24 The Sunday Times April 3, 2022COMMENT
The pitbull is banned in the UK but similar dogs are legalTARA GREGG/EYEEM/GETTY IMAGESLETTERS
TO THE EDITOR
The Sunday Times,
1 London Bridge Street,
London SE1 9GF
Email: letters@
sunday-times.co.uk1721 Robert Walpole
becomes de facto first PM
1948 President Truman
signs Marshall Plan into law
1968 Martin Luther King Jr’s
“promised land” speech
1973 First mobile phone call
made, in New York, by
Motorola engineerEddie Murphy is 61 todaySlob rule
As a British expatriate, I was
ashamed by the appearance
of Boris Johnson at the G7
meeting. While other heads
of state looked as if they had
stepped in from Savile Row,
he appeared to have just been
thrown out of a pub at closing
time — sagging trousers,
protruding stomach and
dishevelled hair. In other
words, an utter disgrace.
Michael Dryhurst
Arkansas, USA
Grossed out
Robert Colvile’s column
(Comment, last week) shows
the inadequacy of GDP growth
as a measure of success.
There are better ones, such as
unemployment (we’ve done
well), poverty and inequality
(we’ve done badly) and care
of the environment (we need
to do more).
Henry Haslam, Taunton
Tour de force or farce?
Camilla Long refers to the
Duke and Duchess of
Cambridge’s “disastrous
tour” (Comment, last week).Roya Nikkhah says it was “in
reality an overwhelmingly
successful trip” (News).
Which assessment, I wonder,
is closer to the truth?
Andrew Whiteley
Consett, Co Durham
No such thing as free staff
Every year, when the
minimum wage increases,
businesses moan about it
(“Did you forget about us, Mr
Sunak?”, Business, last
week). Yes, their costs will
increase, but the costs their
employees face are rising too.
The truth is, many always
hated the idea of a minimum
wage. And as for Brasserie
Bar Co’s chief executive,
Mark Derry, complaining
about pot-washers being paid
£15 an hour — what’s wrong
with that? I wonder if he
would work for that much.
Ray Howes, Weymouth
Animal house
Last week’s education white
paper assures headteachers
they will be supported to
eradicate low-level disruption
from schools. It would help if
MPs set an example and
refrained from barracking
one another in the House of
Commons. The Speaker
routinely leaves playground
jibes unchecked.
Thomas Coen
Head teacher, ChelmsfordCORRECTIONS &
CLARIFICATIONSANNIVERSARIES
BIRTHDAYS POINTS
Suella Braverman, attorney-
general, 42
Nigel Farage, politician, 58
Dame Jane Goodall,
primatologist, 88
AC Grayling, philosopher, 73
Leona Lewis, singer, 37
Eddie Murphy, actor, 61
Lesley Sharp, actress, 62We corner Putin at
the world’s peril
Dominic Lawson argues that
the West should not offer a
solution to the Ukraine crisis
that allows Vladimir Putin to
save face (Comment, last
week). I disagree. As the great
American journalist Walter
Lippmann wrote in 1961:
“This being the nuclear age, it
is the paramount rule of
international politics that a
great nuclear power should
not put another great nuclear
power in a position where it
must choose between suicide
and surrender”.
President Kennedy allowed
Nikita Khrushchev to extricate
the Soviet Union from the
Cuban missile crisis of 1962
without humiliation, and
armageddon was prevented.
The West should similarly
offer Putin an escape route
from the crisis in Ukraine to
prevent nuclear war 60 years
later. This would not be
appeasement, but
statesmanship.
Peter Henrick, Birmingham
Ukraine’s right to decide
Lawson is right: only
Ukrainians can decide what
to do about the integrity of
their territory. The West
should be very wary of trying
to push them into an
unacceptable form of part-
surrender.
What message would that
send for the future? Not
necessarily one in which
Ukraine is safe. How do you
stop a bully coming back for
more if you give him any part
of what he is demanding?
