The Times - UK (2022-04-08)

30 Friday April 8 2022 | the times

Letters to the Editor

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sponsorship scheme. They received

acknowledgement, and made the long

and difficult journey to the Polish

border. Valeriia received permission

to travel on March 30. Margarita has

heard nothing. They are both

distressed, and so am I, at the

prospect of leaving Margarita, a single

girl, alone in a city she doesn’t know.

The 24/7 helpline provides reassuring

messages that all applications will be

dealt with, but when?

Kate Bostock

Milton Keynes

Sir, For a holiday, I applied online for

a Pakistan visa on Sunday afternoon;

uploading eight specified travel

documents. The system allowed me to

add documents and check the status

of my application online with regular

updates. The visa was issued on

Wednesday. For a war, I applied for

three Homes for Ukraine visas for a

displaced family on March 18. No

information; no means of checking

the application status; no indication

of process. The final visa arrived 19

days later. Perhaps the government

should consider off-shoring the Home

Office, rather than refugees.

Paul Gocke

London E11

Charming Savile

Sir, In the late 1950s I was a law

student and supplemented my meagre

grant by playing the saxophone in the

Plaza Ballroom, Manchester.

The manager was Jimmy Savile. He

was an outstanding manager and

boss. He treated his customers with

charm and the band with care. He

made sure we had our proper breaks

and he knew each member of the

band by name. He was a local

character, wearing a deerstalker hat

while driving his open-top sports car

round town. He was very much liked.

Charm and fun were his assets. We

knew nothing of the evil that lurked

within him. It is small wonder

therefore that he duped the Prince of

Wales (“Savile gave royals advice on

dealing with media”, Apr 6), who

should not be criticised for the

correspondence that passed between

them or their friendship.

Walter Houser

London SW14

Language of curve

Sir, Your article “French lieutenant

woman’s pier at risk” (Apr 7) states

that the origin of the word “Cobb” is

unknown. Perhaps it derives from the

French “courbe”, meaning curve?

Christopher Cooper

Bramber, W Sussex

Non-dom marriage

Sir, The outrage about Rishi Sunak’s

wife has a strong element of a man

being able to tell his wife what to do

about her tax status (“Sunak’s wife a

non-dom in Downing Street”, Apr 7).

For the avoidance of doubt, could

someone please supply a list of all the

areas where a man has a right to

instruct his wife.

Brian Noton

Cowbridge, Glamorgan

Release the B-side

Sir, I see from the Birthdays column

(Apr 7) that Janis Ian, famous for her

song At Seventeen, is 71. I really do

hope that she is going to be releasing

an up-to-date version of her song.

Gerald Halon

Gatley, Cheadle Cheshire

Corrections and

clarifications

6 We reported in News in Brief
(Business, April 6) that global
sovereign debt was $52.2 billion in
January 2020. The correct figure was
$52.2 trillion.

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Stonewall boycott

Sir, For many years from its inception
I helped Stonewall change from a
good idea into an influential and
effective lobbying organisation that
transformed the lives of millions of
LGBT. We understood that legislative
change alone was not enough: you
had to change the views of society and
win the majority to your side. This
often involved compromises to ensure
sustainable change in the long run. It
meant winning debates with your
opponents, not shutting them down.
This week Stonewall led a mass
boycott of a historic LGBT conference
that would have provided a focus on
the plight of LGBT people worldwide
(“Conversion therapy U-turns put an
end to equality event”, Apr 6). It did
so because the government
announced legislation to ban gay
conversion therapy and pledged to
look further into the issues necessary
to extend that ban to cover trans
people, which raise some different
and more difficult questions.
The position of the government is
backed by the Equalities and Human
Rights Commission. But instead of
taking this significant victory and
building upon the pledge for more,
Stonewall has acted petulantly,
destroyed an event that would have
helped LGBT worldwide and critically
undermined its ability to lobby for
LGBT issues in future.
Paul Barnes
Chairman, Tory Campaign for
Homosexual Equality, 1993-98;
L’Horte, France

