach

I am a bit puzzled by Paul Mason’s comments on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) predictions for the world economy (18 July). According to him, the message is that the best of capitalism is over. It seems Mason and I have read different reports.

The report entitled Looking to 2060: long-term global growth prospects and released in November 2012 is, like all long-term forecasts, inherently speculative. One of its major conclusions was that growth will decline to 3% in the world and 2% in the OECD countries compared to, respectively, 3.5% and 2.2% during the last 15 years. This is low but not near stagnation. Many people in most rich countries will accept it because they consider leisure and the environment more important than growth.

The report assumes that immigration trends will remain at the present rate, which represents a large and at first scary number of immigrants. However, most informed people will understand that, with the local birthrate declining, more workers will be needed to pay for their pensions.

The report does not directly comment about a rise in inequality. However, it suggests that structural reforms, often code for anti-labour policies, will be needed in most countries to maintain some growth. In this case the need is mostly for an extension of the working life. The report also notes that while inequalities between countries will still remain, they will have declined considerably.

It seems that Mason’s article reflects his own views rather than the OECD report.
Francois P Jeanjean
Ottawa, Canada

Tensions in the far east

Talks are now under way between Japan and North Korea in an attempt yet again to resolve various outstanding issues, including the abduction of a large number of Japanese some years ago by the North Koreans (11 July). The North Koreans are promising to try to establish the fate of the many missing Japanese citizens. The results, of course, remain to be seen.

However, it has been reported that the Japanese government is considering lifting the sanctions that were imposed several years ago. The more cynical among us will be wondering whether any aid the North Koreans receive from Japan will actually make its way to the people who need it, or whether it will more likely go towards the purchase of even more luxuries for government leaders and top bureaucrats.

Meanwhile, the People’s Republic continues to spend vast sums of money on its military machine, while also testing missiles by lobbing them into the Japan Sea, while totally ignoring all protests from Japan and other countries. Here in Japan itself, the hawkish prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is pushing legislation through the Japanese parliament to revise the so-called peace constitution and give the so-called self-defence forces more teeth. Demonstrations by peace-loving citizens are ignored, as are protestations of opposition parties. Considering all the tensions in this part of the world, perhaps it is only a matter of time before we see Japan going to war again.
John Ryder
Kyoto, Japan

Scotland’s big choice

Scotland is making the same mistake as Quebec regarding its forthcoming vote on independence by failing to take into account the difference between reversible decisions and irreversible ones (18 July). Decisions at just over 50% or a plurality are reversible at election time; treaties require just over 50% but have withdrawal clauses, and thus are reversible.

However, the dissolution of a company requires a two-thirds vote of shareholders; it is permanent. In Quebec, the appointment of the speaker of the assembly, the director general of elections, the auditor general, and such, requires a two-thirds vote of the deputies; these people cannot be removed during their fixed-term of office, save for egregious behaviour. Surely an irreversible decision on independence should call for a muscular majority. In the US, some congressional decisions require enhanced majorities.

Legislators over time have ruled against razor-thin victories in matters of great importance in order to secure indisputable results. If it is possible to emotionalise a narrow victory, it is somewhat harder to do so under the two-thirds rule.
Jean-Claude Lefebvre
Sutton, Quebec, Canada

• Madeleine Bunting’s advocacy (25 July) that the Scots remain in the UK so she can feel better is like suggesting that the Greeks should have remained in the Ottoman empire to maintain some sort of Hellenic flavour and smooth the rough edges off the sultan.
Richard Blackburn
Coogee, NSW, Australia

• Nobody really knows what will happen if Scotland leaves the UK, for none can foretell the result of future seismic events geological, military or financial – whatever current or past experts predict.
Edward Black
Sydney, Australia

A fundamental difference

Karl Popper demonstrated many years ago that we cannot expect science to produce certain knowledge, so Michael Brooks was telling us nothing new in his reference to unshakeable ‘truths’ (18 July). But we should not substitute one dogma for another. Human linguistic abilities may be a quirk of evolution – after all, quirks are what evolution produces – but they do constitute a difference between us and other animals.