Jennifer Ray, Morden, London
Time pressure
Lawson’s piece was typically
lucid, and he is right that it is
not for the West to dictate the
terms of any peace
settlement. Nevertheless,
there will have to be an
agreement at some point, and
in practice it may have to
include some formula to help
save Putin’s worthless skin,
however unpalatable that will
be.
President Zelensky has
more intelligence and
common sense than the
average western leader andhe understands that the war
is degrading Ukraine’s
infrastructure at a terrifying
rate. To borrow a phrase used
during the Vietnam War,
Russia is trying to bomb
Ukraine back to the Stone
Age. Even though Nato will
have to include a new
Marshall Plan for
reconstruction in any
settlement, time is of the
essence to reduce Ukraine’s
suffering and the scale of that
work.
A final note: a friend’s
mother arrived from her
home in central Ukraine
recently. She told of a Russian
tank that was seen driving
round and round her village.
A neighbour summoned the
courage to ask the driver
what he was doing. His reply:
he was burning all his diesel
so he didn’t have to advance.
So there are some Russians
with common sense.
Dr David Wise, Wantage,
Oxfordshire
Stand up to bullies
The attitude of many former
diplomats and ministers, who
now advise that Putin should
be given an “off ramp”, may
be part of the reason we find
ourselves in this position. The
lesson of history is that
appeasement works only in
the short term and merely
gives the aggressor more
confidence.
Like all blackmailers and
bullies, they will come back
for more later. Dangerous
autocrats have to be faced
down and contained.
John Parker, Montcourt-
Fromonville, France
Only force will work now
We should not overlook the
visceral hatred many
Ukrainians now have for
Putin’s Russia, having
witnessed the death and
destruction it has wrought.
Zelensky may well agree
some sort of deal, but there is
no guarantee that a majority
of Ukrainians will accept it.
They know any deal done
with Russia is not worth the
paper it is written on.
David Maddocks, Lancasterwould still be alive. It’s that
simple.
Jo Browne, Watford
Attack of stupidity
Liddle has articulated exactly
what the vast majority were
thinking about dog
ownership. The real
tragedy is that you cannot
legislate for stupidity. And if
some consider that
judgmental, so be it.
Keith Sutton, London W2
Not fierce enough
Around Liddle’s native
Teesside, rehoming centres
are full of Staffordshire bull
terriers: they’ve been given
away because they are loving,
protective animals who are
just not fierce enough for the
hardmen. He makes good
wider points about
unsuitable dogs for children,
but he is wrong on this breed.
The problem is at the other
end of the lead.
Graeme Aldous
Moorsholm, YorkshireBad parents and
their killer dogs
Rod Liddle is completely right
about the “accident” of Bella-
Rae Birch’s death from an
attack by the family’s
American bully XL dog
(Comment, last week). In my
time as a social worker I had
to remain silent about how
some people choose to lead
what Liddle calls their
“dreadful lives”, but I cannow confirm that his
portrayal is accurate.
The people he describes
who buy these dogs may be
poor (not always — some
could afford cigarettes,
takeaway food and huge TVs),
but they were not helped by
their obvious poor judgment,
which often astounded me.
After 20 years I got out of the
profession, not burnt out but
demoralised and disgusted.
If these parents had not
bought the dog, the childLetters should arrive by
midday on Thursday and
include the full address and a
phone number. We may edit
letters, which must be exclusive
to The Sunday Timesharm to the baby and the
costs of litigation, but are less
successful at minimising the
psychological impact of their
actions on the parents.
Michael Lumb, retired
consultant obstetrician,
Peterborough
Best practice
In the 1970s I worked in what
was then the best maternity
unit in the country. Our
figures for outcomes were
outstanding. The caesarean
section rate was low, not
because the operation was
discouraged but because
some of the circumstances in
which a caesarean might be
needed were avoided with
good care. Practise a high
standard of obstetrics and
midwifery and the rest will
take care of itself.
