32 Thursday November 11 2021 | the times
Letters to the Editor
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1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GFand have helped hundreds of bankers,
lawyers and other professionals to
join charity boards. Perhaps now is
the time to do something similar for
legislators. With 600-plus MPs
volunteering on boards we might get
some trust back in our politicians.
Ian Joseph
Managing director, Trustees
UnlimitedSir, You are right to say parliament is
often enriched by the perspectives
MPs with second jobs can bring to its
deliberations. So may I suggest that
health department ministers work
one day a week as hospital porters;
Home Office ministers spend one day
a week pounding the beat as police
constables; and perhaps the former
attorney-general might consider
working pro bono for a refugee
charity one day a week. I’m sure this
would equip them to do their
parliamentary and constituency work
with much greater insight.
Bob Maddams
Bognor Regis, West SussexSir, One question that appears to be
missing is whether being an MP is a
full-time role. Being able to work
remotely for a month from theJabs for jobs
Sir, Perhaps parliament could set an
example by having all members of
both Houses inoculated before
enforcing it upon any other group
(“Forcing NHS staff to be jabbed will
drive out 73,000, Javid told”, Nov 10).
Anyone declining should be barred,
like the much more impoverished
care home workers.
David Mayhew
PeterboroughCaribbean suggests it isn’t, in which
case why pay a considerable full-time
wage? Thought needs to be given to
the notion that “we need to pay good
money to attract the best people”; the
work of a constituency MP is, when
compared with lower-paid professions
such as nursing, undemanding.
Alan Goldsmith
Welton, LincsSir, It should be mandatory for MPs
who have received payments from
companies to clearly indicate their
allegiances. I suggest the wearing of
sponsorship badges, as footballers do.
Perhaps a badge of 1 square inch per
£10,000 received would be appropriate.
Phil Ridgway
Woodbridge, SuffolkSir, Further to Peter Brookes’s cartoon
of Sir Geoffrey Cox dancing the
limbo, as a child in the Caribbean I
used to watch skilled limbo dancers
pass under a flaming bar while
reading a newspaper. I suggest that if
Sir Geoffrey could manage a low fire
limbo in Parliament Square while
reading The Times he might add a
little to his case for redemption.
Juliet Barclay
London SE15Fire safety funding
Sir, Michael Gove is right (“Banks
need to help first-time buyers, Gove
says”, Nov 9). Notwithstanding the
issues of first-time buyers, it’s an
outrage that any leaseholder is
expected to pay for fixing the cladding
and fire defects in any modern blocks.
Leaseholders in England or Wales do
not own the blocks. I’m a retired
builder and built seven blocks of
residential apartments during my
career. Luckily none needed cladding.
However, in each case, after selling
the various apartment leases to
leaseholders, I disposed of the
freehold land, building structure and
roof to an institutional ground rent
investor in one single conveyance.
Surely, such owners of freeholds and/
or their insurers are the parties who
should be first in line to pay to fix any
defects, with the government perhaps
acting as a backstop.
Jeff Arundell
BathClimate blame
Sir, I think it’s hypocritical for the
western, developed nations to point
an accusatory finger at China’s
emission target while at the same
time asking them to make so much of
what we buy. If we were to take the
carbon cost of all these goods, add the
carbon cost of transport, then transfer
that figure from China’s tally to our
own, I think there would be less
justification for our smugness.
Peter Davison
Camberley, SurreySave the phone box
Sir, The old-style telephone boxes
have many unexpected benefits (“Call
goes out to save phone boxes”, Nov
10). On walking home in the early
hours from a party in a Lincolnshire
village in the 1980s, a group of us
came across a piglet which had
escaped from a farm. After a short
chase and a struggle, we were able to
capture the errant creature and
detain it in the village phone box until
its owner could be contacted and
arrange for it to be returned home.