A slightly different anatomical arrangement permits me to type this letter, so it may not be a marker of fundamental difference. But my ability to pose, by whatever means, the question of whether a fundamental difference exists is, it seems to me, a fundamental difference between me and an orang-utan. Whether or not that makes me something special is a value judgment, not a scientific one. Either way the difference still exists and is, I suggest, significant.
Leslie Buck
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Gluten-free controversy

Your lightweight article on the gluten-free backlash (18 July) would have been more useful if it distinguished between coeliac disease, diagnosable by a simple blood test, and gluten intolerance, scientifically diagnosable by an elimination diet and challenge. The latter is best done with an experienced dietitian since there are pitfalls, the most common of which is to fail to eliminate the bread preservative (calcium propionate, E282) and synthetic antioxidants (eg Butylated hydroxyanisole, E320) from the challenges, since these can also affect people and are ubiquitous in UK and US breads. They are uncommon in, for instance, Italy, France and Spain.

We have many experiences in our 10,000-member Food Intolerance Network (www.fedup.com.au) of people who avoided wheat and gluten for years before realising it was, for instance, the bread preservative to which they were reacting. My personal view, from 15 years in wheat research, is that it may have been the introduction of the semi-dwarfing varieties of wheat by Norman Borlaug of the 1950s green revolution that has contributed to the undoubted increase in gluten intolerance, but of course millions did not die of starvation because of this conventional plant-breeding cross.
Howard Dengate
Safety Beach, NSW, Australia

The presence of ghosts

“What exactly is a ghost, anyway?” asks Joanna Briscoe’s article (18 July). She raises a pertinent question, since both scientific rationalism and Protestant/Catholic theology have no place for ghostly phenomena. Despite this, Roman Catholicism exorcises demons as active agents of evil.

A late 19th/early 20th-century phenomenon was the interest of several prominent Protestant theologians in ghosts. EW Benson, bishop of Truro and later archbishop of Canterbury, founded a Ghost Club at Cambridge, which evolved into the Society for Psychical Research in 1882. AN Wilson tells us that Henry James’s rather nasty little story The Turn of the Screw was based on one of Benson’s Ghost Club stories.

The Cambridge tradition of clerical interest was carried on in the 1950s by the Cambridge professor of divinity, HH Farmer. But officially the churches are still sitting on the fence on this issue.
Alaisdair Raynham
Truro, UK

Fox in the chicken coop

So Jean-Claude Juncker plans to tackle Google’s power (and maybe also that of Apple, Amazon and Facebook) with this prospect being one reason why Angela Merkel decided to back his nomination (11 July). Here, one proposal of Juncker’s to combat the power of the US giants is to harmonise telecom laws across the EU.

This is all very interesting because one source of the power of these giants is the fact that they hide their earnings in tax havens, with Amazon choosing to do so in Luxembourg. As it turns out, “Lone Ranger Juncker” was finance minister and then prime minister of Luxembourg for over 20 years (up to December 2013), during which time he didn’t seem to see much need to fight the “good fight” that he is preaching now.

And while he is “harmonising telecom laws” maybe Juncker should also harmonise some banking laws so that Luxembourg and the other tax havens are no longer able to provide cosy hidey-holes for corporate cash. If ever there were a case of a fox being put in charge of the chicken coop, this is certainly it.
Alan Mitcham
Cologne, Germany

Briefly

• Since the bygone day I first subscribed to Guardian Weekly (the early 70s), I have admired the free-flowing translations of Le Monde articles, myself understanding the trials of translating, considered an easy task for those in command of just one language. I imagined a committee of analysers and correctors poring over the text. No, I check my back page and see the name of Harry Forster. My hat off to you Harry, or “Chapeau!” as they say here.
E Slack
L’Isle Jourdain, France

Please send letters to weekly.letters@theguardian.com

Independent:

Your report (29 July) that the think-tank ResPublica is proposing that bankers swear a Hippocratic-style oath of good service made me wince.

