2 July 2013 Sunday Hospital
Off around the park listening to the Navy Lark, Back from leave and Captain Povey is attempting to divide the crew of Troutnridge Priceless.
Mary still in hospital for a tests I hope all will be well.
I watch The Invasion its not bad
No Scrabble no Mary
Obituary:
Sir Jack Boles
Sir Jack Boles, who has died aged 88, was a former colonial district officer who served as director-general of the National Trust from 1975 to 1983, during what is widely regarded as a golden age in its history.
Sir Jack Boles Photo: APEX
5:58PM BST 01 Jul 2013
As a member of the Trust’s staff from 1965, Boles had been involved in implementing the recommendations of the 1968 Benson Report into its constitution, organisation and responsibilities, involving the introduction of a more professional approach to management and devolution to the regions.
As D-G under the chairmanship of Lord Antrim and subsequently Lord Gibson, Boles continued this work, visiting the regions as often as possible, smoothing ruffled feathers and getting the organisation’s insular cliques to work together and share ideas. Among other things, he built up the Trust’s public relations activities, with new regional information officers and the promotion of events such as plays and concerts at Trust properties. In 1978, for example, the first of the now biennial fêtes champêtres, with floodlights, fireworks and fancy dress, was held at Stourhead in Wiltshire.
Meanwhile, as the result of a new membership drive promoted with refunds on entry fees, membership rose from 226,000 in 1970 to one million by 1981. As membership grew, the legacy department expanded, and income from legacies became a significant part of Trust income. In addition, a trading department was established, supplying National Trust goods to new shops which were opening at the properties.
The Trust made several important acquisitions during Boles’s time as D-G, including Wimpole Hall in Cambridgeshire; Cragside in Northumberland; Canons Ashby in Northamptonshire; and Erdigg in Wales. Undoubtedly the most notable addition, however, was Kingston Lacy in Dorset, comprising not only a 17th-century house with a stunning art collection, but also Corfe Castle, Studland Bay, Badbury Rings, three pubs, a hotel, 14 farms and 327 houses and cottages. The estate has been described as one of the greatest acquisitions the Trust has ever made.
Jack Dennis Boles was born on June 25 1925 at Waterlooville, near Portsmouth, where his father, Geoffrey, was serving as a naval officer attached to HMS Vernon, the School of Gunnery. His father left the Navy in 1928 and took a job in London until 1934, when he became a land agent in Devon. The family eventually moved to Rydon House, a Georgian house at Talaton, near Ottery St Mary. Geoffrey Boles rejoined the Navy in 1938 but his wife died in early 1943, and shortly afterwards he was allowed to retire from the Navy.
From Winchester College, Jack joined the Army in 1943, and in November 1944 was commissioned in the Rifle Brigade. A motorcycle accident prevented him from serving in northern Europe, but in 1945-46 he was stationed in Egypt.
After the war he joined the Colonial Service and, having studied Arabic and Hebrew in preparation for going to Palestine, was sent to North Borneo instead. There he taught himself Malay, largely by reading translations of Shakespeare and the Bible, and spent 17 years as a district commissioner, helping in the restoration and development of the colony after it had been shattered by four years of Japanese occupation.
Towards the end of his time there, as North Borneo moved to independence as part of Malaysia, Boles served as Secretary to the last British Governor, Sir William Goode, then stayed on for a year after independence as Secretary to the Minister for Land and Natural Resources in the new government. Reels of film which he shot in the early 1960s, showing scenes from family life as well as Seato military manoeuvres, are now held by the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum.
After returning to Britain in 1964 Boles joined the National Trust in 1965 as Assistant Secretary on a salary of £2,000 a year.
In 1953 he had married Benita Wormald, with whom he had four children in North Borneo, followed by a fifth (the planning minister Nick Boles) in 1965. In 1969, however, Benita died of cancer, and in 1971 he married Anne Waldegrave, the daughter of Earl Waldegrave, whom he had met when she became one of the National Trust’s first regional information officers.
After Boles retired from the Trust in 1983, they returned to his childhood home at Talaton, Devon, where he farmed, planted trees, restored a beautiful garden and enjoyed shooting and fishing for trout on the river Otter.
A churchwarden, beekeeper and, for many years, a member of the National Trust regional committee for Devon and Cornwall, Boles served as a Deputy Lieutenant of Devon and High Sheriff of the county in 1993-94. He was appointed MBE in 1960 and knighted in 1983.
Jack Boles is survived by his wife, by three daughters and two sons of his first marriage, and by an adopted daughter.
Sir Jack Boles, born June 25 1925, died July 1 2013
Guardian:
I understand that people will find news of developments into solving the problem of faulty mitochondria disturbing (Green light for babies with three parents, 28 June). However, as one of a family with inherited mitochondrial problems I had to watch my brother’s health slowly decline until his early death at 46 years, and to know my children could carry the faulty gene is deeply disturbing.
Monica Gripaios
York
• Why is genetic modification acceptable in people but not in rice?
Dr John Doherty
Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire
• Dr Brown and Professor Moran (Letters, 27 June) argue that the rail franchising system is unfit for purpose and that the private sector is profiting at the public’s expense. We might also wonder why HS2 will now cost an extra £10bn (to more than £40bn), when the French are building a high-speed line the same length as HS2 for £8bn.
Professor Lewis Lesley
Liverpool
• As an teenager, in the 1940s, I asked LS Lowry, a family friend, why he didn’t help poor people, rather than just painting them (Letters, 29 June)? He said he believed the working class were quite happy as they were, and that there was “no need to interfere” with them. Lowry was apolitical in many ways, which disappointed my father, John Holmes, principal of the then Manchester school of art, who enjoyed Lowry’s often cheerful company, as I did.
Mary Stableford
Oxford
• Why should we be surprised that a bunch of men in their late 60s should be able to strut their stuff at Glastonbury for two hours, after 50 years doing it for a fair old living (Report, 1 July)? After all, they are the beneficiaries of Attlee’s post-war NHS and education foundations: good nutrition and a good, free education. I’m more concerned that the young ones won’t be able to do it 50 years on … which is why we need to fight for the NHS and our education system.
Chloe Alexander
Ludlow, Shropshire
• When are we going to see a whole G2 on the Proms?