Tom Bloomfield
by email
Never again
As a former midwife I find it
appalling that a toxic mix of
cost-cutting and extreme
ideology has resulted in lives
lost and ruined. All caring
and professional midwives,
past and present, feel deeply
for the women and babies
who had such dreadful care.
Margaret Smith, Guisborough,
North YorkshireA passing doctor
saved my baby
Thank you for highlighting
the scandal at Shrewsbury
and Telford Hospital NHS
Trust (News, last week). My
own “near miss” suggests the
“wait and see” policy of
discouraging intervention in
birth is not isolated or recent.
It was in place in 1995 when
I gave birth at Royal Bolton
Hospital. My son was lucky.
After 26 hours of prolonged
labour involving failed
equipment and a baby in brow
presentation, I was rescued by
chance when a doctor on his
coffee break overheard
midwives discussing my case.
He swept into the room, and
the gear change was palpable.
The staff prepared for an
emergency caesarean, but my
baby was already halfway
down the birth canal with his
shoulders jammed, so he was
delivered by the doctor
immediately by ventouse.
Fortunately he was healthy.
My impression was of a turf
war between midwives and
doctors. In their quest for a
“natural birth”, midwives
seemed to loathe involving
doctors, even to the detriment
of mother and baby.
Julia Taylor, StaffordIn safe hands
This debate would benefit
from some facts. Midwife-run
birth centres are not “death
traps”; overall, for healthy
women, they result in safer
outcomes.
During the Royal College of
Midwives’ “normal birth”
campaign (2005-14), the
stillbirth rate fell — from 5.7
per 1,000 births to 4.7 per
1,000. European countries
with low mortality rates also
have low caesarean rates.
None of this information
changes the grief and distress
felt by parents who have been
failed. But framing facts as
“ideology” hampers careful
analysis of what is needed,
once and for all, to get this
right in future.
Soo Downe, professor of
midwifery studies, University
of Central Lancashire
Squabbling staff
The vital factor is a respectful
working relationship between
midwives and obstetricians.
Sadly, there is too often an
“us and them” mentality.
Some midwives try to
protect women in their care
from “interventionist
obstetricians”; some
obstetricians resort to
intervening earlier and more
often to minimise the risk ofComplaints concerning
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Standards Organisation
(Ipso) will examine formal
complaints about editorial
content in UK newspapers
and magazines. Please go to
our website for full details of
how to lodge a complaint.It’s payback for
Elphicke and co
Your article “Charlie Elphicke:
the predator MP and his
protection racket” (News, last
week) showed investigative
journalism at its best. But the
woman who brought the
complaint of rape against him
has yet to see justice. There
should be consequences for
those who use the law in this
way and put others through
years of trauma. I hope
Elphicke has to pay some of
the £500,000 you spent on
legal fees pursuing this story.
Mike Eames, BrightonIll repute
How can a man convicted of
sexual assault hope to prove a
libel in this case? That would
imply the article damaged his
good reputation. But he has
no good reputation to lose.
Cliff Buffham, Camberley
Partners in crime
Well done Stuart Andrew MP,
one of the few to come out of
this well.
As for Carter-Ruck, it
seems no better than those
firms of lawyers that make
unwanted phone calls telling
you that you have “recently
had an accident”.
Linda Hill, Herne BayPolls apart on
giant turbines
Your readers’ poll “Should
the UK build more onshore
wind farms?” (last week) has
an obvious flaw. Ask 1,000
people in a city where there
are no turbines, but a lot of
electricity is used: they will
say they are a good idea. Ask
1,000 villagers in areas where
turbines taller than the
ancient church steeple would
be built: almost all will say no.
Tony Killeen
Halberton, DevonComing and blowing
It is ironic that your article
“Spin for Victory” (News
Review, last week) was
published between two
extended lulls — periods
when wind contributed less
than 5 per cent to the
National Grid. These are not
unusual: one in 2021 lasted
five days.
Clearly wind cannot be
relied on. The UK needs to
start looking at other sources
of green power.
