30 1GM Saturday October 17 2020 | the times
Letters to the Editor
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1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GFtechniques used to amplify conspiracy
stories about vaccines in general. We
must all help the scientists and
clinicians who are being smeared by
these falsehoods by speaking out
about the importance of their work
and our trust in their profession.
Sadly, the more outrageous the
falsehoods the more clicks they are
liable to attract on social media.
I doubt these lies could be spread on
Russian media without the active
connivance of the Russian authorities.
western governments should make it
clear that the threat of hostile and
dangerous disinformation is
recognised and that those responsible
will be exposed and sanctioned. In
addition, social media companies must
expand their efforts to block messages
that are harmful to the public.
Professor Sir David Omand
War Studies Department, KCL;
director of GCHQ 1996-97Sir, This is not the first time that the
Russians have been caught using
disinformation to exploit public
concerns about Covid-19 and divide
communities. They have also been
repeatedly exposed spreading political
disinformation to interfere in
elections around the world. Socialmedia companies need to be on alert
to take action to prevent the spread of
disinformation that poses a danger to
public health. We have already seen
too much baseless anti-vaccine
disinformation gaining traction on
their platforms. The Online Harms
Bill also needs to establish clear and
enforceable rules and responsibilities
for social media companies to act
against harmful disinformation.
Campaigns such as this Russian one
will be one of our biggest enemies
once the Covid-19 vaccine has passed
its trials. Overcoming such campaigns
will be essential to defeating the virus
and returning to normality.
Damian Collins
MP for Folkestone & HytheSir, With Russia spreading fake news
to undermine public willingness to be
vaccinated, is it not extraordinary
that Boris Johnson manoeuvred for
months to block publication of the
intelligence and security committee’s
parliamentary report on Russian
interference in British public life? It
must now be time to end donations to
the Conservative Party by
London-based Russian oligarchs.
Christopher Clayton
ChesterDurable empire
Sir, I am surprised you could be
persuaded that the Roman emperor
Commodus, however brutish the
image of him conjured up by Ridley
Scott, might be linked to the end of
the Roman empire (report, Oct 16).
Commodus was assassinated in
AD192. The last Roman emperor in
the west, Romulus Augustulus, was
deposed in AD476. But in any case,
the Roman empire continued in the
eastern Mediterranean until its defeat
by the Ottomans in 1453.
Whether you think the Roman
empire “good” or “bad”, its durability is
hard to parallel. Alas, too many never
get beyond the title of Gibbon’s Decline
and Fall of the Roman Empire. When
he came to tell its story, he found it
went on and on, leaving Commodus
marooned in the first volume of an
(originally) six-volume work.
Professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill
Emeritus director of research, Faculty
of Classics, CambridgeRevived cinemas
Sir, Before the pandemic began many
cinemas were using digital technology
to show much more than just the
latest blockbusters. Live theatre,
gallery openings, and rock shows all
drew considerable audiences; a
broadcast of Les Misérables: the Staged
Concert from the West End to
cinemas nationwide, directed by me
last year, became the biggest live
theatre event of all time. Now cinemas
are languishing and closing, not for
lack of Covid-19 preparedness but
because of a lack of product. Could
they not be given the opportunity to
relay live football, racing, casino and
rugby, etc in a safer environment than,
say, a bookmaker’s office or arena?
The technology is already in place, it
only requires the necessary gambling
or legal restrictions to be eased.
Nick Morris
Filmmaker, Wheathampstead, HertsSir, Herbert Kretzmer (obituary, Oct
15) is rightly lauded for his lyrics for
Les Misérables and a couple of songs
he did with Charles Aznavour but
every songwriter has some duds. For
Kretzmer this was the lyrics he wrote
for Anthony Newley’s calamitous film
musical Can Heironymus Merkin Ever
Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True
Happiness? These include such
wonderful couplets as “my life doesn’t
bear inspection/it could do with some
disinfection” and “their knees went
wonky/for it was a donkey.” Even
Kretzmer, it seems, was sometimes a
slave to the rhyming dictionary.