John Caperon
Crowborough, East Sussex
The coalition benefit cap offers Labour another opportunity to leapfrog the welfare reform agenda (Few rows, no rebellion: how Osborne and Co quelled dissent on spending, 28 June). By opting out pensions from the cap, and JSA contributory benefits, the chancellor’s made the key distinction between national insurance and means-tested benefits. Here lies the opportunity.
Voters are increasingly unwilling to give support to a something-for-nothing welfare. They strongly support the gaining of welfare on the basis of contribution. We must build on this distinction.
Welfare needs more, not less money. We are living longer and making greater demands on pensions, health and social care. These are three areas of welfare that should be financed by insurance. Contributions would come from graduated national insurance payments, and by function, ie by performing roles, such as caring, that taxpayers wish to see encouraged.
But the new money must be ringfenced. Voters are unwilling to agree more contributions on the old contract, with politicians getting their sticky fingers on to their funds. Labour should propose new national mutuals covering each of these three areas and mirroring the John Lewis Partnership form of governance.
Frank Field MP
Lab, Birkenhead
• The boom for private landlords (Meet the new class of landlords who are profiting from Generation Rent, 29 June) is the consequence of unregulated capitalism, just as the banks were. Why did they get the capital to expand when businesses and first-time house buyers did not? The answer is the property market and, of course, right-to-buy, a third of which ended up in the private rental sector.
According to the coalition, the bedroom tax makes housing benefit fair across the social and private housing sectors. What is fair about private landlords converting three-bedroom properties into three flats and claiming higher rent, and perhaps more housing benefit? Is that the goal of the bedroom tax, to force people out of social housing into the hands of the private landlord?
Dr Graham Ullathorne
Chesterfield, Derbyshire
If householders are reluctant to embrace green deal improvements (Round table discussion, 1 July), it could be because dry-lining walls is a disruptive process. Solar panels stuck on top of roofs look dreadful in most cases. And even having the loft insulation deepened can cause a mess. Not once in the discussion did anyone look at the point of view of the householder.
If you arrange these things yourself you can choose the timetable. When you enter into a “scheme”, you may have to abide by others’ timetables. There are people like us who won’t appear on your statistics because we are gradually getting on with making these changes slowly and when we can face emptying a room, replastering it (because that’s what follows dry-lining), getting period features like coving and picture rails replaced, and then moving back in several weeks later. That’s not easy for the millions in this country who live in Victorian/Edwardian houses with walls which are unsuitable for cavity wall insulation. If solar panel manufacturers could come up with panels which sit flat on the roof instead of, rather than as well as, slates, we’d have the lot done immediately.
We did go for a loft insulation scheme several years ago and it was not a good experience. The installers were clearly paid by how many they could do in a day, didn’t bring dustsheets, threw the huge bales in at the front door and zoomed up the stairs with them, marking the paintwork, and damaged the loft ladder. Someone with a more practical take on helping people to make their homes more energy-efficient is crucial to taking these ideas forward.
Brenda Butler
Freckleton, Lancashire
The Parliamentary Standards Commission’s recommendations for a generous pay rise for MPs (Report, 1 July) is the pay-off for MPs submitting to proper control of their equally generous expense accounts. The little pas de deux being engaged in by Cameron and the PSC at the moment fools no one. Nationally set rates of pay for MPs are an antiquated concept. To bring things up to date the PSC should be replaced by MemQual, which will assess MPs on the basis of: (1) objectively measurable parliamentary activity outcomes; (2) adherence to electoral pledges; (3) promptitude, usefulness, veracity and literacy of responses to constituents.
Pay should be means-tested and those with means of more than £200,000 will be deemed not to require pay of any sort. The MP’s pension scheme is clearly unsustainable and should be sold off immediately, and closed to any new entrants to the House. Pensions, if any, should depend on the market.
Simon Nicholls
London
As a British historian of black civil rights currently in Washington DC and watching the genuine excitement following the supreme court’s decision to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act (Report, 27 June), I feel it is an important moment to understand the civil rights and human implications. Bayard Rustin, a key civil rights tactician who organised the march on Washington in 1963, was persecuted due to being African American and for his political links to communism – but also due to his homosexuality. In the early 1980s, he said the barometer for civil rights in the US was changing focus upon how its gay citizens were treated – this was as the HIV/Aids epidemic struck an increasingly conservative America.
In the 1950s Rustin had a relationship with Tom Kahn, a white student radical – breaking a lot of social taboos at the time. Kahn had been struggling with his sexuality but upon meeting Rustin embraced his identity fully and engaged in the civil rights struggle in all its social and economic forms. Apparently Kahn went to a psychiatrist in 1956 to try and understand his sexual identity – the diagnosis was “you’re in love”. After the legal decisions last week and all the bluster of social conservatives, the simple diagnosis for America could not, perhaps, be simpler.
Dr Lee Sartain
University of Portsmouth
• Your World Pride top 100 power list (29 June) included not a single scientist or other Stem professional. Although at No 5 there is Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, who admittedly has a first degree in engineering, he has been in mainly sales roles ever since. I would like to comfort myself with the thought that the absence from the list of anyone from a Stem profession is because your sexuality matters less in those fields, but I fear it’s due to the usual blindness that blights these sorts of lists. Top women, top black people, top disabled people … all these lists are heavily overpopulated with artists, writers and entertainers, with a sprinkle of business people.
Dr Nina Baker
University of Strathclyde
May I suggest to Melissa Kite (Comment, 1 July) that people below her “middle classes [who] deserve a tax break” are not “the problem families … lower down the socio-economic scale”. There are at that level undoubtedly a minority of dysfunctional families who have problems, as at all other levels. But most people at the bottom of the pile are not “problem families”. They are simply poor. It should shame us all that most of the poorest families are getting poorer by the month.
Tony Greaves
Lib Dem, House of Lords
• The justification for tax allowances is usually that they compensate for necessary expenses. So why do Tories want an allowance for married couples (Report, 1 July)? What expenses do married couples incur singles or unmarried couples don’t?
Bob Elmes
Frodsham, Cheshire
• Is Cameron’s plan for a marriage tax break only valid for the first marriage, or will we keep on qualifying however many different partners we have?
Lizzie Hill
Guildford, Surrey
The British Geological Survey estimates of huge potential reserves of shale gas in the north-west are being hailed as key to the UK’s energy future (Report, 28 June). But we must be wary of false promises. The successful exploitation of these reserves is not a given, and the environmental and community impacts of extraction will be substantial.
