The Times - UK (2022-04-05)

32 Tuesday April 5 2022 | the times

Letters to the Editor

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soil is surely unthinkable” (Apr 4) is

understandable, but I think it is

wrong. It is for Ukraine to weigh up

the transactional costs, in terms

of lives lost, of what such an absolutist

campaign objective would look like.

We, who have chosen to support and

cheer on from the sidelines, need to

be very careful not to ask for, or

even encourage, the impossible. If we

encourage the Ukrainians into war

objectives closer to that which is a

gamble, and not a calculated risk, the

more likely it is that there will be a

significant upset, and we will have a

heavy responsibility to deal with the

consequences.

Simon Diggins

Ret’d colonel; security sector and

defence reform adviser, Kyiv, 2005-06

Sir, I agree with Lord Williams of

Oystermouth, the former Archbishop

of Canterbury, who has called for the

suspension of the Russian Orthodox

Church from the World Council of

Churches. The behaviour of Patriarch

Kirill of Moscow, the church’s leader

who appears to have endorsed the

war, reminds us of the so-called

German Christians who supported

Hitler. Thankfully in Germany in the

Second World War there were also

courageous members of the

Confessing Church. So too today

there are also faithful Russian

Christians speaking out. We pray

for and salute these witnesses to the

truth, and I am sure many people

who are not Christians will also be

filled with admiration, just as we

admire all those, irrespective of their

faith, who at great cost are standing

up for justice and for the rights of

the oppressed.

John Wainwright

Methodist lay preacher,

Potters Bar, Herts

Sir, From 1630 to 1647, Guillaume

Le Vasseur de Beauplan, a French

military engineer, was employed by

the King of Poland to construct forts

and civil establishments along the

course of the River Dnieper towards

the boundary with “Muscovy”. He

writes of the Ukrainians: “They are

great lovers of their liberty, without

which they do not desire to live...

They are of a strong constitution,

able to endure heat and cold, hunger

and thirst; indefatigable in war, bold,

resolute.” Perhaps President Putin

should have read this account.

Jean Ann Scott Miller

Crieff, Perth & Kinross

BBC’s class test

Sir, Mark Piggott writes of the BBC

seeking to employ more working-class

staff (Thunderer, Apr 1). When I

joined the corporation in the Sixties,

there were many junior clerical,

secretarial or manual jobs that could

be undertaken by people with a

handful of O-levels or less, and I can

think of many from all regions and

walks of life who started out in these

roles and worked their way up into

jobs in technical, production and

management areas. This was aided

by a scheme that allowed people to

move around departments. Many

of these junior opportunities have

disappeared because of automation,

or have been contracted to outside

sources, and the majority of

production staff are now freelance, a

way of work that has more financial

insecurities.

Amanda Lunt

Chichester

Feeling triggered

Sir, Libby Purves is right that trigger

warnings are gratuitous (Comment,

Apr 4). Last year the Globe Theatre

cautioned audiences of drug use,

suicide and blood in Romeo and Juliet.

Seeing a production of the play,

my six-year-old granddaughter was

most perturbed by the blatant

hugging and kissing. The realistic

stabbings bothered her not one whit.

Dr John Doherty

Stratford-upon-Avon

Sir, Every time I hear of trigger

warnings being needed, my blood

pressure rises alarmingly. Perhaps

we can be told in advance of such

occurrences.

Mike Harding

London N1

Sir, Thank you to Caitlin Moran for

her insight into the “feeling” of

poverty (Magazine, Apr 2, and letter,

Apr 4). As a GP, I am hearing more

and more patients advise me of the

crippling anxiety they are facing as

prices increase, benefits are cut and

ill health is precluding them from

getting jobs. There are food banks,

there is a welfare system, but the

bottom line is that there are a cohort

of people who have just survived a

pandemic, are trying to get their

lives back on track and have now

been kicked back into the quagmire

of debt, financial anxiety and, as a

consequence, more psychological and

physical ill health. I’m sure there are

no quick fixes, but Rishi Sunak must

do more to help those most in need.

Dr Tania Davis

Exeter

Sir, In the Second World War Britain

had “double summer time”, with the

clocks going forward two hours in

summer, to save energy. Perhaps we

should consider reinstating it now.