Derek Partington
Northallerton
North Yorkshirepolicy debate in this area, this was an
argument about means, not ends. The
question is not whether LGBT rights
matter, but how best to protect them,
and how to balance them with other
rights if and when they come into
conflict.
The second is that the place in which
the government has ended up — the
place it argues that it was always in — is
also pretty much where the British
public are. Polling on trans rights, for
example, shows overwhelming support
for adults’ right to identify as they wish:
to choose their name, their clothing and
their pronouns, and to pursue surgical
intervention if they so desire.
But voters also think changing gender
should be a serious and considered
process, involving a doctor’s approval
and a trial period of living in your new
gender; that it is unfair for transgender
women to take part in women’s sporting
events; and they are conflicted on
whether trans women should be
excluded from certain women-only
spaces, especially if they have not had
gender reassignment surgery.
Now, all of these positions can and
will be contested. For many activists and
campaigners, the core of the argument is
that a trans woman is a woman, full stop,
and a trans man is a man, so all these
conflicts between rights are irrelevant atW
hat’s the definition of a
woman? It’s a question
guaranteed to produce
stammering hesitancy in
any politician — especially
any male politician — as
they sense the abyss
yawning beneath. And it’s
now replaced “How much is a pint of
milk?” as the go-to gotcha, to the point
where ministers aren’t being allowed out
of the door until they’ve rehearsed their
answer. (The suggested reply from one
party grandee: “Someone who can
become leader of the Conservative
Party, but not of Labour.”)
Debates over gender and identity
have become among the most heated in
our politics. Hence the outcry last week
when the government appeared to have
reneged on its promise to ban
conversion therapy, which forced it to
backtrack almost immediately, making a
U-turn on its U-turn.
To understand the argument over
conversion therapy, at least from the
government’s perspective, you need to
think about two children. One is growing
up in a household with deeply
traditional views on sexuality. Another is
a teenager whose parents are far more
tolerant of LGBT rights. When the first
child starts to have unfamiliar feelings
about the same sex, they are draggedbefore a pastor or another authority
figure, who forces them to crush those
feelings. When the second child starts to
feel uncomfortable about their gender
identity, their parents are supportive —
but urge them to wait until they are an
adult before making any irreversible
medical interventions.
The government’s goal, it insists, has
always been to prevent the first scenario
without criminalising the second. But
that was proving an extremely difficult
legal line to draw. Hence the proposal to
look at non-legislative approaches, not
least because the worst forms of
conversion therapy were already illegal.
(Indeed, the Tories’ original promise,
made under Theresa May in 2018, was to
“end” conversion therapy rather than
“ban” it — precisely because of how
thorny the legislative route was likely to
prove.)
But when the new plan was leaked to
ITV, all hell broke loose. It rapidly
became clear to No 10 that any retreat
from a ban would provoke a mutiny. So
the prime minister ordered his team to
go back to the drawing board and find a
way to draw the dividing lines in the
appropriate place.
Politically, this spectacle was
obviously less than ideal. But there are
three important points to make about it.
The first is that, as with the widerQuarter of New Orleans, by special
permission of the attorney-general of
Louisiana, to give his patient his first
heterosexual encounter on a bed in the
laboratory (during which she displayed
commendable professionalism in
ignoring the Teflon-coated stainless-steel
electrodes implanted in nine regions of
the patient’s skull).
As recently as 35 years ago, 75 per
cent of the British public said same-sex
relations between two adults were
always or mostly wrong. The following
year the government banned the
promotion of homosexuality in schools,
via the notorious Section 28.
I am not saying we now live in a
utopia. It is still shocking that, for
example, more than two in five LGBT
people told a recent government survey
that they had experienced verbal
harassment or physical violence in the
past 12 months. But, just as on race, the
mainstream of public opinion has
moved to a place of sympathy,
understanding and tolerance.
Our debates over sex and gender are
so impassioned because they strike at
the core of people’s identities. But the
events of last week show not how
furiously divided we are on trans
rights but how remarkably far this
country has come.