Shale has the potential to bring in substantial tax revenue but is this really the long-term solution to our energy needs? There is plenty of research to show that the marginal price of gas will not be affected. At best, energy prices may rise more slowly than they might otherwise.
Surely, in jumping from one unsustainable energy source to the next, we are just storing up problems for the future, when supplies will be tighter and the risks of insecurity greater? Given the choice between a very large hole in the ground, and clean, renewable energy with fantastic demand-side management and energy-efficient technologies, a combined resource that won’t expire and will leave positive long-lasting annuity, I know which I would choose.
Juliet Davenport
CEO & founder, Good Energy
• Luckily for the Department of Energy and Climate Change, which commissioned it, the British Geological Survey was able to draw upon memoirs written before the latest wave of early retirements and redundancies degraded its expertise. So while Wigan, Manchester, Preston and Rochdale are covered by state-of-the-art 1:50,000 maps based on fresh 1:10,000 surveys, when it comes to selecting potential drilling sites, the coast from Bootle to Fleetwood (mantled with peat and other, often vulnerable, superficial deposits) has only outdated, sometimes Victorian, surveys. The same goes for much of Cheshire and Yorkshire underlain by the Bowland shales at suitable depths. Furthermore, with a third of Britain not covered by anything approaching modern standards, now that systematic geological mapping is ending, for the lack of a few million a year, future governments will make expensive planning mistakes. Unforeseen ground conditions are often used as an excuse to cover up inadequate site investigations.
When it comes to the long-term disposal of high-level nuclear waste, another decade has been wasted during which the BGS could have been funded to explore in depth geologically stable areas such as Hertfordshire and Suffolk with no foreseeable deep mineral potential.
David Nowell
New Barnet, Hertfordshire
• Fracking (It’s like the Archers meets Dallas, 29 June ) works in the US because George W Bush removed many of the environmental protection requirements; the gas could not easily be exported so it reduced domestic prices dramatically (unlike the UK, where it will be traded on) and the US is a big country. The amount of energy used to extract it is huge, generating large emissions leading to climate change. Fracking requires large quantities of water. Didn’t we have drought warnings only a couple of years ago? I look forward to seeing George Osborne lead the way by endorsing drilling pads in his Tatton constituency.
Janet Roberts
Saundersfoot, Pembrokeshire
• It’s great news that the UK has shale gas, a massive new long-term energy source that we should take full advantage of. With regulation to ensure risks are appropriately managed, this will provide energy at lower cost, improve energy security and avoid the spectre of peak-time power cuts. It must be linked to a long-term scheme for carbon capture, pumping CO2 into deep strata, including exhausted undersea oilfields, using the same pipelines that conveyed the oil to land. This will fulfil our environmental obligations on avoiding further increase in atmospheric CO2; it is an elegant solution which is affordable while we utilise the new cheaper resource of shale gas.
Steve Mayerstel
Loughborough
• In the US there are concerns that 16% of the methane released by fracking is lost to the atmosphere. Given that methane is 200% worse as a global warming gas than CO2, can anyone tell us how much methane might be lost in UK fracking operations and how this squares with our attempts to reduce our output of atmospheric warming gases?
David England
Independent:
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Owen Jones’s piece (1 July) on the failure of the Labour Party to react with alternative policies to the Coalition’s disastrous strategies fails to hit the heart of Labour’s failure. Since the runaway success of Blair’s election victories Labour no longer look to what is best for the country but how best they can get back into power.
Labour sees no votes in challenging the orthodoxy of austerity; so, afraid of alienating floating voters, they forget their radical roots and settle for only token challenges to whatever new cut Mr Osborne comes up with.
The answer? Political bravery instead of mediocrity.
Vaughan Thomas
Usk, Gwent
Owen Jones obviously means well, but he does not address the contradiction of running concurrently a fiscal stimulus, a trade deficit and a budget deficit.
New Labour tried this and the country went bust. Doing the same thing again and expecting a different result represents a failure to learn from experience.
Martin London
Henllan, Denbighshire
Kim Howells, another New Labour has-been, is wheeled out by the leadership to create a panic about trade union members of the Labour Party demanding a voice.
This is designed to obscure the abolition of democracy within the party. Members no longer have a vote to determine party policy or even a free choice on who is put forward to represent them. The New Labour generation of paid representatives have achieved a level of entryist stitch-up that Militant could never have fantasised about.
Without accountability, the party has become fractured between a majority Old Labour social base, and a undemocratic New Toff Labour leadership. The result is that party membership is down by three-quarters from its 405,000 peak and 5 million Labour voters are on electoral strike. Tellingly, Miliband’s first response as leader was to abolish Shadow Cabinet elections.
We need a campaign to force political parties to return to internal democracy. To have in the 21st century a mainstream organisation with less party democracy than 1930s German National Socialism is a disgrace. Differences about party policy should be resolved by voting. The alternative is for the taxpayer to fund parties whose own supporters don’t approve of them.
Gavin Lewis
Manchester
Tax breaks don’t make stable families
The reasoning behind Tory plans for a tax break for married couples almost certainly puts the cart before the horse. The logic runs as follows: children need a stable home environment; statistics show that married couples stay together longer than unmarried ones; therefore we need to persuade more couples to get married.
The most likely explanation for the statistics is that those couples who choose to marry are, on average, more committed than those who do not. Some evidence for this is provided by the increasing number of couples who decide to get married after cohabiting for several years, often after having one or more children.
But this does not mean that providing financial incentives for people to get married who would otherwise not have done so will significantly increase the stability of their relationship. There is even a danger that, in a number of cases, such incentives might simply prolong a turbulent relationship, to the detriment of all concerned.
One wonders how many of those in favour of this measure have, consciously or otherwise, viewed the statistics through ideologically tinted spectacles. The phrase “living in sin” is hardly ever used today, but the concept no doubt still lingers in the minds of many of the more conservative members of the Conservative Party.
Francis Kirkham
Crediton, Devon
The announcement of tax breaks for the married proves that singlism – prejudice and discrimination against singles – is alive and well in the UK.
Alan Robinson
Huddersfield
The horrors of mutilation
John Beck (letter, 29 June) is right that, medically speaking, one cannot equate female genital mutilation (FGM) with male circumcision.
The type of FGM commonly practised by Somali diaspora families in the UK is known as Type III, or infibulation, which involves stitching the vaginal opening shut, allowing only a matchstick-sized hole for the passing of urine and menstrual blood. The husband will cut through the scar tissue in order to penetrate his wife.