Sarah Oliver

Frilsham, Berks

Healthier habits

Sir, I refer to your excellent article in

Times 2 (“Follow the diet doctors’

rules and lose weight”, Jan 3). I am

delighted to say that having followed

the strategy for three months, I have

not only controlled my hunger

hormones but can officially confirm

my weight loss of 2st. I have reduced

my waistline by 3in and my Type 2

diabetes is in remission. The midlife

makeover continues. If I can do it at

72 years of age, anyone can.

Brian Blasdale

Henley-in-Arden, Warks

Corrections and

clarifications

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Hong Kong judges

Sir, Your leading article (Mar 31)
argues that all British judges should
resign from the Hong Kong Court of
Final Appeal and stay out of
unwelcome local developments, an
opinion shared by politicians. For
serving Supreme Court judges to sit
in a foreign court was always an
anomaly. But the six much respected
retired judges must not be maligned
for taking a different view. They
choose to remain loyal to colleagues
in Hong Kong. They will serve out
their tenure, not desert. Their years
of experience in the court gives them
confidence in its independence and
authority. Hong Kong’s legal and
commercial community will applaud
their stance. Their judicial wisdom is
needed there more than ever.
Michael Thomas QC
Attorney-general of Hong Kong,
1983-1988

Sir, I disagree with Adrian Huggins
(letter, Apr 1). British judges propping
up a legal system in Hong Kong that
is designed to target and destroy
democracy and its supporters is at
odds with the principles of western
democracy, and the six British judges
refusing to stand down should do so
immediately. The withdrawal of
political support for the judges was the
only available path for a government
committed to freedom in Hong Kong.
How can one explain to friends, jailed
politicians and activists that British
“internationally renowned judges”
serving in Hong Kong are in fact their
allies. In practice, I suppose, as they
are led from the witness box to a cell.
Mark Clifford
President, the Committee
for Freedom in Hong Kong

Beijing’s influence

Sir, To condemn Jesus College,
Cambridge, for taking money from
Tsinghua University to study foreign
business involvement in China’s Belt
and Road Initiative (BRI) undermines
attempts to draw attention to real
threats (report, Apr 4). Chinese
interference is a serious problem and
our universities must be careful with
the money they accept. Jesus is a
sinner. But we should not be paranoid.
Tsinghua is the Cambridge of China.
Of course we should co-operate with
it. Better understanding of BRI is
important. We need to maximise
co-operation with China where it is
not at the expense of our security,
prosperity and values.
Charles Parton, associate fellow,
the Council on Geostrategy and the
Royal United Services Institute

Putin and horrors of the war in Ukraine

Sir, As harrowing reports emerge of

torture, sexual violence and mass

killings committed by Russian forces,

Britons want the government to do

everything possible to help people

flee Ukraine. While the government

is right to throw its weight behind war

crimes investigations, it is failing to

offer effective pathways to safety for

survivors of abuse and witnesses who

will be essential for prosecutions.

The UK’s chaotic country-specific

refugee schemes and bureaucratic

insistence on visas for Ukrainians are

becoming more indefensible by the

day. Worse yet, the government is

still rejecting amendments proposed

by peers to the Nationality and

Borders Bill, meaning survivors who

make their own way here to claim

asylum could soon be criminalised,

denied protection and face detention

in offshore centres. It is time that

ministers cut the red tape and scrap

this anti-refugee bill, so that survivors

of war crimes can reach Britain swiftly.

Sonya Sceats

CEO, Freedom from Torture charity

Sir, As evidence grows of Russian

barbarity, your leading article’s

assertion that “any deal that left a

single Russian soldier on Ukrainian

Sir, At the start of a new tax year,

individual taxpayers are feeling the

pinch. But government is set to give

big corporates in the plastic industry

a tax break. The Treasury is choosing

to accept chemical recycling as a

legitimate form of recycling in the

forthcoming plastics tax. This

contradicts Defra and international

standards, which view the process

as a form of incineration. Chemical

recycling technologies such as

pyrolysis use a high-energy process to

break down plastic waste to fuel and

may have big environmental impacts.

