The Times - UK (2022-06-11)

28 Saturday June 11 2022 | the times

Letters to the Editor

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Sir, You report that more rail unions

are balloting their members on strike

action in a dispute over pay and terms

(“Drivers join rail strikes as ballots set

to spread”, Jun 10). In quoting

headline pay, unions ignore the

annual value of the generous defined

benefit pensions — deferred salary —

and a huge part of overall pay for rail

staff. Not only are rail pensions

guaranteed they still have a

retirement age of 60 and unlimited

annual inflation increases. After a

member’s own contributions, the

annual cost to rail companies — and

ultimately taxpayers — is more than

50 per cent of salary. Meanwhile,

even the most generous private sector

defined contribution pensions have

employer contributions of 15 per cent

of salary, and most are much lower.

The answer to any pay squeeze for

rail staff is simple: reduce the

generosity of future pensions by

closing the defined benefit scheme

and moving to defined contributions,

and then use some of the savings to

increase pay.

John Ralfe

Pensions consultant, Nottingham

Sir, In making their demands for

more money, the RMT and other rail

unions have been strangely silent

about the value of concessionary

travel that rail staff enjoy. Although

this varies from one operator to

another it can be a significant benefit,

and alleviates inflationary pressure on

take-home pay. It is curious that this

is never commented on by the unions.

James Morgan

Kings Ripton, Cambs

Sir, It is time we changed the law so

that unions can be sued for damages

if they call a strike that affects people

adversely (“End of the Line”, leading

article, Jun 9). There is no reason why

they should be allowed to impose

misery with no retribution, as this

means that a strike can be the first

resort rather than the last.

Neil Jones

London SE24

Sir, The claim by Mike Lynch, the

general secretary of the RMT, that his

members have no choice but to strike

is as absurd as it is spurious. They can

choose put the needs of the nation

before their own sectional demands

and stop living in a fantasy world of

magic money trees.

Howard Bigg

Hardwick, Cambs

Sir, Daniel Finkelstein is right that “we

shouldn’t write off Boris Johnson yet”

(Jun 8; letters, Jun 9) but his argument

raises fundamental questions about

the health of British politics. After 12

years in office, the governing party is

struggling to identify a single tried

and experienced candidate for the

premiership. The cabinet is so

enfeebled that it can neither contain

the PM nor hold him to account. MPs

require a secret ballot to perform their

most basic constitutional duty: that of

declaring “confidence” or “no

confidence” in the PM. The power to

appoint a PM has been transferred

from elected representatives to

unelected party activists, making it

hard to change leader at speed.

What holds Johnson in office is not

his own strength but the decay of the

system in which he operates. Britain

will not get better leadership until it

addresses its “pipeline problem”,

reforming and rebuilding the

mechanisms by which leaders are

trained, appointed and held to account.

Dr Robert Saunders

Reader in British history, Queen

Mary University of London

Forensic fright

Sir, You report that Exeter University

is to warn forensic science students

that the content of lectures could be

“offensive or traumatising” (“You will

find images upsetting, forensic science

students warned”, Jun 9). As medical

students at Guy’s Hospital in the late

1960s and early 1970s we sometimes

attended anatomy lectures,

occasionally physiology lectures and,

almost never, public health lectures.

However, we always made a point of

attending the forensic science lectures

given by the famous forensic

pathologist Professor Keith Simpson.

It was usually standing room only.

Had “trigger warnings’ been issued in

those days, many of us would never

have been able to get in through the

lecture theatre’s doors for the crush.

Professor Rhys Williams

Swansea

Sir, Surely no forensic science course

could be complete without images. If

you don’t want to see such images not

only have you failed to read the

syllabus but you have surely signed

up for the wrong course.

Roger Marcuson

Ret’d surgeon, London NW1

Sir, You quote Alan Sked as saying

that not long ago Glasgow University

warned its theology students that a

course on Christ ended “with a

violent episode called the

Crucifixion”. I was always taught that

things ended with a triumphant

episode called the Resurrection.

