The Times - UK (2020-07-28)

26 1GM Tuesday July 28 2020 | the times

Letters to the Editor

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a really good chance of hitting the

nail on the head. Johnson has ignored

the majority of them. I have no doubt

that he will have to resort to revising

his measures upwards in the none too

distant future.

Tam Fry

Chairman, National Obesity Forum

Sir, Increasingly it seems that our

diets have little to do with hunger and

everything to do with entertainment.

Food has become a work of art,

presented as such on television,

conversed about on radio and

reviewed and lavishly depicted in

newspapers, books and magazines: no

wonder we are obsessed with

titillating our appetites. We ought to

find other, more demanding concerns;

I’ve yet to see a single photograph of

an overweight refugee.

Caroline Cochrane

Oxford

Sir, Smaller portions ought to be

served in cafés and restaurants. I am

not obese but am of a certain age

where a large plateful of food is

off-putting. If this idea were adopted,

consumers would be saved the

embarrassment of leaving food on the

plate or eating more than was wanted

or required. It would be an easier

solution than calorie counting.

Wendy Rushton

Malvern

Sir, You report that weight gain while

in political office can be an indication

of corruption (“How to spot corrupt

fat cats? Check their waistlines”,

Jul 25). I was a councillor in High

Wycombe; as town charter trustees

we were all weighed in public each

year in a corruption-identifying ritual

dating to 1678, with our weight being

called out. Unfortunately, it was

always “14 stone and some more” for

me, greeted by boos. However, the

only opportunity I had for personal

gain was of weight, from the eating of

too many council biscuits at

innumerable meetings.

Stephen Billingham

Burnham, Bucks

Sir, There is nothing like leading by

example. The prime minister should

disclose his BMI and a target

reduction. He could then announce

his progress, independently verified of

course, each month as an

encouragement to the rest of us.

Will David

Knockholt, Kent

Life on Mars

Sir, Your article “Red planet inundated

with visitors” (Jul 25) draws attention

to the UAE, China and the US almost

simultaneously dispatching probes to

Mars. When Sir Fred Hoyle and I

published our book Life on Mars: the

Case for a Cosmic Heritage in 1997 we

reviewed two discoveries that already

pointed to the presence of microbial

life on Mars. The first was the positive

result of a life-detection experiment

carried out by Nasa’s Viking landers in

1976; the second was the existence of

fossilised micro-organisms in the

Martian meteorite ALH84001. Both

these discoveries have since been

challenged. However, the theory of

cometary panspermia that Hoyle and

I had proposed predicts the presence

of microbes on Mars; and there are

now several indirect pointers in this

direction, in particular the

observations of seasonally varying

emissions of methane.

It will be a tragic irony of fate if one

year from now the Chinese Tianwen-1

Mission succeeds and President Xi

will have the privilege of announcing

the first incontrovertible discovery of

life on Mars.

Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe

University of Buckingham

Who’s that girl?

Sir, You report (Jul 25) that Prince

Harry was upset by his brother

referring to his girlfriend as “this girl”.

He should perhaps have remembered

his great-grandmother’s famous

reported dismissal of Wallis Simpson

as “that woman”.

Stephen Eason

Gosport, Hants

High-street homes

Sir, Libby Purves (Comment, Jul 27) is

right to draw attention to the

opportunity and the risks of creating

homes on high streets. There need to

be minimum standards of space,

daylight, insulation, access to open

spaces and more, as proposed in the

Town and Country Planning

Association’s Healthy Homes Bill.

These would not be onerous but

would provide a framework for

well-designed homes fit for the future.

Lord Crisp

Former chief executive of the NHS

Hen harrier plan

Sir, Those who enjoy watching

reintroduced red kites, ospreys and

sea eagles above southern England

would have been startled by your

report on hen harriers (“RSPB ‘shot

down return of rare bird of prey over

illegal killings’ ”, Jul 27). Thirty years

ago we had to travel to Wales to see

red kites, yet after the successful

reintroduction of Spanish kites to the

Chilterns there is now a population of

1,800 pairs. It is bizarre that anyone

should not want hen harriers to be

given the same opportunity.