As a retired financial services compliance officer, I can confirm that the traders responsible for rate rigging and interest rate swap mis-sales, and their senior management, responsible for the oversight of the traders’ actions via the operations of effective risk management systems and controls, would have been individually registered in that capacity with the Financial Conduct Authority and its predecessors. Moreover, each firm (bank) and each candidate, as part of that process, would both have been required to make fitness and propriety declarations, with follow-up checks then performed by the regulators.

The woeful paucity of prosecutions thus far, whether civil or criminal, against those guilty parties, with all of that machinery in place, just makes ResPublica’s suggestion seem all the more risible.

That said, I am sure that those tens of thousands of entirely blameless back-office financial services employees on below-average wages (yes, they’re “bankers” too), who looked on powerless, and in horror, as their life savings and/or livelihoods were destroyed by the so-called “Masters of the Universe”, would have no qualms whatsoever about signing up.

Jeremy Redman
London SE6

Hit Putin where it really hurts

Your editorial “Own goal” (28 July) is precisely right. The remote prospect of Fifa dumping Russia as host of the 2018 World Cup plays straight to the hands of their keep-fit expansionist President. Sanctions must be targeted where they really hurt. This requires the resolve of the EU as a whole.

Undermining Putin’s power at home requires a body-blow to the Russian economy, with the inevitable knock-on effect on his core support. The logic of arming Russian separatists would almost certainly be lost on middle-class investors watching their portfolios haemorrhage, or captains of industry seeing their businesses collapse due to supply problems.

In the hand-rubbing occupation of redrawing borders, Putin will not listen to Europe, not even to Angela Merkel. If he is to be reined in, then his own people must do it.

Mike Galvin
Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire

Nick Clegg wants the World Cup taken away from Russia in 2018. Four years is a long way off. The downing of the Malaysian plane may not be as significant then and may be overtaken by bigger events, even major wars, who knows? Will Nick Clegg be around to explain to the footballing world why the World Cup was taken away from Russia?

S Matthias
London SE1

So first we had Mr Putin, then President Putin, then “Putin”, and now you give us “dictator” Putin (“The dictator in his labyrinth”, 26 July). That only leaves “brutal dictator” Putin and we can go after him. I must go and buy shares in arms manufacturers and fracking companies. Oh, and renewing Trident is a shoo-in. Well done, one and all.

Colin Burke
Manchester

Hamas wages a propaganda war

The world, and your publication in particular, seems to have forgotten that Israel is a tiny country surrounded by 300 million Arabs, the majority of whom are pledged to bring about her destruction. Israel is forced to build strong defences and yet, when these work, she is castigated for their success, as if it is unacceptable that Hamas has failed to murder more Israeli civilians.

Hamas know that they cannot win militarily. Their objective is to win the propaganda war, thereby convincing the international community to force Israel to accept their outrageous demands. To win this war they need as high a death count as possible, preferably with hundreds of women and children. That is why they site their missiles in schools, hospitals and heavily populated areas.

Tina Son
Edgware, Middlesex

The images of Gaza published during the recent lull in Israeli bombardment reminded me of similar photographs you published of Homs after the Syrian bombardment there, also directed at “terrorists”.

The invention and perpetuation of an international “war on terror” has allowed any militaristic regime to justify the most heinous war crimes by simply classifying their intended targets as terrorists, and all innocent victims as regrettable collateral damage.

The Israeli assault on the residents of Gaza was the latest but not the last domino to fall in a long chain of events starting with the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land outside their internationally recognised borders. Until this original offence is corrected there will surely be no end to the succession of action and reaction from both sides in the conflict.

Peter DeVillez
Cheltenham

Scottish vote is about democracy

Mary Dejevsky’s piece on 25 July demonstrates yet again that The Independent, fine newspaper that it is, and its columnists, not to mention the English media as a whole, do not seem to understand Scottish politics.

She states that Alex Salmond is the “chief cause of the current tensions” when in fact it is the collapse of Labour in Scotland, a party that has been seen to be taking its orders from Westminster, that has created this situation, or should I say opportunity?