This procedure leads to a multitude of severe lifelong mental and physical health problems for the woman concerned.
Another point that anti-circumcision campaigners should bear in mind when they try to ride piggyback on the anti-FGM campaign is that, unlike FGM, circumcision is not illegal. Activists need only engage with members of the Muslim and Jewish communities as they emerge, respectively, from their mosques and synagogues.
Vera Lustig
Walton-on-Thames, Surrey
John Beck states that “there is no comparison between male circumcision and female genital mutilation”; then himself makes the comparison of “the very rare procedure of removing the skin covering the clitoris, as described by David Hamilton” with “the commonly performed mutilation of female genitalia …” that can “only be compared to partial or complete penile amputation”.
My point was and is that all these practices, of whatever degree of extremity, are unequivocally repellent. Sometimes “circumcision” does result in partial or complete penile amputation. The lead needs to be followed of the eminently brave Dr Nawaal el-Saadawi in emphasising that all genital mutilation, especially if it is of unconsenting young girls and boys, is plain wrong. All surgical interference with a healthy child’s genitals is an assault on human rights of the grossest kind.
Of course passing legislation on this will do no good, whether here or in Egypt, unless politicians have the guts to enforce it.
David Hamilton
Edinburgh
Teaching for each student
Frances Lothian (Letters, 21 June) seriously misrepresents the concept of “differentiation”. She refers to the need to “teach the different streams exclusively … [to] focus on the abilities and needs of the particular stream…”
Differentiation is meeting the needs of individuals, and that will be true regardless of how the class is organised. While the range will be smaller in a class set by ability, all classes will include students with diverse needs, and the smaller the school the wider the range of needs in each class will be.
Outstanding teachers recognise this and cater for those needs with resources, classroom tasks and teacher feedback all differentiated to encourage widespread progress and participation. Weak teachers see the class as homogeneous and offer all students the same diet regardless of their needs or aptitude.
In my experience of working with hundreds of schools, “teaching to the middle” is as common in setted classes as those organised in wide ability groups. Setting is not the panacea that Frances Lothian would have readers believe. Students can be bored or flounder even in top set classes.
Robert Powell
Former headteacher
Stafford
Nothing new on the Web
Ray Howes (Letters, 1 July) mentions having predicted tablet computers in 1976 but didn’t document it, while observing that Dr James Martin’s prediction of the internet in 1978 wasn’t as prescient as his own.
The rock star Pete Townshend predicted the internet as the Grid in 1971, but he was anticipated by Ted Nelson, who predicted the internet, as Xanadu, in 1960 and documented it in Computer Lib, published in 1974. Tablet computers, as the DynaBook, were predicted by Alan Kay in 1972. All documented on Wikipedia, which itself was, arguably, “predicted” by Denis Diderot in 1750 as he proposed to codify the 17th century “Republic of Letters”, which has been characterised as “Calvet’s Web”.
Hope this helps.
Fred Garnett
London SE23
Mandela’s lesson for Obama
Obama, pictured in Nelson Mandela’s former cell, declares: “No shackles or cells can match the strength of the human spirit.” Did he at the time reflect on the United States’ violation of human rights with the unjust incarceration and force-feeding of those suffering appalling conditions in Guantanamo Bay?
Might it just possibly have occurred to him that such mistreatment could well strengthen the human spirit of those across the world whose spirit we might reasonably not want strengthened?
Peter Cave
London W1
Modified people
Dr John Doherty asks: “Why is genetic modification acceptable in people but not in rice?” (Letters, 29 June).
If indeed it is acceptable in people, perhaps it’s because each individual person must be in full agreement to undergo the experiment, whereas with GM food we aren’t going to be asked, and may well have it forced on us, unlabelled.
Eddie Dougall
Walsham le Willows, Suffolk
The decision to allow embryos to be produced from DNA from three people is a slippery slope. Before you know it we will be using genetic manipulations to cure even more diseases and improving the lives of people. Where will it all end?
Ian Robertson
Milton Keynes
First casualty
Two questions arise following Alastair Campbell’s assertion that Tony Blair had a greater commitment to “wartime truth” than Winston Churchill. Since when did Mr Campbell believe that Tony Blair was anything other than entirely truthful in what he told us in the lead-up to the Iraq war? More importantly, what did Blair tell us that wasn’t true?
Brendan O’Brien
London N21
Rock patriarchs
I wonder if, in 50 years time, One Direction will be emulating the performance of the Rolling Stones at Glastonbury on Saturday night. Sadly, Mr Jagger won’t be around to witness such an event – and, alas, neither will I.
Sarah Pegg
Times:
Only a third of Wellington’s “infamous” army was British — it was a much more continental contest than he liked to admit
Sir, If anything, Ben Macintyre (“Without Prussia we’d all be speaking French”, June 28) underestimates the German role at Waterloo. The Prussians were important, but 40 per cent of Wellington’s army was made up of King’s German Legion, Hanoverians, Nassauers and Brunswickers, all of whom also became German. Of the two armies facing Napoleon, 70 per cent of the soldiers were, eventually, German.
Only a third of Wellington’s “infamous” army was British, making almost 17 per cent of the total. The rest were Dutch-Belgian, including Chassé’s division. It was a much more continental contest than Wellington liked to admit.
John Andrews
Northiam, E Sussex
Sir, Ben Macintyre ignores the role of the Royal Navy. In the Napoleonic wars it, not the expeditionary armies led by Wellington, was the country’s first line of defence.
Even if Blücher had not joined at the right moment and the battle of Waterloo had been lost, Britain would not have been defeated. Between France and Britain stood the Royal Navy. Nelson’s victories of the Nile, Copenhagen and Trafalgar over the French navy assured British dominance of the seas.
Gabriel Ronay
London N6
Sir, Had Wellington lost, the French were still on the other side of the Channel, which the Royal Navy controlled. As Admiral Earl St Vincent said at the time of a previous invasion scare, “I do not say they cannot come, I say only that they cannot come by sea.”
Tony Lunt
Fovant, Wilts
Sir, In Germany some 40 years ago I found an inviting restaurant but it was reserved for a private function, the manager explained — a club’s annual dinner, celebrating Napoleon’s final defeat against Prussia, under Blücher.
Seeing me staring wistfully, they beckoned me in and made me an honoured if obscure guest, representing “an important ally in the battle”.
S. D. Usher
Ewell, Surrey
Sir, Lieutenant William Siborne wasn’t the only person to have his work airbrushed.
