26 1GM Thursday August 6 2020 | the times
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the Editor should be sent to
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1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GFSir, Clare Foges is to be applauded for
highlighting the overcrowding of this
small island. It is time that we had a
senior minister in the cabinet whose
sole task would be to consider the
implications of every aspect of
government policy on this issue. Yes,
we do need an active population to
maintain the economy but surely we
should try for a highly paid, highly
skilled workforce rather than the
low-paid gig economy we have now.
We cannot adequately house,
educate or provide healthcare for the
existing population without further
significant growth. As Foges says, this
is a pure numbers game and is not
about race. The loss of green belt land
for housing is a major loss to us all. As
Sir David Attenborough says: “All our
environmental problems become
easier to solve with fewer people, and
harder — and ultimately impossible
— to solve with ever more people.”
Lindsay Jamieson
Sherborne, DorsetSir, Clare Foges’s outstanding article
includes some telling quotes from
Boris Johnson in 2007, expressing his
concern about our rapid population
growth. Perhaps someone will now
remind him that his new post-Brexitimmigration system, due to start in
January, will lower the salary and
qualification levels for foreign
workers while suspending any limit
on the numbers. Far from “taking
back control” there is a risk that the
numbers will spin out of control as
they did under New Labour. If this
were allowed to happen the
consequences would be very serious
for our society and, of course, for Mr
Johnson’s party.
Lord Green of Deddington
President, Migration Watch UKSir, Clare Foges should not be too
alarmed about the UK’s projected
population growth. The statistic that
really matters is population density per
square kilometre. At the present rate it
will take a century or two for the UK’s
to match that of Malta or Luxembourg.
Dr Anton Borg
Ampney Crucis, GlosSir, The excellent reflection by Clare
Foges is both welcome and sensible.
Building houses to address this issue
is like providing buckets in a flood:
the first action should surely be to
turn off the water supply.
Dominic Kirkham
Manchester‘Essential’ poetry
Sir, Poetry provides much of the
diversity in the GCSE English
curriculum. Is now the time to deprive
our young people of encountering the
voices of amazing UK writers of
colour (“Poetry is a coronavirus
casualty as GCSE exam pared back”,
Aug 4; letter, Aug 5)? Alongside classic
poems, exam boards keep their GCSE
anthologies updated to include newly
written work that speaks directly to
young people’s lived experience. The
Edexcel exam board, for example,
encourages GCSE students to
examine the theme of “belonging”,
comparing poems by Wordsworth or
John Clare with the brilliant young
British-Zambian poet Kayo Chingonyi.
Our research shows that young people
are desperate to discover more diverse
writers, and that this helps to ignite
their passion for the subject.
As students return to the classroom
post-lockdown, many of them will be
processing painful experiences.
Reading a GCSE staple such as Keats’s
When I Have Fears That I May Cease
to Be has never been more relevant. In
tune with our times, poetry offers few
answers: it trades in uncertainty.
Through poetry, students may
embrace that most essential lesson, of
learning to live with complexity.
Judith Palmer
Director, The Poetry SocietyCompaniable cows
Sir, The research from Chile (“Want a
sophisticated social life? Cows have
got it licked”, Aug 4) confirms what
farmers already know and have tried
to mitigate: that cows have a clear
hierarchy within their social groups.
Farmers have always tried to keep
cohorts together as they grow and
mature. Mixing them is done only
when absolutely necessary, a bit like
classes in a school year group.
All of our cows are fitted with
Fitbit-style collars so that we can
monitor their lying down, eating and
walking habits. In addition, regardless
of their accommodation, we can now
watch our cows, in real time, on
CCTV in the barns and follow their
location to assess if they are
exhibiting a healthy/normal lifestyle.
Neil Dyson
Dairy farmer; Bledlow, BucksCoin contender
Sir, Jawed Iqbal’s excellent Thunderer
(Aug 4, and letter, Aug 5) offers
several candidates with greater claims
than Gandhi to be featured on British
currency. Here is another: Ulric Cross,
who came here from Trinidad in 1940
to volunteer for the RAF and who
ended the war as a Squadron Leader,
DSO, DFC, and to whom you gave a
fine obituary on October 11, 2013.