David Ford
Hornchurch, east LondonBorg’s legacy
Sir, Not only was Bjorn Borg (letter,
Oct 15) undoubtedly the coolest tennis
player of the modern era he was also
the only one to have a successful
underpants empire. My husband, no
tennis fan, would wear nothing else —
surely the ultimate accolade.
Sarah Richard de Latour
Teddington, MiddxCorrections and
clarifications
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Feedback, The Times, 1 London Bridge
Street, London SE1 9GF
Walk in the woods
Sir, Thank you for the photograph of
Bill Bryson on the front cover of The
Times on Thursday (Oct 15). My
husband and I had great fun trying to
identify the Ordnance Survey map
that he was holding. We believe it is
an old printing (circa 2006) of
Explorer Map 160 Windsor,
Weybridge & Bracknell.
Caroline Cornell
Cornell Books, Tewkesbury, Glos
Lost in transition
Sir, Pour limoncello down the sink
(letter, Oct 15)? No, just drink it in
Italy. Having discovered it many years
ago on the Amalfi coast, we brought
some back with us for special
occasions, but in the cold light of the
UK it tasted like a well known cold
cure. We repeated the experiment
with the same result. The moral of
the story is to go to Italy more often.
Lesley Turner
Hadleigh, Suffolk
Russian campaign against British vaccine
Sir, Your investigation (“Russians
spread fake news over Oxford virus
vaccine”, Oct 16) shows that
information warfare is an important
part of Russia’s strategy for advancing
its interests. We must of course
protect our institutions and agencies
against it, but perhaps we need to be
more proactive ourselves. In its Cold
War heyday the Foreign Office had a
euphemistically named Information
Research Department whose job it
was to spread information (and
occasionally disinformation) in ways
that could not be directly attributable
to the British government. Now
would be a good occasion to revive it.
And in addition to applying sanctions
to Russian officials, perhaps GCHQ
could hack into their bank accounts.
Sir Paul Lever
Chairman, Joint Intelligence
Committee 1994-96; ambassador to
Germany 1997-2003Sir, After the recent warning from
Ken McCallum, the new director-
general of MI5, that his service was
involved in protecting British vaccine
research against attacks, the latest
anti-western disinformation spread
from Russia comes as no surprise.
Nor do the emotionally manipulativeEnglish parliament
Sir, John Kampfner is right to call for
further decentralisation “to the
localities” but an English parliament
would not achieve this (Red Box, Oct
15). Whether situated in Manchester,
Liverpool or York, it would appear just
as remote to most of those living in
England as Westminster, which would
be reduced to a debating chamber for
the discussion of foreign and defence
policy and macro-economic
management, while the quasi-federal
United Kingdom which resulted from
this would be so dominated by
England as to be unbalanced and
unworkable and an encouragement to
Scottish separatism. There is no
democratic federation in the world in
which one of the units represents more
than 80 per cent of the population.
The right course is to build on the
combined authorities with directly
elected mayors by strengthening their
powers, and by devolving on a similar
basis to those areas of England
outside the city regions. That entails a
unitary system of local government in
those areas, as recommended more
than 50 years ago by the Royal
Commission on Local Government,
in place of the present two-tier
system. That is the path that I hope
the government will follow in its
forthcoming white paper.
Vernon Bogdanor
Professor of government, KCL
Not the best lyrics
from the times october 17, 1920
AN
ILL-JUDGED
APPEAL
Reactionary right
Sir, David Aaronovitch (“Reactionary
right keeps getting it wrong”, Oct 15,
and letter, Oct 16) is happy to point
out how rightwingers have been
forced to change their views on a
range of social and green issues but
gives less space to any such criticism
of the left. Over the past century
many countries have tried radical
leftwing policies. Whether it be the
Soviet Union, Cambodia or today’s
Venezuela, all have ended in degrees
of impoverishment and curtailed
personal freedoms, if not far worse.
While Lenin and (perhaps)
nationalisation may be out of fashion
with the British left the idea that more
government is always the answer is
still in vogue. Even the pandemic does
not seem to have shaken this belief,
despite mounting evidence that there
may be limits on what the
government can and should try to do.