Thomas Heaphy’s portrait of Arthur Wellesley, in the National Portrait Gallery, originally had the Duke looking at his watch. This was rejected by the sitter on the grounds that viewers would (rightly) assume the Duke was waiting for the Prussians.
Heaphy then changed it to Wellington holding a telescope to imply an imperial survey of the landscape — a far more suitable and impressive pose which continued to perpetuate the myth of sole victor.
Anushua Biswas
Skipton, N Yorks
Sir, Ben Macintyre suggested that in his first dispatch to Bathurst after the battle Wellington “made it quite clear that the battle had effectively been won before the Prussians turned up”.
What Wellington actually wrote was as follows: “I should not do justice to my own feelings, or to Marshal Blücher and the Prussian army, if I did not attribute the successful result of the arduous day to the cordial and timely assistance I received from them.”
Ivor Blight
Guildford, Surrey
Democracy and respect for the parliamentary process are not enhanced by insisting that MPs are paid less than a middle-ranking bureaucrat
Sir, The country would be best served by giving MPs a significant pay rise while banning all forms of extra remuneration. MPs go to Parliament to represent constituents and run the country, both huge responsibilities requiring time and integrity, not to feather their own nests. Let us pay them accordingly and send moneygrubbers packing.
Alistair Wilson
West Linton, Peeblesshire
Sir, MPs should get the reported inflation-busting pay rise of £10,000. The only condition is that they should resign from consultancies, directorships and other outside sources of income. Then perhaps they will concentrate on being full Members of Parliament.
Keith Anderson
Tavistock, Devon
Sir, Being an MP is a part-time job, with opportunities to earn a second income. It offers the best non-contributory pension in the UK. And the expense regime still offers the opportunity for many to acquire a second home and profit from its sale. Deduct all that from the result of any job evaluation and they begin to look generously paid, to say the least.
Ian M. Johnson
Westhill, Aberdeenshire
Sir, Voters must consider carefully whether they want their MPs, whose job of representing constituents, holding the government and others to account, and scrutinising law is hugely important, to be paid less than the bureaucrats deciding their salaries.
Democracy and respect for the parliamentary process are not enhanced by insisting that MPs are paid less than a middle-ranking bureaucrat at a town council.
John Slinger
Rugby, Warks
So long as we remain in the EU Germany can use its dominance to override our Parliament and impose rules and unwanted laws on UK voters
Sir, Sir Jeremy Lever argues that UK secession from the EU would result in the German domination of Europe that it has always been our foreign policy to avoid (letter, July 1). The opposite argument has at least equal force. So long as we remain in the EU Germany can use its dominance to override our Parliament and impose rules and laws on UK voters which they cannot overturn through the ballot box.
Sir Jeremy also ignores the fact that it is through Nato, and not the EU, that Germany and the UK are bound together for the common good.
David Cockerham
Bearsted, Kent
The Home Office is increasingly granting “legacy” applicants Leave to Remain as a matter of right in order to clear some of the backlog
Sir, The suggestion of an amnesty for illegal migrants is not new (report, June 28). Some 160,00 were granted amnesty in the five years up to June 2011 and it was estimated that “legacy” cases totalled about 450,000 with some 74,000 remaining untraceable. The situation now is that the Home Office is increasingly granting “legacy” applicants Leave to Remain as a matter of right in order to clear some of the backlog and to enable Home Office staff to deal effectively with current overstayers and possible illegals. However, this is hardly a signal that we should grant a general amnesty, I would have thought. It will simply encourage greater numbers, even less compliance and signal that it is OK to break our laws in this regard. Surely the Government does not wish a repeat of Labour’s tactics in encouraging inward migration as a supposed vote winner.
Vernon Scarborough
Copthorne, W Sussex
The key to teaching quick and accurate mental arithmetic is to provide real-life examples, which the students can readily grasp
Sir, I was interested in Shelby Holmes’s comments about the “format of money” (Times2, July 1). When doing my National Service in Hong Kong I had to teach young gunners how to calculate the reciprocals of angles, eg, 317 minus 180 . Their reaction was that it was too difficult, etc. When I asked them to imagine that they were in a bar with HK$3.17 in their pocket and then spent HK$1.80 on a beer, they could calculate their correct change instantaneously.
Peter Sterwin
Weybridge, Surrey
Telegraph:
SIR – While gardening recently I was attempting to dig up some dandelions when a brand new garden fork (purchased from a well-known high-street retail outlet) snapped a prong and bent two others.
I went and bought another fork. After about an hour’s weeding the same thing happened. This was in normal soil that was not too solid or full of stones.
Am I just very clumsy, or unlucky? Or is the quality of retail gardening equipment inferior to that of previous times, particularly since our steel industry was decimated? Are we relying on substandard overseas metals in our everyday tools? Does anyone know where I can buy a garden fork made with British steel that might actually do the job that it’s bought for?
Les Hardy
Chilwell, Nottinghamshire
SIR – I disagree with the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, that publishing surgeons’ mortality rates will improve patient care (report, June 28).
Individual data will deter surgeons from operating on high-risk patients, leaving them for their colleagues to take on instead. American surgeons have moved from individual to unit data for this reason. Unit data encourages surgeons to work together, dealing with difficult cases as a multidisciplinary team, rather than adopting a pass-the-parcel approach to those patients in most need.
Angela Skull
Consultant colorectal surgeon
Chichester, West Sussex
SIR – Very few of the deaths recorded in the mortality data will have occurred on the operating table. In my 40 years’ experience as a consultant orthopaedic surgeon I only witnessed four or five such deaths, and they were all critically ill patients who died while attempts were being made to save them.
Surgical deaths occur nearly always as a result of post-operative complications and only a very few of these are due to poor surgical technique.
Related Articles
The sad decline of retail gardening equipment
01 Jul 2013
Keith Tayton
Chepstow, Monmouthshire
SIR – As the marvellous surgeon said after taking on a hugely risky operation for my relative – which none of his consultant colleagues was prepared to shoulder: “The real success lies in the work of these wonderful nurses here. I’ve done my bit.”
Good rates in operation outcomes depend upon superb surgical skill, followed by superb nursing and diagnostic skill. It is the latter that so often falls short.