Richard Marshall
Nocton, LincsSir, In our village the K6 red
telephone kiosk, designed by Sir Giles
Gilbert Scott in 1935, was removed by
British Telecom more than 25 years
ago. In its place they put what can
only be described as a shower cubicle,
on the side of which is the now
defunct piper logo. It now houses not
a telephone but a defibrillator.
Peter Sergeant
Hathern, LeicsCracking the whip
Sir, During my 1940s schooldays the
whipper-in was the attendance officer
(letter, Nov 9). We were more in awe
of him than of the local policeman.
Siân Evans
CardiffCorrections and
clarifications
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Feedback, The Times, 1 London Bridge
Street, London SE1 9GF
Sins of the father
Sir, Sir Alan Fersht, the lead signatory
of a letter accusing Oxford University
of dishonouring science (Nov 9),
admits elsewhere in your columns
that his Cambridge college, Gonville
and Caius, recently removed a
memorial window to its former
president, Sir Ronald Fisher, because
of his interest in eugenics (news, Nov
9). Will Fisher be further expunged
from college memory by pulping the
section of its official history which
praises the “exquisite pleasure” of
Fisher’s “marvellous” book The Design
of Experiments? And will Caius have
the even-handed decency to address
the shame of its former master,
Joseph Needham, a ruthless apologist
for Mao Zedong, under whose
totalitarian rule tens of millions of
Chinese were starved to death, and
countless others murdered?
Those who object to naming a chair
at Oxford in memory of Alexander
Mosley, because his grandfather was a
fascist, have a notion of inextirpable
hereditary guilt that seems more
irrational and inhumane than Fisher’s
eugenic interests.
Richard Davenport-Hines
Ailhon, France
Sir, Refusing charitable donations
from a family on the basis of their
forebears is a slippery slope (“Explain
Mosley decision to Jewish students,
Oxford told”, Nov 10). Should we
refuse money from the Bahlsen
family, who used slave labour during
the Second World War?
If you dig far enough back, you’ll
find a miscreant or criminal in almost
every family or organisation that has
tried to make a difference through a
charitable donation. Enough of this
high horsery — and let’s build a
better future, rather than punish
people for the sins of their fathers (or
mothers).
Ben Wolfin
London NW7
Sir Geoffrey Cox and MPs’ second jobs
Sir, Attention has focused on the
“neglect” of constituents when
serving MPs take on substantial
professional engagements (news,
letters and leading article, Nov 10).
But of equal if not greater importance
is the “neglect” of clients when MPs
try to juggle two full-time jobs by, for
example, taking on cases in court.
During my career I encountered a
number of barrister MPs who at the
end of the court day regularly tip-toed
off to “the other place” (House of
Commons) to do the night shift.
Rarely did they return with any new
insights into the case and often their
contributions to the court
proceedings were nugatory. While
miscarriages of justice can occur in
the best-conducted cases, the
likelihood increases when barristers
do not give cases their full attention.
Ronald Thwaites QC
Esher, SurreySir, One way for MPs to engage in
outside interests without feeling the
ire of the public is for them to serve
as charity trustees. These vitally
important roles are in the main
unremunerated while having an
impact. We have run a programme
called Step on Board for several yearsSewage concerns
Sir, In your report “Sewage dumped
in rivers for months on end” (Nov 8)
Wessex Water’s Shrewton site is
highlighted as a “repeat offender” that
has spilt for 5,110 hours in one
12-month period. What is being
released, to protect properties from
flooding, is clear-looking water.
The pipes in Shrewton are heavily
affected by groundwater infiltration.The discharges are well over 99 per
cent groundwater. There is
categorical evidence of no impact on
the downstream ecology.
While we’ve sealed our pipes in the
area, the infiltration continues
because the majority of pipes are
owned by private homeowners. We do
not have any powers to rectify these
pipes. We have requested that the
government address this
misalignment of responsibility.
Where storm overflows do cause
harm, these need to be addressed.
However, campaigners need to be
careful that they do not inadvertently
increase carbon footprints by
demanding huge schemes where
there is no ecological benefit for
situations like this.