However this is not an election, it is actually a referendum. This is not an approval poll for Alex Salmond or the SNP, it is a referendum on Scottish independence.

Nor is it about romanticism, as cynical English commentators tell us; it’s about democracy and people living in Scotland having the opportunity to elect governments that will actually represent their interests rather than having governments that they did not vote for imposed on them. This is not a fight for the sake of a fight, it’s a struggle for democracy.

I would ask Mary if she could tell us when David Cameron is going to get off the starting blocks in his defence of the Union. The silence is deafening.

Gareth Harper
Largs, Ayrshire

As part of the UK, Scotland enjoys full diplomatic representation in 267 embassies and 169 trade offices around the world. In contrast, Alex Salmond’s vision is for an independent Scotland to finance around 70 to 90 embassies and 27 trade offices.

As part of the UK, Scots have a respected voice in the UN Security Council, the G7, G8 and G20. We are seen as one of the big players in the EU, not least because the UK is the second biggest contributor to the EU budget. An independent Scotland would never enjoy the same international clout.

Talk of a fairer Scotland, social inclusion, stopping London Tories from pulling Scotland’s strings, cannot hide the divisive political experiment that the SNP has embarked upon.

Scotland, as we have all come to celebrate in the past few days, is a great country. We have achieved greatness as part of the United Kingdom. We have forged our destiny together with our English, Welsh and Northern Irish neighbours, none of whom want us  to go.

Struan Stevenson
Edinburgh

The other day I was asked if the comparison between the Greek economy and the Scottish weather would produce a new currency for Scotland called the Dreichma. My response was to say unlikely, for with two fish at the helm, a Salmon(d) and a Sturgeon, it would more likely be chips.

Peter Minshall
Tarbert, Argyll

Bring the people to Westminster

Your editorial (28 July) argues that Ed Miliband’s proposal for a public PMQs is “the wrong answer to the right question” of bridging the gap between the public and the political elite, and that it would be difficult to ensure that the selection of “average” citizens for these sessions was truly representative.

I support Ed Miliband’s proposal, but would go further by bringing “the people” into Parliament directly, by introducing Citizen Senators into a reformed and renamed House of Lords, selected by lot as per jury selection.

They would serve one-year terms and be given training. They would compose 50 per cent of the chamber, with the remainder made up of “Expert Senators” selected by an independent appointments system, and “Political Senators” appointed by the party leaders. The bloc of Citizen Senators would be sworn to consider legislation purely on its merit, eschewing political or other bias, much as jurors are sworn to serve justice alone.

This system would have numerous benefits, including maintaining the admirable expertise of the present House of Lords, providing an antidote to the increasing professionalisation of politics and being truly representative.

John Slinger
Chair, Pragmatic Radicalism, Rugby

Times:

Telegraph:

Fighting the airborne threat in seaside towns

The growing problem of opportunist seagulls

6:58AM BST 29 Jul 2014

Comments

6:59AM BST 29 Jul 2014

Comments

SIR – I agree with the proposition that voting for Ukip increases the chances of Ed Miliband gaining access to Downing Street almost by default (report, July 28). This is caused by the idiosyncrasies of our first-past-the-post voting system and the bias of the constituency system in favour of the Labour Party.

Irish Times:

A chara, – I am baffled by your editorial (July 29th). It appears to be an ongoing phenomenon with the media and the Government here that nobody can actually be critical of Israel alone. What is the difficulty? The roughly 1,100 dead in Gaza, the vast majority of them innocent men, women and children, are constantly equated with the 51 Israeli soldiers killed in combat. The ongoing demolition of houses, hospitals and schools is constantly equated with warning sirens going off in some cities in Israel. Why?

Many of us expect our nodding, forelock-tugging Government to react as instructed by the US and the EU – the recent UN vote being a clear indication of that.