Linda Hughes
Newton Abbot, Dorset
SIR – I was surprised to see that Simon Payne was named as a surgeon with a high mortality rate. In early 2011, he performed a long and complicated operation on my husband, who made a full recovery. The resident surgeon who took over told me that Mr Payne had “done a first class job”. I was originally given little hope that my husband would survive so I am eternally grateful to Mr Payne for saving his life.
Lyn Page
Madehurst, West Sussex
SIR – I hope that all doctors and surgeons working in the NHS are good and competent professionals. I do not wish to see league tables advising who the good and bad ones are. I hope that if and when errors are discovered, a proper inquiry is held and retraining is given.
Kevin Barry
Englefield Green, Surrey
SIR – Is it possible to publish league tables that present details on NHS trust chief executives and the number of needless deaths that have occurred on their watch?
Dr Nicholas Matcham
Hythe, Kent
The effects of IVF
SIR – Parents at high risk of having children with severe disabilities such as muscular dystrophy will be excited by a controversial new IVF treatment given the green light by ministers (“First three-parent baby could be born on the NHS in next two years”, report, June 28). But rigorous follow-up of births using the new technique should be carried out for many years before it is made widely available.
The Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology assesses and remedies aspects of neuromotor immaturity in children with learning difficulties and behavioural problems. We have noticed an increase in the percentage of children seen who were conceived as a result of IVF techniques.
Twenty years ago it was 1 per cent; two years ago it had risen to 10 per cent. Although the numbers are small, such an increase suggests that long-term effects of IVF may not regularly appear in statistics on the safety of existing IVF techniques.
The long-term outcomes for three-parent babies are unknown, and the legacy will not be known for at least a generation. Do parents realise this?
Sally Goddard Blythe
The Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology
Chester
Gillard’s deposition
SIR – It is not the case that Julia Gillard, the former Australian prime minister, was replaced due to sexism (Comment, June 29). When she took the job, she initially enjoyed very high ratings. Polling showed that the electorate welcomed a woman as prime minister.
Three years later she and her government were polling at all-time lows. If Australians were not sexist then, why should we think it was her gender that has undone her now? Australia and New Zealand were the first countries to give women the vote. Australia has had several female state premiers. Its Governor-General is a highly regarded woman, while the Governor of its largest state, New South Wales, is also a woman. Julia Gillard was replaced because she proved a huge disappointment, and most female members of her government voted to replace her.
Phil Teece
Sunshine Bay, New South Wales, Australia
Camera credits due
SIR – It’s a pity that in this 60th anniversary of the televising of the Coronation, an event that had such an impact nationally for the television industry, we now dismiss and devalue the amazing work of the studio- and
live-television cameramen.
The live final of The Voice on June 22 on BBC1 – in peak time and watched by millions – did not include any credits for the talented camera crew. And this at the end of a gruelling two-hour show in which I wasn’t aware of one badly framed or out-of-focus shot.
Keith Massey
Chairman, Guild of Television Cameramen
York
Currying favour
SIR – Having been sent by my wife to purchase whole cloves for an Indian curry, I asked at various Kensington shops.
Asking for cloves in the first shop, I was told they closed at 6.30. Asking for cloves in a small corner shop, I was taken to the household goods section and presented with a pack of Marigold gloves.
The third, an international food chain, suggested that they sold food and not clothes. I gave up.
Robert McDonald
London, W8
Protecting bats
SIR – Your report (June 26) quoted Sir Tony Baldry MP as saying that bats are damaging “irreplaceable parts of our natural heritage”. Parish churches are treasured places of worship and heritage buildings. But bats are also irreplaceable parts of our natural heritage. Their population suffered a huge decline in the last century, and so all bats and their roosts are protected by law.
Since many churches house bat roosts, they play a key role in conservation. The majority of churches live happily with their bats, but we have great sympathy for churches experiencing problems. In some situations, interventions are needed to restrict the activity of bats or even, in rare situations, to exclude them. There are provisions for this as a last resort within the law, but in many cases other solutions can be found.
Julia Hanmer
Chief Executive, Bat Conservation Trust
London SE11
Anyone for tennis?
SIR – Natalie Straughen’s ire at the alleged number of empty seats on No 3 Court (Letters, June 28) is misplaced. We would respectfully point out that there are no corporate seats on that court; all the seats sold are for the general public, either in advance or unreserved and available on a first-come, first-served basis.
Johnny Perkins
All England Lawn Tennis Club
London SW19
SIR – If you feel cold, blame the wrong clothes, not the weather. Perhaps tennis players who slip over should look to their footwear rather than blaming the state of the Wimbledon grass. Notably, neither Federer nor Nadal took refuge in such excuses following their early exits from the tournament.
Charles Halliday
Lymington, Hampshire
Whistle for it
SIR – As I approach being an octogenarian, I find that I can no longer whistle as well as I did when much younger.
This made me wonder why people who whistle are now an endangered species.
The days of errand boys seem to be past, our postman does his round with his obligatory earpiece in place, and builders no longer dare to whistle at passing beauties. How do I get my whistle back?
Viv Payne
Edwalton, Nottinghamshire
Finally facing Waterloo (and Agincourt) in 2015
SIR – While I am delighted to read of the Government’s contribution to the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo (Comment, June 28), I am disappointed that the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt appears to be getting overlooked.
In its way the triumph of Henry V’s dysentery-riddled, heavily outnumbered force over the cream of the French nobility was even greater than the Duke of Wellington’s, if possibly not as significant in terms of European history. Can any readers enlighten me as to whether celebrations are planned?
Roger Boyce
Dornoch, Sutherland
SIR – In April, on the way to Rouen, I visited the battlefield of Agincourt. It has been preserved and a comprehensive visitor centre has been built, containing a beautifully constructed model of the battle and numerous weapons, armour and other artefacts, both original and replica. This was another battle that the French lost really badly, and it is an example of their refreshingly even-handed attitude to history. I cannot think of any battle that we lost being commemorated in such a way.
Nicholas Wightwick
Wrexham, Denbighshire
SIR – On a recent visit to Belgium, our Flemish hosts took my wife and I to visit the battlefield and visitor centre at Waterloo. Having thoroughly enjoyed the visit and feeling very proud of our British heritage, we visited the souvenir shop and found hardly any items depicting the Duke of Wellington. When I asked the shop assistant why that was, she said it was simply supply and demand. With far more visitors from France than Britain, the French and overseas visitors all preferred souvenirs depicting Napoleon.