@RColvileother groups whose fundraising
depends on them generating a constant
churn of culture-war grievances. It was
Tory MPs — stereotypically the most
culturally hidebound group in Britain —
who forced it to back down, and who
are, according to No 10, overwhelmingly
happy with the new position.
Last week Jamie Wallis, the
Conservative MP for Bridgend, came out
as Britain’s first trans MP — and received
a tidal wave of positive messages. The
PM was effusive in his support, both in
public and in private. It fits a wider
pattern. Six times as many Britons say
they would support a family member
who came out as trans or non-binary as
would not. Among those who declare
themselves to be lesbian, gay or
bisexual, the figure is even higher.
By any historical standard this is the
most extraordinary transformation.
Until the late 1960s homosexuality was
not only illegal but formally listed in
psychiatric textbooks as a sociopathic
personality disturbance. A few years ago
I reported on the extraordinary story of
Robert Heath, an American psychiatrist
and neurologist who in 1972 produced
two scientific papers describing how he
had used electrical stimulation of the
brain in an attempt to cure
homosexuality — culminating with him
procuring a prostitute from the FrenchIt wasn’t
Stonewall that
forced the
government
U-turn. It was
Tory MPsRobert Colvile
Beneath all the shouting and vitriol is a simple
truth: the whole country supports trans rights
best and a thin cover for prejudice at
worst. But despite the often vitriolic
atmosphere online, this debate is not
happening in an environment in which
the country, or the government, is
viscerally hostile to trans rights.
Precisely the opposite.
Which brings us to the third point. On
conversion therapy, the government
U-turned on its U-turn not because of the
opposition from Stonewall, or any of theREADERS’ POLL
Last week we asked:
Should the UK build more onshore wind farms??From a poll of 7,388 Times and Sunday Times readers
This week’s question: Would Princess Anne make a better
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Have your say at sundaytimes.co.uk/pollNO
73% 27%YES
Bayraktar drone can be run
for hours on peanuts and
needs no meat filling. It must
be demoralising to be sitting
there in a big metal
container, and every now and
then one of your mates’ tanks
explodes.” “So Dominic
Cummings was right,” wrote
Olivia — “tanks are obsolete.”
“Yes and no,” replied Neil
Pattison. “The West hasgreater protection in its tanks
— a Challenger 2 weighs in at
75 tonnes and a T-80 about 45
tonnes. The difference is
armour.” Blessed R The
Cheese Graters, a “former
anti-tank officer”, recalled:
“In the Cold War a big fear
was of thousands of Soviet
tanks crossing into West
Germany and beyond. So the
West invested heavily in anti-tank weaponry. I am proud to
see the investment has been
put to such good use, albeit in
unimagined circumstances.”
Nearer home, we reported
on a terrible plague in Italy:
hypochondria. “Never start a
greeting there with, ‘How are
you?’ or you will hear a
barrage of despair,” warned
LA. Raffaele Bertone’s
mother “would never let meplay football with my friends
in the strada, as I would sweat
and catch tonsillitis, as early
as the next day!” A puzzled
Kafkas legacy “thought
hypochondria was a preserve
of the French”. “Like most
preserves, it spread,”
explained LynneH. Yes,
laughter is the best medicine,
even for imaginary illness.
Rob NashJOIN THE CONVERSATION ONLINE
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thesundaytimes.co.uk
A sitrep on Ukraine by a
former US marine had
military and civilian readers
standing to attention. “Of the
hundreds of articles I’ve read
about the war in Ukraine, this
was the most informative,”
applauded Barolo. “Two key
points are made,” mused Jim
Pinnells: “in the eternal
conflict between weapons
and armour, right nowweapons have the lead; and
morale, fragile and hard to
cultivate as it is, is the
greatest advantage an army
can have.” Richard James
thought: “Drones, especially
those with thermal imaging,
are the future of warfare. This
article rather confirms what
we armchair generals were
thinking.” Lady Blah Blah
picked up that thought: “A