As it stands in the plastics tax, the

Treasury will tax manufacturers on

plastic items that contain less than

30 per cent recycled material. But if

plastic producers can claim to reach

this threshold by using chemically

recycled material, then the tax will

fail in its own objectives.

The campaign group A Plastic

Planet believes that plastic producers

and consumer brands must stop

focusing on protecting their profits

by deflecting responsibility and

continuing to find loopholes. We

agree. We urge the Treasury to

Plastic recycling

urgently review its stance on

chemical recycling.

Dr Matthew Offord, Tory MP; John

McNally, SNP MP; Caroline Lucas,

Green MP; Geraint Davies, Labour

MP; Kenny MacAskill, Alba Party MP

Plus eight other signatories at

thetimes.co.uk/letters

Cost-of-living crisis

from the times april 5, 1922

SCHEME TO

BUILD £388

HOUSES

Contract of care

Sir, Trevor Phillips is right to say that

parents battling for social care for

their children with Down’s syndrome

and autism need “a new weapon to

tackle the jobsworths” standing in

their way (Comment, Apr 4). Liam

Fox’s new bill is a promising start.

But social care reform needs social

change and a new social contract.

There is general acceptance that

healthcare comes free of charge

from the NHS — but not for social

care. When it comes to social care

the conversation with your local

authority immediately turns to how

much it is going to cost and how

you cannot expect to get everything

your child needs. Health care is a

right; social care is a negotiation.

Christopher Digby-Bell

Amersham, Bucks

thetimes.co.uk/archive

Calorie counting

Sir, Eating is about nutrition, a

balanced diet, understanding where

food comes from and not just calories

(“Calorie counts fail top chefs’ taste

test”, Apr 2). A portion of wild salmon

or one from a fish farm; a helping of

sweet potato pudding or one of

sponge cake — these may well have

the same number of calories, but will

be treated in vastly different ways,

adding or not adding to the wellbeing

of the body and its weight. It is much

more important to know the make-up

of the food — its fibre content, bad or

good fat, ultra-refined or wholesome

carbohydrates — than the number

of calories. The human body is much

more than a machine, but the easy

acceptance that it is so for the past

four decades has not helped to ease

our obesity problem.

Dr Surinder Singh Bakhshi

Author, Fattening of the Millennials

Letters to The Times must be exclusive

and may be edited. Please include a full

address and daytime telephone number.

Great interest has been aroused in

the announcement that tenders have

been received by the Ministry of

Health for the construction of

houses at less than £400 each. The

tender referred to by Sir Kingsley

Wood, MP, in a speech on March 29

is in respect of 18 houses to be

erected at Risca, Monmouthshire, at

a cost of £388 each. The contractors,

whose tender has been accepted, are

the Unit Construction Company,

Limited, of Regent Street, W. It must

not be taken for granted, however,

that such a low tender means a

sudden drop in the price of houses,

or that this is a price at which houses

of a certain non-parlour type could

be constructed in any part of the

country. The company are already

engaged on a municipal housing

scheme at Newport, a short distance

from Risca, so their workmen would

be able to undertake the work

without additional overhead charges.

Another reason which weighed with

them in arriving at their tender was

the fact that the new houses were to

be built on the site of a partially

completed housing scheme. The site

is level and much of the drainage

work and fencing accomplished.

It is of interest that the 18 houses

at £388 each form but a part of the

contract, which includes both

parlour and non-parlour houses. The

18 houses referred to are to be brick-

built and will comprise a living-

room, scullery, bath, three bedrooms,

and the usual offices. Twelve other

non-parlour houses of similar type,

but a little larger, are included in the

contract and the tender for these is

£404 each. In addition there are 20

parlour houses, eight of which the

company are prepared to build for

£481 each, and the remaining 12 at

£491 each. The average price of the

contract, therefore, works out at

£440 per house. Generally speaking,

there appears to be no immediate

prospect of a decrease in the cost of

building. The price of houses, said a

representative of the firm, will only

come down as the cost of labour

comes down. They have a number of

housing schemes in hand in various

parts of the country, including

Edinburgh, Liverpool, Southport,

Braintree, Birmingham, Rugby, and

WeIlington, and they have just

entered into a contract for the

construction of 50 houses at

Welwyn Garden City at an average

cost of £515 per house.