Why can our media not show us photographs of those sunbathing on Israeli beaches side by side with the photographs of the bombed beaches in Gaza where children have been massacred? Why not show us the photographs of Israelis cheering the bombing of Gaza from hilltops side by side with the photographs of the Gazans screaming with sorrow and pain after their families are wiped out?

When will our media cannot speak out? Why do The Irish Times and other newspapers, as well as telvision networks, tread an imaginary line of equality through this massacre? There is no doubt that there should be fairness in the media coverage of Gaza but that fairness of coverage is being constantly translated as equality of coverage. There is nothing equal about what is happening in Gaza and Israel. It is time for the media to stand up and call it as it is. – Is mise,

EF FANNING.

Whitehall Road,

Dublin 14

Sir, – Eugene Tannam berates the long list of eminent signatories who criticised Israel (July 28th) with the sentence “It’s called balance.” Did he miss the irony that the lack of balance in the response of Israel to Hamas is the biggest point being made? Balance cannot be achieved where one side is so much more powerful. The UN should be handed control of Gaza before any more children die. – Yours, etc,

DAVID DOYLE,

Birchfield Park,

Goatstown

Dublin 14

Sir, – The images published by the Israeli embassy using the statue of Molly Malone would seem to be at odds with Irish values and perhaps the Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act, 1989 if the intention was to incite anti-Muslim sentiment here.

Foreign diplomats may enjoy diplomatic immunity but are they welcome to spread division and prejudice in Ireland? And how do these images represent those Israelis who do not see Muslims as the enemy, not to mention the 20 per cent or so of Israel’s population that is Arab and Muslim itself? – Yours, etc,

DAVID GEARY,

Cap Estate,

St Lucia

Sir, – The Minister for Foreign Affairs believes Israel has been “demonised” by an Irish media, “enslaved” to the Palestinian cause. Perhaps he should also consider the international media and, in particular, the journalists of Palestine.

The International Federation of Journalists (which also represents some of the media of “demonised” Israel) records that four journalists have been killed in suspicious circumstances by the Israeli Defence Forces.

In addition, the offices of the National Media agency and those of Wattan radio station have been destroyed while bullets were fired at the offices of Aljazeera TV and staff were forced to evacuate.

On the night of July 28/29th an Israeli air strike destroyed the Hamas-run Al-Aqsa television and radio building in central Gaza City. Israel already has full access to the airwaves of this tiny enclave. Why does it need to silence other voices?

The dead journalists mentioned by the IFJ include Hamid Shehab, who worked for 24 Media (an independent Palestinian news agency) and was killed in his car by a rocket in the Gaza Strip area on the night of July 9th. The car was parked outside Shehab’s house and it was clearly marked as a press vehicle. Also killed were Mohammed Smirir of the Gaza Now website, Khaled Hamed of the Ray News Agency and Abdurrahman Abu Hina of Alkitab TV.

The Minister is a humane man and I suspect he wants to atone for Irish anti-Semitism. But you don’t do that by papering over possible Israeli criminality. All you do is create more anguish and more death.

The Minister is on record as saying “the truth must be told”. Who is going to tell the Gazan part of that truth without people like Hamid Shehab? Yours, etc,

RONAN BRADY,

Geraldine Street,

Dublin 7

Sir, – I believe that as long as the USA continues to give unqualified political and financial support to Israel there can never be a permanent solution to the Palestinian problem, of which the present pernicious eruption is merely a sympton.

Time for Barack Obama to earn his undeserved Nobel Peace prize. Yours, etc,

GEAROID KILGALLEN,

Crosthwaite Park

South,

Dún Laoghaire,

Co Dublin

Sir, – The efforts of UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon to broker a ceasefire in Gaza have been thwarted by what he describes as “a lack of political will”.

How much carnage must the civilian population of Gaza endure before world political leaders muster the courage to cry halt to this senseless slaughter, and insist that Israel honours its obligations under international law?