Andrew Gilruth

Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust

Corrections and

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Funding churches

Sir, I sympathise with churches that

are facing a reduction in revenue

(“Westminster Abbey braces for job

cuts”, News, Jul 27). One remedy

might be to switch to a system that

synagogues now use. Instead of a

weekly collection or visitor donations

(which is effectively a pay-as-you-go

system) we have annual

subscriptions.

It entitles members to attend once

a year or every day, but means that

congregations benefit even when

they do not come, while we also have

a much more predictable income

stream and can base decisions on it.

Might this become one of the many

ways in which Covid-19 changes the

way religious life operates?

Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain

Maidenhead Synagogue

Property inflation

Sir, The suggestion that owners of

second homes are responsible for

inflating house prices beyond the

reach of local people is unfair and

incorrect (letter, Jul 27). First, every

second home was originally owned by

a “local” who was only too happy (or

greedy) to sell to anyone to achieve

the highest price. More importantly,

however, a large proportion of houses

in tourist areas such as Cornwall and

the Lake District have been owned by

“locals” for generations but are rented

out as expensive holiday

accommodation. This reduces the

housing stock available for permanent

local residents and consequently

increases prices. Locals have only

themselves to blame for increasing

the demand, and reducing the supply,

of housing.

Peter Froggatt

Dorking, Surrey

Diet plans on prescription in war on obesity

Sir, Although I applaud the long

overdue focus on obesity as a

significant but soluble problem I am

not sure that the plans set out by the

prime minister (“The doctor will slim

you now: diet plans prescribed in

Boris Johnson’s war on obesity”,

Jul 27) will be effective enough. When

asked by patients how they might lose

weight I used to recommend the

“everything in moderation on a small

plate” diet. It is the only one that

works. The only new ingredients

needed are determination and

discipline, because only lifestyle

changes will solve this particular

epidemic. An alternative suggestion

would be to apply a fat tax. This

would be a percentage income tax

rate equal to a person’s BMI or a

proportion of it: the more you weigh

the more you pay.

Dr John Pilling (ret’d)

Arundel, W Sussex

Sir, It is very welcome that Boris

Johnson is tackling obesity but the

measures he is taking are not enough

for his campaign to succeed. In

October the prime minister was sent

49 proposals by England’s outgoing

chief medical officer, Dame Sally

Davies, which, if taken in concert, had

Sir, While Rishi Sunak’s desire to help

the struggling high street is laudable,

tax changes are notoriously ineffective

at correcting market imbalances

created by commercial pressures

(“Chancellor considers online sales

tax in bid to save high street”, Jul 27).

Large-scale tax changes such as the

business rates review and the

imposition of an online sales tax also

take far more time to implement than

the chancellor has at his disposal.

If traders have to wait one, two or

three years for tax changes to come to

their aid, little of the high street will

remain. A quick fix is needed. The

chancellor launched “Eat Out To

Help Out” to encourage diners back.

Perhaps he should also offer discount

vouchers to customers at qualifying

high street shops. Alcohol and tobacco

would be excluded, along with

foodstuffs not passing the PM’s

healthy eating test, but such a scheme

would make an immediate difference.

George Bull

Senior tax partner, RSM UK

Sir, I do not like buying goods online

but if I have to my preference is to use

Online sales tax

retailers who have shops on the high

street, where I can collect my order at

a time convenient for me and also

support the retailer. The chancellor

will have to be very careful how he

frames any online sales tax otherwise

it could result in penalising, rather

than helping, our high street stalwarts.

Elizabeth Bentley

Chester

from the times july 28, 1920

TOO MUCH

OF A

BAD ROSE

Masks in shops

Sir, Yesterday I stopped at a service

station for petrol. The forecourt had a

shop, where I had to go to pay for the

fuel. During my brief visit about 20

people entered the shop: less than

half were wearing facemasks, despite

there being a message on the door

reminding them of the new

legislation. I mentioned this to the

woman behind the counter and she

said that they had a policy of “no

confrontation”, which I can

understand. However, despite the fact

that wearing facemasks in such places

is now required by law, in reality

there is no one to enforce it.