William Dacombe
London SW14Corrections and
clarifications
6 In a leading article (“Bad
judgment”, Aug 5) we named the
Conservative chief whip as Mark
Harper. Mr Harper held that role
from May 2015 to July 2016. The
current Conservative chief whip is
Mark Spencer. We apologise to Mr
Harper for the mistake.
We ar e
committed to
abiding by the
Independent
Press Standards Organisation rules and
regulations and the Editors’ Code of
Practice that IPSO enforces. Requests
for corrections should be sent to
[email protected] or to
Feedback, The Times, 1 London Bridge
Street, London SE1 9GF
Let pharmacists
alter prescriptions
Sir, It is vital that the UK and EU
agree a deal on medicines regulation
as soon as possible (“Drug firms told
to stockpile for no-deal Brexit”, Aug 4).
Pharmacists find themselves at the
sharp end of this when patients cannot
obtain the medicines that they need. It
would prevent a lot of unnecessary
delays if community pharmacists were
allowed to make changes to a
prescription when a medicine is in
short supply or out of stock. This
could be as simple as providing two
weeks’ supply and asking the patient
to collect the rest in a fortnight. At
present any changes to quantities,
strength or formulation can legally
only be done by the prescriber. A
change to medicines legislation is
needed to enable pharmacists to speed
up patients’ access to medicines, which
would also have the added benefit of
reducing the workload of GPs.
Sandra Gidley
President, Royal Pharmaceutical
Society
Curbing growth of our overcrowded island
Sir, The position on population
growth is even more dire than
portrayed by Clare Foges (“Let’s be
honest about our overcrowded island”,
Aug 5). Officially projected population
growth depends on assumed net
migration of 190,000 a year. The
actual average over the past five years
was 260,000. That would take the UK
population to nearly 80 million by- In the official projection, 79 per
cent of growth from 2018 is down to
migrants and their children. In fact we
have been there for the past 20 years.
Migration is the main source of
household growth. More than 60 per
cent of additional households each
year have a “head” born outside the
UK. Who knows what will happen
next given Brexit, Covid-19, AI and
the rest. But the government’s
migration policy takes the safety
catches off immigration despite
housing problems, the imminent
threat of mass unemployment and the
long-term challenge to the future of
(human) work. There seems to be no
concern for anything but the demands
of employers, and no grasp that the
future might be seriously different.
David Coleman
Emeritus professor of demography,
Oxford University
University ‘bigots’
Sir, Trevor Phillips (Comment, Aug 4)
rightly draws attention to a
domineering culture in universities
that militates against freedom of
thinking and inquiry. The problem
goes even deeper. Entire academic
subjects, including history, politics,
economics, English and even
medicine, have been taken over by
cliques whose prevailing mindset
disparages and marginalises those
who think outside the box.
As Phillips points out, it might be
only a minority who do this. But
university leaders need to speak up
far more strongly for freedom against
the autocrats who would suppress it.
The threat globally comes equally
from governments who meddle in
universities’ freedom, and pile
extraneous responsibilities on them.
Only a fundamental reappraisal of
the role and future of universities, as
happened with the Robbins report
60 years ago, will achieve the freedom
of thought that should lie at the heart
of a university’s mission.
Sir Anthony Seldon
Vice-chancellor, University of
Buckinghamfrom the times august 5, 1920ALL THE
WORLD GOES
MOTORING
Free TV licence
Sir, Many of us over-75s have enjoyed
a life without war, with full
employment, decent pensions, free
university education, good healthcare,
the opportunity to travel to far away
places, the chance to buy realistically
priced homes and more. For those
who have been less lucky then I
support free TV licences, but for
many of us, the financial giveaways
such as £10 Christmas bonus, winter
fuel payments, free bus passes,
freedom passes, and more (all
untaxed) are an irrelevance and a
waste of public money that could be
used more usefully for the less
fortunate in our country.
Diana Brimblecombe
Harpenden, HertsSir, Surely the way to end the
“pensioners’ revolt” over the ending
of the free TV licence for the over-75s
(report, Aug 5) is to allow those who
already receive this benefit to keep it,
thus avoiding the distress, confusion
and administrative chaos that the
BBC has created.