Des Anthony
Stockport, Cheshire
Irish Times:
Sir, – While I have some sympathy with the sentiments expressed by Fintan O’Toole (“The smartest guys in Ireland”, Weekend Review, June 29th) I believe he has failed to recognise the foundations of the problems which led us to where we now stand and where the true culpability lies. The “smartest guys in Ireland” were of our own creation and while they were weaving their “magic” we loved them. The world heaped its praise on us and made us believe we could do anything.
In hindsight, it is clear that the true origins of the mess lie in the regulatory framework that allowed the Anglo monster to grow, a regulatory framework put in place to attract foreign financial institutions to Ireland and “create jobs”. Had there been properly formulated and resourced regulation in place in the preceding years (like in Canada) slipshod practices would never thrived in the sphere of banking.
But of course the lure of “high quality jobs” was irresistible and while it all meant that we (the public) had unlimited access to cheap money, we were happy to cheer it all along. How quickly we forget. – Yours, etc,
JOHN LEE,
Sir, – We, the All-Party Pro-life Group at Stormont, wish to point out how current legislative proposals on the matter of abortion may impact upon our own social and policy debates on the same matter here in Northern Ireland.
According to guidelines from our Department of Health, abortion in Northern Ireland is legal where “it is necessary to preserve the life of the woman or there is a risk of real and serious adverse effect on her physical or mental health, which is either long term or permanent”.
We have long known that abortion on any kind of mental health ground has no basis in psychiatric evidence. Hence an important part of our work involves highlighting this particular reality to the general public, medical professionals and legislators. We are extremely concerned that developments in the Houses of the Oireachtas will have a negative impact upon this work. We anticipate pro-choice campaigners citing the Republic of Ireland as a jurisdiction that recognises abortion as a treatment for suicidal ideation. This will serve to undermine our pro-life endeavours and the respect Northern Irish society has towards the unborn child and as such we have written to An Taoiseach to share our concern about a whipped vote on the matter in the coming weeks.
Since the legislative initiative will have negative effects for us we think it important to share our concerns with you on the matter. – Yours, etc,
PAT RAMSEY MLA (Chair);
Sir, – My sense of elation on Saturday night in O’Moore Park, as the Dublin hurlers defeated Kilkenny in the Leinster championship, is difficult to put into words. Beside me was my father who was six years of age the last time Dublin achieved such a feat. Gaels up and down the country will appreciate that the feeling of sheer wonder at such a powerful Dublin performance stems not from the fact that we won a Leinster semi-final but that we out-played and out-fought what is almost certainly the greatest team in the history of the game.
However, as I walked around the hallowed turf after the match, mingling with supporters from both sides exhibiting shock and disbelief for very different reasons, I was taken aback by a sight that will linger in my memory as long as the Dublin victory.
There, in the middle of the field, some 10 minutes after the final whistle, stood Tommy Walsh of Kilkenny – still glistening with sweat in the warm evening sun, his jersey marked with splashes of blood; possibly his own, possibly not. He was surrounded by children decked both in sky blue and black and amber. He signed every single jersey and match programme. He posed for every single photograph. This man is not accustomed to the bitter of taste of defeat. This living legend who has garnered a record nine all-star awards in a row and won six all-Ireland titles and will surely see more of both, has never before been humbled at such an early stage of the championship. And yet, there he stood, as I watched in awe for a further 10 minutes, putting his arm around every youngster that was ushered before him by an eager parent and patiently waiting as yet another camera phone was pointed at him by an outstretched arm.
What can I say? For anyone who wonders what is special and unique about the GAA, who wonders what makes it the finest organisation in this country with nothing even remotely like it in the rest of the world, who occasionally, like myself, unthinkingly takes for granted its place at the heart of communities up and down the island, I give you Tommy Walsh – the embodiment of the spirit of the GAA and, for that matter, what might just be great about the people of this country. – Yours, etc,
PADDY MONAHAN,
Sir, – Martin Wall (“Collective bargaining rights would cost jobs – Ibec”, June 28th) states, “The generally accepted legal position in Ireland is that while workers have a right to join a trade union, employers do not have to negotiate with trade unions and that any engagement is voluntary.”
“Generally accepted” by whom?
Certainly not by the trade union movement and not by many legal experts, here and abroad.
The phrase “legal position in Ireland” seems to indicate that a different position prevails to other jurisdictions and that European and international obligations do not matter in our wonderful Republic.
The UN Declaration on Human Rights states that “Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests”. (article 23.4);
There are two core ILO conventions which are also extremely relevant in any review of the right to collective bargaining:
C98 “Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention”, 1949 and C87 “Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention”, 1948.
The oft-derided Lisbon Treaty provisions mean that the EU institutions and member state institutions must interpret EU laws in a manner consistent with respect for trade union rights – including rights of freelancers to collectively bargain – recognised in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights.
For too long these rights have been trampled on, and in this the centenary of the 1913 Lockout, the only fitting memorial is the introduction of long overdue legislation on collective bargaining.
The right to freedom of association without the right to collective representation is about as useful as a lighthouse in the Bog of Allen. – Yours, etc,
SÉAMUS DOOLEY,
First published: Tue, Jul 2, 2013, 01:06
Sir, –Michael Anderson (June 29th) is incorrect in stating that Laois/Offaly hasn’t had a Labour TD since 1956.
Pat Gallagher was a Labour TD in the constituency from 1992 to 1997. – Yours, etc,
SHEELAGH COYLE,
Sir, – It was with equal measure of disbelief and distaste that I turned to the back page of your sports supplement at the weekend (June 28th) to find that you had somehow managed to integrate a hugely sensitive issue such as abortion into your generally entertaining and informative “Hold the Back Page” column. Mary Hannigan has long been one of my favourite sports columnists but here, she, and your publication, stooped as low as you can go by, somehow, attempting to place some particular significance on the footwear of US Senator, Wendy Davis, during her filibuster address to prevent a bill restricting abortions in Texas.
What she was wearing on her feet had absolutely no relevance to the debate on hand and certainly should never have been used as the main feature piece – complete with imposing photograph of Senator Davis addressing the assembly in Austin – on, of all places, a sports page in The Irish Times. I would hope there was no sinister motive behind its inclusion; or must we now look forward to your sports columnists highlighting the brand of runners being worn during pro-life or pro-choice rallies? – Yours, etc,
PATRICK WALSH,
A chara, – I’ve a few crows to pluck with Patsy McGarry over his article on whether Ireland has “become pagan”, as recently bemoaned by some Catholic priests and bishops (Home News, June 29th).