Perhaps times have changed.

James Gladstone

Edinburgh

Rich helpings

Sir, The chef Angela Hartnett, “a big

Blair fan”, says that she sent over a

bottle of champagne to his table when

he and his family visited Murano

(“Boris? My staff would walk out if he

booked a table”, Times2, Jun 9). How

ironic, yet a common occurrence, that

exceptionally wealthy people

constantly receive freebies.

Margaret Askew

Wigglesworth, N Yorks

Infantile inflection

Sir, James Marriott (“The ugly truth

about the triumph of twee”, Jun 9)

overlooks another example of the

infantilisation of British society:

pronunciation. Adults increasingly

struggle to put two consonants

together in words. During the

pandemic we were constantly told of

the dangers posed to “vunnerable”

people, encouraged to “reckonise”

symptoms and also asked not to go to

“hospituws”. The word “didn’t”

regularly becomes the infantile

“diddernt”, “th” has become “v”in

endless words: linguistic infantilisation

“whever” we like it or not.

Alistair McGowan

Ludlow, Shropshire

Corrections and

clarifications

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Key to measuring

social mobility

Sir, James Kirkup is correct in stating
that when it comes to social mobility
“we need to stop fixating on a couple
of posh universities that admit a few
thousand people a year” (“End the
Oxbridge fixation and we’ll ease
social mobility”, Jun 8; letter, Jun 9).
Some universities take a very small
number of disadvantaged students
and enable them to achieve
significant social mobility. Others
accept many more students from
lower socio-economic groups and,
while not moving them as far, have a
much greater impact on social
mobility overall. Trying to highlight
the varying effectiveness of these
different approaches is what led me to
design the English Social Mobility
Index (published by the Higher
Education Policy Institute), which
offers a methodology for comparing
the contribution of individual
universities to social mobility.
Professor David Phoenix
Vice-chancellor, London South Bank
University

Talking to the EU

Sir, Iain Martin analyses what needs
to be done to make Brexit work
(“Painful as it is, we need to talk
about Brexit”, Jun 9; letter, Jun 10).
While I find his argument cogent, I
do wonder why he is — or was — a
Brexiteer. Our government’s
responses to Covid and to the
Ukraine catastrophe have been
simplified by Brexit, but these
happenings could not have been
predicted, and it does seem to me that
Martin sets out otherwise (or at least
implies) very good reasons why we
should never have left the EU.
Peter Lawson
Weybourne, Norfolk

Sir, Elizabeth van Geest (letter, Jun 9)
refers to the “failure” of EU leaders to
offer David Cameron any real
concessions. In fact Cameron had
unilaterally tried to remove UK
Conservative MEPs from the centre-
right grouping of the European
People’s Party/European Democrats
in the middle of a five-year
parliamentary term, despite a legally
binding agreement to stay. Angela
Merkel and other centre-right leaders
realised that Cameron was not to be
trusted, and decided he had forfeited
the right to later concessions. I know
this because I was there at the time.
Philip Bushill-Matthews
Former leader of the Conservatives in
the European parliament

Impact of biggest rail strikes in a generation

Sir, Rail union members are

concerned about “unfair” pay. Have

they considered the unfairness of the

Tube and rail strikes on students?

Their action means that pupils across

the country, already nervous about

the first public exams any of them

have faced after two years of the

pandemic, have the added anxiety of

missing the exam. Exam boards allow

some flexibility to start a candidate

up to 30 minutes late but that

flexibility is limited to protect the

exam’s integrity. On June 21, students

in London face the double whammy

of a Tube and rail strike. Could

thought at least be given to separating

the strikes so that students have more

travel options that day? Pupils will be

left with the unenviable choice of

embarking on a lengthy and stressful

journey early in the morning or

bunking up somewhere local the

night before. Neither is conducive to

optimal preparation and performance.

Rail unions complain they have

been treated as “cannon fodder” but

they seem to be meting out similarly

callous treatment to students, who

have done nothing to deserve this.

