25
A disgraceful way...
To The Guardian
In Mark Townsend’s report
on delays in issuing visas
to Ukrainian families, a
Government source is quoted
as saying, by way of
explanation, that safeguarding
processes were in place to
protect children from
trafficking. Where do you start
with this? We are talking about
families with children, not
adults with random children
picked up off Ukraine’s streets.
What meaning of
“safeguarding” such children
validates leaving them in a war
zone? These documented
families will be coming by a
legal route and landing at an
airport, not pitching up on
a beach in Kent. The time to
implement such processes is
when they are safely in the UK.
John Filby, Ashover, Derbyshire
...to treat refugees
To The Times
Nine months after the fall of
Kabul, hundreds of Afghans,
who risked their lives working
for Britain for two decades,
remain abandoned, hiding with
their families. They have faith
that Britain will not ignore
their desperate plight, but
they are wrong.
The Government publicly
promised to relocate locally
employed staff to the UK, but
the Afghan resettlement system
is broken. Applications are left
unanswered, pleas for help are
ignored, civil servants are taken
away for other tasks, and posts
are left vacant. Either ministers
do not know what is going on,
or, as the spotlight shifts,
they do not care.
General Sir John McColl,
Nato deputy supreme
allied commander Europe,
2007-2011No patience with WFH
To The Daily Telegraph
Telephoning the Office of the
Public Guardian, I was greeted
by a message that staff were
working from home owing to
Covid. It requested that callersbe patient and explained that
staff may not have all the
information needed to deal
with enquiries. And all this
after instruction not to raise
queries about the registration
of powers of attorney for at
least 20 weeks after applying.
Direct from the horse’s
mouth, here is the reality of
public servants working from
home, rather than as portrayed
in the self-serving statements
issued by Abi Tierney of the
Passport Office and Matthew
Rycroft, the permanent
secretary at the Home Office.
Heather Paget-Brown,
Plaxtol, KentMaths and gender
To The Times
The issue isn’t whether A-level
maths is too difficult for girls,
but whether they think it is.
The fact that nearly 75% of
A-level further-maths pupils
are male suggests that
perceived difficulty and
suitability might be strong
factors determining A-levelchoice. It is pointless to
speculate about why there
is so much gender bias in
choosing further mathematics
and physics; it is an empirical
question, necessitating
research. We can only do
something about the gender
imbalance once we know
the reasons for it.
Trevor Harley, emeritus
professor of psychology,
University of DundeeLETTERS
© MATT/THE DAILY TELEGRAPH-^ Letters have been edited
To the Financial Times
Is there not a danger that we in the West
may be fooling ourselves if we believe,
like US defence secretary Lloyd Austin,
that Russia will come out of its “special
military operation” in Ukraine weakened?
History may help with the answer.
It’s said that the supposed poor
performance of Soviet troops in the
winter war of 1939-40 against Finland
led Hitler to risk his invasion of Russia
in 1941. Yet it is clear that the Red Army
learnt much from that war, especially
fighting in severe winter conditions,
which they used to good effect when
defeating the Nazis. At the height of
the Second World War, some British
politicians, Churchill’s minister of aircraft
production Lord Brabazon of Tara being
one, voiced the hope that Russia would
come out of that war weakened.
We must not make the same mistake.
Before 24 February, there was a
possibility that the Minsk Accords could
be used to maintain Ukraine’s territorial
integrity, but since then it has looked
unlikely that Russia will leave the
Donetsk and Luhansk regions, or those
in the old Novorossiya area. Now true
friends of Ukraine should be urging an
immediate negotiated peace, even if this
means Kyiv making some concessions
over the disputed lands.
Bryn Rowlands, Malmesbury, WiltshireTo The Guardian
The problem with Russia suffering
“colossal losses” is that this really does
not matter to its leaders. You only have
to look back at historic campaigns
involving Russia and its satellites to see
that one of its major tactics is to keep
throwing men (and women) into battle
until the other side runs out of steam.
A comparison of the Allied (British,
American and French) cemeteries from
the Second World War in what was West
Berlin and the Soviet war memorial in
Treptower Park in the erstwhile East
Berlin shows the difference in attitude to
the value of human life: on the one hand
individual graves lovingly cared for; on
the other a vast arena where a statue of a
Russian soldier holds aloft a child and
stamps on the symbol of Nazism, while
looking to the statue of Mother Russia.
Western rhetoric will not deter
Vladimir Putin, who is a past master
of the art; our politicians must find an
effective brake to his ambitions in order
to prevent further aggression.
Anne Maclennan, FranceTo The Times
At the end of the Second World War,
the US treasury secretary, Henry
Morgenthau, wanted to turn Germany
into a poor, deindustrialised farming
country. Wiser counsels prevailed in theMarshall Plan. Now Lloyd Austin, the
present US defence secretary, proclaims
the objective of making Russia weak,
while a junior UK defence minister
promotes the idea that Ukraine should
use British weapons to strike targets
inside Russia.
Words matter. These are gifts to
Vladimir Putin and his propagandists. He
seeks to convince his people that the West
is attacking and trying to dismember
Russia. This is Putin’s war, not one that
most Russians wanted. We should
actively support the many brave Russians
who oppose the war. When Ukraine’s
future has been secured and Putin is gone,
we are going to need to co-exist with
Russia and not leave Europe’s largest
country as a perpetual and embittered
enemy. Germany stands as the exemplar.
Sir Roderic Lyne, British ambassador
to Russia, 2000-2004To The Daily Telegraph
All my life I have believed in the theory
of conflict prevention by the fear of
mutually assured destruction with
nuclear weapons. I am now questioning
this theory, as I feel that the war in
Ukraine is the first time that such a war
has been enabled and continued by
threatening to use nuclear weapons, as
Vladimir Putin has done.
Philip Roberts, Caernarfon, WalesExchange of the week
The nature of Russian aggression... and how to respond to it
Pick of the week’s correspondence
“Who is Massey Ferguson
and why did you shout out
their name?”7 May 2022 THE WEEK