Mark Smith

St Albans

thetimes.co.uk/archive

Buzz off

Sir, Further to your report “Buzz off!

RAF low flyers hit by flak” (Jul 27),

my husband was in the RAF and was

posted to RAF Valley, Anglesey. Local

farmers were fed up with low-flying

aircraft and one farmer painted “P***

off Biggles” on the roof of his barn.

Unfortunately this resulted in pilots

using the barn as a navigation aid.

Sandra Laverton

Innsworth, Glos

Quarantine ‘chaos’

Sir, Your leading article (Jul 27) on

travel quarantine risks encouraging

disproportionate government

over-reaction as compensation for past

inaction. Coronavirus travel policies

should be designed to encourage safe

holidays and to aid the return of

international business travel, which is

essential to the revival of the economy.

There should be no unnecessary

constraints and no surprises. A

draconian quarantine policy does not

measure up well against these

yardsticks. The misalignment of

Foreign Office travel advice with the

Department of Transport’s list of

quarantine-free countries adds to the

confusion. The government needs to

explain why it has not yet followed

countries such as Austria that have

coped better with the pandemic than

the UK in accepting a recent negative

coronavirus test as an alternative to

quarantine. The technology to process

such tests quickly has been available

since the day travel quarantine was

announced; they could easily be

administered at airports and, if

desired, again a few days after a

traveller’s return.

Sir Stewart Eldon

Former UK permanent representative

to Nato

Sir, The shadow health secretary, Jon

Ashworth, seems more concerned

with scoring political points than

acknowledging the common sense of

the reimposition of the Spanish

quarantine regulations (report, Jul 27).

The government should be

congratulated for making such a

pragmatic decision as soon as it

received data confirming a big jump in

Spanish Covid-19 cases. This is not a

“shambolic” decision as Mr Ashworth

alleges. Surely saving lives is far more

important than leaving holidaymakers

“confused and distressed” by their

holidays being disrupted.

Peter Morgan

Leighton Buzzard, Beds

At this time of year England is a far

more flowery country than it used to

be even 20 years ago; wherever there

are gardens by the roadside, it is

roses, roses all the way, but roses all

of one kind, millions of them,

looking as if they are made of cheap

pink paper. If you have been passing

between woods and suddenly come

upon a garden, it is as if the silence

were broken by whatever tune is

now most popular, ground out on a

piano organ. But there are several

popular tunes at the worst of times,

and now there is this one rose,

Dorothy, Dorothy, all the way. It may

be untrue that you can have too

much of a good thing, but certainly

you can have too much of a bad rose,

and Dorothy Perkins is one. Nothing

but the notion that any flowers are

better than none will account for her

popularity. Whether or not all wild

flowers are beautiful, Dorothy

Perkins is not a wild flower. She is a

hybrid produced by man, and, worse,

a mongrel. It is possible that her

flowers, of a sharp, acrid yellow-pink,

might harmonize with some leaves;

they do not harmonize with her

leaves. She has the leaves of one

kind of rose and the flowers of

another; she is always a discord; and,

when she is past her best, bad as it is,

the discord is excruciating. A bed of

nettles is beautiful compared with

Dorothy Perkins in her decline, and

it lasts much longer. Yet you see her

defacing the porches of old

farmhouses and the pergolas of

artistic new ones. She is the eyesore

alike of cottages and palaces. There

is nothing to be said for her except

that she has ousted the Crimson

Rambler. The Crimson Rambler,

ugly at all times, has this advantage

over Dorothy, that it is by nature

suited to grow against a post though

the post is better without it; but

Dorothy, the child of the prostrate

Wichuriana rose, and a disgrace to

her charming parent, is also by

nature prostrate, and, tied up to a

pillar, looks like a drunken man

clinging to a lamp-post. She is least

intolerable when falling down a

bank; but there are dozens of other

Wichuriana roses to be grown so,

with less ridiculous names, and

leaves and flowers both beautiful.

The nurseryman who produced

Dorothy, let us hope by I mistake,

has let loose upon our gardens a pest

like the American duckweed or the

rabbits of Australia.