Matt Wheeldon
Director of assets and compliance,
Wessex WaterMarine marvel
Sir, Perhaps if the school curriculum
across the UK included more
information about the history and
habits of the indigenous population of
the British Isles, the dietary benefits
of seaweed would be known about,
rather than having to evoke the
distant lands of “China, Japan, Korea
and Hawaii” (“Marine Marvel”,
leading article, Nov 9). Seaweed is
and always was on the menu of many
ordinary homes in south Wales,
usually for breakfast.
Wendy Lloyd Jones
Pwllheli, Gwynedd from the times november 11, 1921
COL McCRAE’S
VISION OF THE
POPPIES
Lords reform
Sir, As Alice Thomson correctly says
(comment, Nov 10) it is time to
reform the House of Lords. Many will
call for a fully elected House, but I’m
not sure we really want another
chamber full of politicians.Given that the primary role of the
Lords is as a revising chamber, what
we really need is a second chamber of
wide expertise, experience and
wisdom. To achieve this I suggest an
approach under which each
professional body, trade union,
industry sector, major charity,
religious body, and other
representative group is required to
elect three of its own number to serve
in this chamber for five years, on a
state-salaried basis.
Nick Walker
Haddenham, Bucksthetimes.co.uk/archiveSmart motorways
Sir, How many more people are going
to die before the government realises
that so-called smart motorways are a
death trap (“Extra lay-bys for new
smart motorways”, Nov 10)? No
amount of extra lay-bys, themselves
dangerous as they are too short to
build up speed to rejoin the
carriageway, will eradicate the fact
that if a vehicle cuts out and another
vehicle is close behind there is
nowhere to go.
Ian Broadhead
Stanley, West YorksIn Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amidst the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved; and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.
Colonel John McCrae, when he died
in hospital at Boulogne in January of
1918, left as his legacy to the world
an immortal poem, Stephen Leacock
writes. It is no exaggeration to say
that the verses “In Flanders Fields”
are indissolubly linked with the storyof the Great War. The vision of the
poppies that blow among the crosses
symbolizes at once all the sorrow
and the pride of sacrifice that they
immortalize. But to those of us
privileged to be his friends he left in
addition an abiding memory that the
lapse of time can but intensify. The
ideal of patriotism and devotion to
duty that inspired him in the war
had been the mould in which his life
was cast. I first remember him as an
undergraduate at the University of
Toronto. Even then he was a soldier
of sorts; one of an honoured list of
Canadian soldiers whose first service
to their country was in Company K,
the University Company of the
Queen’s Own Rifles of the Militia of
Canada. McCrae graduated in Arts,
and later in Medicine, and saw active
service in South Africa as an officer
in the Canadian artillery. After his
return in 1900 he came to McGill as
a lecturer in pathology, combining
this post with the arduous work of adoctor in general practice. No man
worked harder, yet he contrived to
fill in the spare moments of a busy
life with the reveries of a poet. Jack
McCrae never adopted the pose of a
professional poet. He wore his hair
clipped to a military neatness and
his clothes and manner were free
from literary affectation. Busy
though he was, he seemed to find
time for social life, and was in great
demand at Montreal dinner parties.
Yet with all his social gifts he was a
man of moderation, regarding the
world, after the fashion of his Scotch
ancestors, as a stern place of trial
and preparation for something real
beyond. To us in Canada it is a
wonderful thought that Jack
MaCrae’s verses and memory should
have become a part of the common
heritage of the English people. These
are links of Empire indeed.Booster jab proof
Sir, You report today that France is
planning to require evidence from
next month of booster jabs for its
passe sanitaire for older people
(“Boosters are needed to go to French
bars”, Nov 10). Well over ten million
of us have now had our third dose of
a Covid vaccination. Yet these
boosters do not show on the NHS
Covid pass and an inquiry elicited the
reply that instructions had come
down from above not to include them.
Simple question: why not?
Iain Begg
European Institute, London School of
Economics