Jenny Brown

Headmistress, City of London School

for Girls

Leadership impasse

from the times june 11, 1922

FUEL WASTE

IN KITCHEN

RANGES

Housing solutions

Sir, In his otherwise sensible article,

James Forsyth claims that until the

planning system is reformed “all other

measures to deal with housing will be

mere belief” (“Johnson is losing his

hold on the levers of power”, Jun 10).

Although I am sure the planning

system can be improved in our area

and in many others, there is a steadily

widening gap between the number of

permissions given and the number of

houses built. Well over a million

houses nationally have planning

consent but remain unbuilt. The truth

is that the housebuilding industry is

an oligopoly that regulates the flow of

housing coming on to the market not

simply to maintain prices but gently

to increase them. Unless and until the

oligopoly is broken and a genuine

market restored, most reforms,

including those to the planning

system, will be like pushing on a piece

of string and will be without effect.

John Barnes

Etchingham, E Sussex

Sir, Your leading article today (“Hot

Property”, Jun 10) says that the policy

of giving housing association tenants

the right to buy first appeared in the

Conservative Party manifesto in 2015.

Not so. It was proposed in a Housing

Bill in 1982 in Margaret Thatcher’s

first administration. The policy was

abandoned the next year after fierce

opposition in the House of Lords.

Lord Young of Cookham

Housing minister 1981-86

thetimes.co.uk/archive

Colonialist justice

Sir, I read with interest the remarks

by Leslie Thomas QC (“Lawyer

condemns British court as colonialist

relic”, news, Jun 9). Most of the

Caribbean countries that still have the

privy council as their final court of

appeal and still have old colonial laws

on their statute books have been

independent and free to make

changes for a number of years. It

might be interesting to ask why that

have chosen not to do so.

Bob Carr

Lee on the Solent, Hants

Managing the NHS

Sir, Hedley Piper (letter, Jun 10)

argues for a greater say of clinicians

in NHS management. After working

in the NHS for 35 years I came to the

conclusion that it was infinitely

preferable to be managed by a

competent lay manager than by a

clinician whose judgment might be

influenced by his or her own clinical

prejudices. The emphasis is on

“competent”: too many NHS

managers fail to meet this criterion.

Dr Ian McKee

Edinburgh

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telephone number.

A Report by the Fuel Research

Board shows the existence of a

striking waste of fuel, not only in the

open ranges favoured in the North,

but in the types of ranges used in

working-class houses all over the

country. They have been designed

chiefly for economy of material and

convenience of use, dating from a

time when coal was cheap and

abundant. Of the heat units in the

coal consumed, sometimes only one

per cent actually reaches the food in

the oven. The efficiency of the hot

plate varied between one and five

per cent, although ten to twenty per

cent could be easily secured in

specially designed appliances. The

fundamental mistake appears to be

the use of one plant for several

different functions.

The Report points out that the

functioning of all the parts of a

range is seldom required

simultaneously in a small house. All

the operations necessary for the

preparation of a working man’s

breakfast can easily be conducted on

the hot plate only, but the same

range that acts as hot-plate for such

simple operations as boiling a kettle

or making porridge, also heats an

oven, supplies hot water, and assists

in warming the room. These

purposes are seldom required

simultaneously, and yet they cannot

be utilized separately, although the

combination lowers the efficiency of

each and of the whole. Just as too

many cooks spoil the broth, so too

many functions spoil the cottage

range. This is one instance among

many of the costliness of the English

preference for independent, self-

contained units in housing. In towns

the need of housing many persons in

small areas is overcoming part of the

difficulty; the most modern blocks of

flats, such as those erected on the

property of the Prince of Wales in

Kennington, have communal hot-

water supplies. American designs go

farther, and within the last few years

a very interesting communal cottage

scheme has been worked out in

which country cottages, each with its

own porch, verandah, and garden,

are supplied with hot water and

steam for cooking and warming from

a central power station. The Report

of the Fuel Research Board should

stimulate further inquiry in the

direction of more economical and

convenient housing in country as

well as in town.