This is not a time for political niceties.The people of Gaza, already traumatised, are now trapped in appalling living conditions with no immediate prospect of escape from blockade or bombardment. Where is our compassion as a global community for their plight? Could it be that in the eyes of many, the people of Gaza simply fall into the category of, “those human beings who do not count”? Yours, etc,

TOMAS MAHER,

Raheenroche,

Gowran,

Co Kilkenny

A chara, – I am amazed by newly appointed Minister Heather Humphreys’s widely reported comments that the upcoming 1916 commemorations belong to everyone. They do not!

The Easter Rising “belongs” to those people who subscribe to the principles of the proclamation, who are republicans, and who agree with the decision to stage an armed revolution to achieve those principles. If you do not – and many people choose not to subscribe to the foregoing – then it’s patently obvious that the commemoration of the Easter Rising does not belong to you.

Ms Humpreys is, like a growing number of public figures, engaged in manipulating our history in order to dilute its message and meaning, which still prove uncomfortable and challenging.

We would do well to monitor carefully the proposed commemorations for 1916 as it is obvious that in the hands of this shameful Government, with its imperial allegiances, the commemorations will be downgraded and abused. Is mise le meas,

PATRICK COONEY,

Shantalla Drive,

Dublin 9

Sir, – The new 68c stamp commemorating the first World War features a recruitment poster picturing John Redmond with the message: “Your first duty is to take your part in ending the war – John Redmond, Waterford 23/08/1915”. Surely the views on the war of another Irish leader of the period also deserve such recognition. The relevant quotation is a bit long but perhaps it could be accommodated to postage stamp size: “Heroism has come back to earth. The old heart of the earth needed to be warmed with the red wine of the battlefields. Such august homage was never before offered to God as this, the homage of millions of lives gladly given for love of country. – Padraig Pearse, Dublin 04/12/1915.” – Yours, etc,

NOEL MURPHY,

Upper Fitzwilliam Street,

Dublin 2

Sir, – It is now more than 10 years since Martin Cullen TD abolished Dúchas, the Heritage Service. Our national and built monuments are not adequately protected. When I questioned the OPW decision to allow filming on Skellig Michael, a general response was “it’s about jobs”. In the deep recession of the ’80s the OPW partnered with private agencies and owners to train young people in heritage protection and craft skills (stonework, wood-carving and preservation). These were jobs and skills geared toward protecting and conserving our heritage.

In the 10 years since the abolition of Dúchas, 39 sites in Tara were demolished to facilitate the M3 toll road. There are robberies of stunning stonework and the job of Dúchas has been divided between the Department of the Environment and the OPW.

Heritage is not adequately protected. We are not training the young in conservation techniques and we have no statutory agency for protecting our natural and built heritage. There are jobs in protecting our fragile heritage infrastructure in the long term: people require skills training.

The Hollywood machine is a temporary thing. Where is the long view on jobs, on awareness and on stewardship in Ireland?

It is the job of the Minister to propose a far-sighted agenda for the work of the divided heritage agency, and yet I have seen no comment or response to the OPW decision on Skeilig from her office. We are used to disgraceful decisions affecting our environment in Ireland. Why should we be surprised now? – Yours, etc,

CHRISTINE MURRAY,

Kenilworth Square,

Dublin 6

Sir, – Well done to Chris Johns for his excellent article (July 29th) highlighting the ESRI report that confirms that income inequality in Ireland is less than in many other EU countries. This is a welcome retort to the hysteria from left-wingers who speak of the need to tackle income inequality as if Ireland was run like a 19th century laissez faire economy.

It is seldom argued in Ireland that income inequality is in itself not necessarily a bad thing. Equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcome is rarely the refrain of public debate. Those on the left, and some who claim to be on the right, who wish to take even more from hardworking people’s wages will never understand that income tax is not their money.