Patsy McGarry mentions various Christian sects, humanists and atheists (the latter two being godless but not pagan). The statistics he quotes mentions all sorts of nonreligious groups but there are no mention of those claiming membership of pagan religions or belief systems.
I’d like to clarify that pagan does not, to pagans, mean “non-religious” nor does it mean “materialistic” – bishops in palaces, please take note.
As for the accompanying graphic – why not show a picture of Irish sun worshippers on the Hill of Tara rather than a scene from Stonehenge?
We haven’t gone away, you know! – Is mise,
ÉILIS Ní FHARRACHAIR,
Irish Independent:
* The Anglo Irish Bank disaster is a puzzling issue and it is also being closely monitored by the media in Germany.
Also in this section
Fishermen first to know
An anti-women article
Filthy language reflects society
As a German taxpayer who also participated in helping out financially to save this bank, I am looking for further insights into two aspects of the scandal this way.
1. No consequences!
Listening to the telephone conversation between David Drumm and John Bowe, I am surprised what kind of senior managers were appointed to manage one of Ireland’s biggest banks.
The conversation reveals the very mediocre, scheming and reckless characters of these two people.
It may not be their fault to be as they are, but did the members of the board who appointed them not check and monitor their professional ability, performance and integrity?
Now it is said that the Irish Government contemplates drawing up consequences – after more than four years. What a determination!
2. Arrogance and a superiority complex of managers!
I wonder why so many Irish and British high-class people like those bankers suffer from a superiority complex and an overdose of arrogance?
Why has it become a common habit in upper circles to sneer at Germans?
Is it because of assumed higher own intelligence or is it perhaps because the Irish and British think they could be economically much more successful if they only wanted to?
Don’t tell me that it is because they are the only ones who can communicate with the whole world for the simple reason that they master so many languages?
As a German, I am deeply hurt that some of our European neighbours sustain such resentments.
I still believe in the idea of a common Europe and hope that countries and people that presently selfishly exploit the opportunities but fail to accept responsibilities may change their attitude when time goes by.
Ewald Gold
Erzhausen, Germany
NO LAUGHING MATTER
* It was obvious that once the Anglo Tapes were released we would focus our humour on them. That’s our natural reaction. However, given the gravity of the matter, it would have been nice to think we could restrain ourselves, at least in public media. We didn’t.
It was also relatively clear that the German people and Angela Merkel would react unfavourably to the revelations. She did this in a forthright manner and the Taoiseach did his best to remove us as far as possible from the incident.
Yet, within a few hours, we had ‘Callan’s Kicks’ on RTE making jokes, German anthem and accent included, which added insult to injury.
Could the director general of RTE not also have foreseen this inevitable chain of events and directed his staff appropriately? If your readers think this petty and censorial I would ask them to listen to the podcast of that programme. If that doesn’t make them squirm, let them listen again as if they were German citizens listening to a loss-making public service, subsidised by a State which is still looking for further German support on its finances.
“Angela thinks we’re working” was a bit risque but we got away with it because she has a good sense of humour. This time we go too far.
John F Jordan
Killiney, Co Dublin
* I listened with some perplexity to Niall O’Dowd’s presentation of David Drumm’s position vis a vis the incendiary Anglo Tapes. Mr O’Dowd is right, everyone is entitled to present their case.
He is also correct to assert that surely the tapes relating to AIB and any other bank that got bailout money should also be put on the public record.
The thing that surprised me, however, was the element of hurt he suggested that Mr Drumm felt, for being somehow scapegoated for the appalling and ruinous collapse of Anglo, and the hubris and arrogance that attended it.
Mr Drumm’s sense of grievance, it would appear, is not for the tens of thousands forced to emigrate because of the financial wilderness that he and his ilk so recklessly visited upon his country; nor is it for the hundreds of thousands left on the dole because the machinery of our economy has seized up, clogged with greasy debt.
No. The cause of his discomfiture seems to be that he feels that he is being singled out unreasonably and flagellated for this catastrophe in isolation.
No one doubts that there were other agents whose actions were also reprehensible and outrageously irresponsible. But the fact that others may also be implicated does not give him moral authority or the right to self-pity.
If he believes he has been wronged then he should have the courage of his convictions and return to present his side of the story. To date, he has been more comfortable cowering in his New England mansion and turning his back contemptuously on this country.
Others may also have indeed played a dubious role in our downfall, but it behoves each of us to first remove the mote from our own eyes.
MA O’Brien
Dalkey, Co Dublin
* So the Drumm rolled and the Bowe fiddled while Ireland burned.
Alison Hackett
Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin
* Is there a journalist out there who would take it upon her/himself to trace the €30bn? In whose pocket, bank account or safe in luxury villa is the Irish taxpayers’ hard-earned cash? Where is the moolah?
Kathleen Carroll
Two-Mile-Borris, Co Tipperary
* In a week where we’ve seen what really went on in Anglo: fat cats purring over their cream, budget negotiations in Brussels to the tune of almost a trillion euro, and finally someone walking away with €94m in the biggest game of bingo in the EU, well, just when you’re sitting down to dinner next week have a look at the Concern ad just before the news.
You will see babies with minutes left to live, flies crawling in and out of their eyes, noses and mouths. They have nothing to eat, they have terrible diseases, they haven’t even hope. Funny old world isn’t it?
Michael Burke
Sixmilebridge, Co Clare
* Another aspect of the banking crisis, which I hope will be covered if we ever have a real banking inquiry, is: “What happened to all the money?”. We were repeatedly told by the builders /developers during the property boom that up to 60pc of the cost of building a house was the land on which it was built.
We should be told who the land owners were. No one is suggesting that they did anything wrong, but we should at least know who the beneficeries of the land boom were.
Joe Curran,
Celbridge, Co Kildare.
* The advice given by Merrill Lynch to then Taoiseach Brian Cowen to cut Anglo Irish loose was common knowledge in the world of finance at the time. I learned of it here in Australia. What I fail to comprehend is that the opposition parties in the Dail were not aware of this.
Hugh O’Flaherty’s advice in Saturday’s Irish Independent should be considered very carefully by all parties, but particularly the leadership of Fine Gael.
If the members of Fine Gael are of the opinion they can wipe the Fianna Fail party out of existence via a banking inquiry, they will indeed be in for a very rude awakening.
Declan Foley
Berwick, Australia
Irish Independent