Roger Fennings
Broadstairs, KentSir, After years of not being able to
complain about the BBC giving us
poor value for our licence fee (which
we have had free) we can now voice
our many grievances: none of the
sports we like; dreadful, unfunny
programmes; extreme political
correctness; the poor English of many
announcers; the endless repetition of
crass adverts for the BBC’s own
programmes; and grotesque rates of
pay for some who do not deserve a
penny... I could go on. We will now
be able to get our money’s worth.
David Kottler
Cogenhoe, NorthantsSir, Perhaps the BBC should go ahead
with financing free television licences
for the over-75s. Then, as you report,
the corporation would have to close
BBC Two, Three and Four and a
number of radio stations. The result
would be that the BBC would be
accused of providing a poor service.
The BBC cannot win. May I
suggest that Silver Voices and the
National Pensioners Convention lay
the blame at the government’s door
rather than at that of the world’s
best broadcaster.
Christopher Westlake
Bridgwater, Somersetthetimes.co.uk/archiveMedicine for pain
Sir, I note the recommendations from
the National Institute for Health and
Care Excellence about chronic pain
(“Don’t give paracetamol to patients,
doctors told”, Aug 4) but am surprised
that the Nice guidance committee
was chaired by a psychiatrist, given
that we have a Faculty of Pain
Medicine. As a retired consultant in
pain medicine I developed one of the
early multidisciplinary pain clinics.
This included psychological and
supportive therapy input emphasising
the minimal medication approach
with pain behaviour techniques,
unless there was an underlying
specific problem to target.
However, as so often is the case, the
acute and surgical specialties have
received the principal funding in the
health service while chronic illness
has had “Cinderella” recognition. On
the other hand, patients continue to
visit primary and secondary care on a
long-term basis. It is to be hoped
that this report might increase
resources, but one wonders if the
therapists are available.
Dr Richard Atkinson
Ret’d consultant in pain medicine,
Sheffield
Test and trace
Sir, Test and trace is nothing new
(“Test and trace failings force councils
to go it alone”, Aug 5). Local public
health doctors across the UK have
decades of experience in tracing
measles outbreaks, meningitis clusters
and far more besides, accounting for
thousands of outbreaks each year. This
is done quietly and with great success.
It is not clear why the government
believed that a new and untested NHS
test and trace service staffed by people
without relevant experience or
expertise and led by a former CEO of
TalkTalk would do a better job.
Dr Peter Taylor
Newcastle upon TyneMotoring is now so much a part of
our lives that to label this or that
holiday as a motor holiday is almost
equivalent to speaking of holidays 20
years ago as railway holidays.
Whether we drive 60hp cars of the
most fashionable type or pay our
shillings to form a charabanc party,
we all motor in one way or another.
It is by far the best, easiest, and in
some ways the cheapest form of
transport. The numbers of public
and private cars on the roads this
alleged summer, from 40-seated
coaches to side-cars, are immense.
August, 1920, is nothing more norless than one large motor carnival. I
have lately been touring over the
North of England, the middle and
East Coast of Scotland, and down
the Great North Road to the South
Coast, a fairly comprehensive survey
of Great Britain, totalling some
3,000 miles in four weeks’ driving,
and except in the more remote
districts of Scotland and Cornwall I
have never seen such an unending
procession of motor vehicles on
extended joy rides. This year the
most travel-loving nation in the
world has realized what treasures of
scenery, what heart-stirring
associations, what health-giving
pleasure is to be found on the broad
highway. The hotels are striking
evidence of this new ebb and flow.
People do not take rooms for more
than a few days now.
A journey of the new long-
distance charabancs is true road
travel in the style of the 18th century,
with none of its horrors, and all of itsromance. The latest public touring
cars have a kind of enclosed rumble
behind, seating half a dozen people
who mistrust the optimism of the
barometer, with a large “boot” below
for luggage — and it is no mean
luggage which is packed there. In
two cars I saw the other day, on their
way from the Midlands to Cornwall,
there were several impressive
steamer trunks heaped round with
suitcases and gladstones of generous
size. Clothes and comforts for a
fortnight’s wandering take up a deal
of room, but there is no stint of space
in the latest cars.
Whatever the weather may be,
and it is singularly unkind just now,
people are very wise to take their
holidays on the road. The world and
his wife are on the road this year,
and many a pair and party are
covering 500 or 1,000 miles a week.