The need to balance social welfare and tax policy remains a challenge. Why is someone who is laid off after working for 20 years receiving, in relative terms, similar welfare benefits to someone who has rarely if ever worked? What Ireland urgently needs is an individual benefits voucher system that rewards hard working people and encourages others off long-term welfare. Yours, etc,

JOHN KENNY,

Arundel,

Monkstown Valley

Co Dublin

Sir, – Talk of reducing the burden on low and middle income taxpayers through reducing the top rate of tax seems dreadfully short-sighted. Last year we had a deficit of €11 billion, so talk of tax cuts seems premature. A fairer way to help those on middle and low incomes would be to increase both tax credits for those paying the lower rate of tax and to raise the threshold at which the higher rate is applied. Finally, there may be scope to increase social security contributions from employers and employees. In 2012 social security contributions made up 14 per cent of GDP in the EU and 5.8 per cent in Ireland. Yours, etc,

ADAM BURKE,

Vale View Grove,

Dublin 18

Sir, – Maeve Halpin’s bemoaning of the capacity of the judiciary to curb abuses of power (Letters, July 29th) is like the driver of a Rolls Royce complaining about the air conditioning.

There are countless examples of where the good and the great have in recent years been dealt with appropriately by the law. It may not always have been in the vengeful way that is desired by the general populace but rather in the way allowed for by law and overseen by a truly independent and balanced judiciary.

Examples can always be quoted where the results did not sate the howling masses, but the law is about justice, not emotion. Our judicial system is among the finest in the world but like a lot of great things in this country, we still like to moan about it. Yours, etc,

GEOFF SCARGILL,

Loreto Grange,

Bray,

Co Wicklow

Sir, – As I approached a lengthy queue at passport control in Dublin airport last evening I asked about using the advertised self-service passport control facility. I was told that “self-service closes at five”. Does DAA /Department of Justice employ a different definition of self-service from the rest of us? – Yours, etc,

GUS JONES,

Rocwood,

Stillorgan,

Co Dublin

Sir, – It has been a while since I read a piece of writing that made me feel proud to be Irish. What a warm and generous tribute Dr Eckhard Lübkemeier (Opinion & Analysis, July 28th), departing German ambassador to Ireland, paid to the country he called home for the past three years. I would like to give him my very best wishes for his future, wherever it may take him. Auf Wiedersehen. – Yours, etc,

ILSE McDONAGH,

Whitebeam Road,

Dublin 14

Irish Independent:

* C Bowman (July 29) is right about the one-state solution, although probably not in the way he intended.

He asks that if Palestinians and Israelis claim they can live in peace in two states, then why can’t they live in peace in one. But he should know that they can’t because Hamas‘s explicit goal is still to get rid of Israel and kill all its citizens, not just the Jewish ones but the Muslim and Christian ‘collaborator’ ones, too. Hamas do not want to live in peace with any non-Muslim people anywhere and want to create a medieval Sharia Islamic state. How can you ever have a rational debate with people who have that aim as their starting point? Israel is the perfect deflection for when the Palestinian leadership want to divert attention from their own corruption and failings, despite the hundreds of millions provided to them, to provide even the most basic social services.

Even the IRA at the height of its terrorist campaign wasn’t going to murder all Protestants if it gained control of Northern Ireland. Even if Israel agreed to the 1967 borders it had before it was again invaded by Arab armies, Gaza and The West Bank will never make an economically viable state. The real tragedy for the Palestinians is that by the world continuing to pander to such a myth, they keep them living in their self-created ghettos across the Arab world even longer, while it is Arab states who refuse to grant Palestinians, even those born in those countries, citizenship.

The one-state solution is easy but it takes guts to point it out. That one state should be Israel.

There is no difference between a Palestinian and a Jordanian, so the West Bank should become part of Jordan and Gaza should become part of Egypt, with all the Palestinians being given a choice as to which state they want to live in and granted full citizenship in those states within a federal structure. The West and oil-rich Arab states can stump up the cost of paying for repatriation and setting up new communities with sustainable employment, that is if most of it isn’t siphoned off through corruption. Jordan and Egypt can sign a peace treaty with Israel, fixing the 1967 borders and ratified by the UN.

Radical yes, but more realistic and credible than any current efforts to force a Palestinian state that will never last, due to corruption, economic viability and inter-Muslim violence, into being.