The real question that Aaronovitch
should be asking is why do so many
on the left find it so hard to question
their beliefs — are they less pragmatic
than those on the right?
Jeremy Hill
Hitchin, HertsSir, David Aaronovitch does us crusty
old reactionaries less than justice,
both in placing the prime minister in
our ranks and in stating that we are
now reconciled to wind turbines. A
more interesting question is why has
Johnson made this volte-face. Is it
because he has now studied the
science in great depth and concluded
that wind turbines could indeed
provide a source of primary energy?
Or is this a diversionary tactic to
avoid making the hard decisions
about how we are to replace our
ageing nuclear and coal power
stations, at a time when electric cars
and heating are about to vastly
increase the demand for electricity?
Pat Smith
Sandy, BedsSir, Lord Howard of Lympne, QC,
asks what has happened to those who
argued vehemently in favour of CND
or who once belonged to extremist
Marxist groups, and suggests that
human beings fortunately have the
ability to change their minds. I would
counter that it is more likely that they
just grew up, had families and gained
a mortgage.
Lesley Russell
Kingston upon Thamesthetimes.co.uk/archive
Rural racism
Sir, Ellie Harrison, the Countryfile
presenter, is right about rural racism
(News, Oct 16) but perhaps not in the
way she perceives it. There are very
few truly rural people in this country,
and our farms and way of life are
presented in a sanitised way, as in
Countryfile; our country pursuits are
vilified or made illegal (foxhunting),
and we are called “country bumpkins”.
It is surely time the culture of our
indigenous population was respected.
Gay James
Alford, LincsSupermarket sweep
Sir, I am a supermarket customer who
cannot walk past a wilting plant
without feeling sorry for it (Thunderer,
Oct 16). A good soak, repotting and
sometimes a light trim will often work
wonders on the saddest of specimens.
Diana Franklin
Southsea, HantsLetters to The Times must be exclusive
The great majority of Oxford men
will share our regret at the singularly
ill-advised appeal which certain
members of the University, some of
them well known, have thought it
becoming to address to “the
professors of arts and sciences and
members of the universities and
learned societies of Germany and
Austria”. The signatories “desire to
dispel the bitterness of animosities
that under the impulse of loyal
patriotism may have passed between
us”. They look forward to “the
speedy re-establishment of our old
friendliness” with their German andAustrian brethren; and they affirm
that the fellowship of learning offers
a road which, “if our spiritual ideals
be alive”, must lead to “a wider
sympathy and better understanding
between our kindred nations”. They
pray, accordingly, that “they may
help to hasten that amicable reunion
which civilization demands”.
The whole character and tone of
this document will shock the feelings
of many in all classes of the British
peoples. Their attitude throughout
the war was wonderfully free, in the
face of unparalleled provocation,
from hatred and vindictiveness, and,
they recognize the catholic nature of
art, of literature, and of science. But
they do not forget, as these
professors and others seem ready to
forget, the unjust and wicked war
forced upon them, which has swept
away a whole generation of their
youth, and to which the political
dissensions threatening Europe,
mourned over by the signatories, aredirectly due. They do well to
remember it. The “fellowship of
learning” is very fine, and
forgiveness to the truly repentant
wrongdoer is a lofty “spiritual ideal”
and a Christian duty. But justice is
the first of human virtues, and
justice demands that there shall be
no pardon, to say nothing of
“amicable reunion”, until the
offenders publicly exhibit heartfelt
sorrow for their crimes.
Perhaps the signatories have
evidence that those whom they are
so eager to take again to their
academic bosoms have repented of
their false doctrines, the nursing
mother of militarism. If so, this
evidence should be given the fullest
publicity. Unless and until such
evidence is produced, we must
regard this Oxford appeal as
reprehensible in the extreme.Divine dahlia
Sir, I agree that the Most Rev John
Sentamu should be honoured (letters,
Oct 14 & 16). Last year I planted the
dahlia “Archbishop of York” in my
garden and it is flowering mightily
with a soft yellow bloom. We didn’t
need to be in the diocese of York to
recognise his fine leadership even
from afar in the diocese of Rochester.
Canon Brian Stevenson
West Peckham, Kent