DESMOND FITZGERALD

CANARY WHARF, LONDON

BOYCOTT ISRAEL UNTIL SIEGE LIFTED

* Now is the time to let Israel know that a complete boycott of Israel might not stop until the siege of Gaza is lifted – all goods, and contact of all description should stop. Now.

BARRY NOLAN

DUBLIN 3

WHERE IS COMPASSION TO PLIGHT?

* The efforts of UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon to broker a ceasefire in Gaza have been thwarted by what he describes as “a lack of political will”. How much carnage must the civilian population of Gaza endure before world political leaders muster the courage to cry halt to this senseless slaughter, and insist that Israel desists from its practice of collective punishment of the civilian population, and honours its obligations under international law? The people of Gaza are now trapped in appalling living conditions. Where is our compassion as a global community for their plight? Could it be that in the eyes of many world leaders the people of Gaza simply fall into the category of ‘those human beings who do not count’?

TOMAS MAHER

RAHEENROCHE, DUNGARVAN, CO KILKENNY

DISMAYED BY ABORTION STANCE

* I was dismayed to read your article by Deirdre Conroy (25/7/14) deploring the lack of abortion services in Ireland. She stated that we believe it is wrong to impose inhumane and degrading treatment on any human being.

While I could not agree more with this statement, I am finding it a little difficult to see how the unborn child fails to meet with the above criteria.

Perhaps Ms Conroy would like to explain?

MAURICE HESSION,

FOSTER COURT, GALWAY

REAPPRAISE LEGACY OF ASGARD

* The bringing of arms by the Asgard and the 1916 uprising should be appraised from different viewpoints. When this is done, violence will be seen as a zero sum game. We are all interdependent and there cannot be a mutual gain from violence. John Donne said “Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee”. Those who glamorise violence are telling a lie and that lie can only be maintained by more violence or the threat of violence. The legacy of 1916 is poverty and emigration and the shameful neutrality in WW2 when the West was fighting for human rights against the greatest evil that ever existed in the world.

STEPHEN FALLON

BARRINGTON STREET, LIMERICK

IMPORTANT TO LIVE LIFE TO THE FULL

* Geraldine Lynagh’s “Top tips to achieve a longer life” (Independent, July 28) reminded me of the story of the man who visited his doctor for advice about living to the ripe old age of 100 years.

“Well,” replied the doctor, “go to bed every night at 8pm, give up the drink and the cigarettes, eat only food that is good for you rather than food you enjoy, avoid any activity that might excite you and resist the temptations of the flesh.”

“If I follow your advice and do everything you recommend,” inquired the patient, “will I live for 100yrs?”

“I can’t guarantee that,” replied the doctor, “but it will certainly feel like you have!”

It’s far more important to live life to the full and make the most of every day as we act out Shakespeare’s seven stages of life. Then we’ll have no regrets when it’s time to get off the stage. Carpe Diem!

BILLY RYLE

SPA, TRALEE, CO KERRY

URGE OBAMA TO END ‘MADNESS’

* As Taoiseach, Enda Kenny I appeal to you, make contact with President Obama and other world leaders with regard to this madness (killing of children in Gaza conflict). Remember “the only way for evil to continue is for good men to do nothing”.

BRIAN MC DEVITT,

ARDCONNAILL, GLENTIES, CO DONEGAL

NCT TESTS MORALLY DISHONEST

* We read in your newspaper (July 28) that the NCT organisation is to be more amenable towards motorists booking their cars in for a test. Isn’t it just a pity that they would not address the practice of backdating the test to the anniversary of first registration? This practice is there for the sole purpose of maximising the revenue from every car over four years old. No allowance is made for cars that may be genuinely off the road for long periods. In the UK the MOT cert is given for a full 12 months from the date tested, not backdated.

Brussels only dictated that cars be tested every two years or one year depending on age and did not stipulate back-to-back dating of tests. I know this as I complained to the Commissioner for Transport last year. He determined that the Irish Government was not doing anything illegal.

Illegal, maybe not, but morally dishonest, yes.

JOHN HUGHES

COALPARK, CLONBUR, CO GALWAY

Irish Independent