Social care levy

Sir, This week’s much-trumpeted
arrival of the health and social care
levy will not help the situation unless
both sides gain equal benefit. Most of
the £36 billion raised through
increased national insurance for the
next three years is earmarked for
easing NHS backlogs due to Covid-19
(“NHS recovery plan slipping after
rise in Covid patients”, Apr 6).
What the government still fails to
realise is that unless it invests more of
this money quickly into social care,
the sector looking after our most
vulnerable will collapse. The two are
so interdependent that if social care
goes, the NHS care will go with it.
Mike Padgham
Chairman, Independent Care Group;
York

Delays to the arrival of Ukrainian refugees

Sir, I read of the Home Office’s

surprise that only 500 of the 4,700

refugees issued with visas via the

sponsorship scheme have travelled to

the UK (“Minister admits

embarrassment over visa delays”, Apr

7). This is utterly disingenuous as it

ignores the fact that, of the families

travelling together, it is likely that at

least one member does not hold an

international passport. These groups

are trapped in a limbo of waiting

three weeks for small children and

grandparents to get an appointment

at a VAC centre to prove their

biometrics, followed by at least

another fortnight wait for the visas to

be issued. Should they be left behind?

A further circle of hell is added by

the option to call the visa helpline

which is “open 24/7” but when called

states that it is only available Monday

to Friday 8am to 8pm. Yet again, I’m

embarrassed and ashamed by the

ineptitude of the Home Office.

Carolyn Drury-Burroughs

Woking, Surrey

Sir, Our sponsored refugee, Valeriia,

fled from Dnipro on March 17 with

her friend Margarita. They submitted

UK visa applications together the

next day, the first day of the

Airport queues

Sir, James Morgan makes

extraordinary assertions about airport

and border security (letter, Apr 7).

Like him, I have also worked in this

area. I can see no reason to have long

queues if control points are properly

staffed, queues managed, and if the

technology is performing properly.

Slower speeds do not materially

enhance safety or security. Properly

resourced and utilised systems do.

Stephen Knight

Barnet, Herts

Sir, When I passed through security

at Manchester airport last month on a

busy Friday evening, every other bag

failed the scanning check and

required manual examination by the

scarce staff resources. If it was

announced generally that these bags

could be subject to lengthy delay or

alternatively that there would be a fee

for the additional inspection then I

am sure packing standards would

improve dramatically and lead to a

significant improvement in passenger

throughput.

David Gibson

Dalston, Carlisle

from the times april 8, 1922

LONDON -

PARIS AIR

DISASTER

Plastics recycling

Sir, In response to the letter signed by

13 MPs and peers objecting to

chemical recycling (Apr 5), I wish to

correct a few misunderstandings

about this technology. Converting

plastic waste to fuel is not considered

“chemical recycling” by industry; it

must be converted back into material

intended for virgin plastics production,

so it is not a “form of incineration”.

Chemical recycling moves more

plastic up the waste hierarchy, away

from landfill and incineration,

providing alternative feedstocks for

future polymer production. It is

absolutely right for it to be considered

a legitimate form of recycling within

the forthcoming plastics tax.

Philip Law

Director general, British Plastics

Federation

thetimes.co.uk/archive

Safer buildings

Sir, Further to your leading article

(“Safety First”, Apr 7), Michael Gove

and Lord Greenhalgh are indeed to

be congratulated on persuading five

of the country’s biggest developers to

bear the cost of remediating the

defects in the homes they have built.

That work should start at once, so

leaseholders can live in safe buildings

with the ability to sell if they want to.

But we are left with the problem of

the so-called orphaned buildings,

where no one will assume such

responsibility. The government

should apply the same commitment

to come up with a solution for these,

and also accept amendments to the

bill passed in the Lords extending

protection to buildings under 11m;

absolving leaseholders from having to

pay towards remediation costs for

which they bear no responsibility; and

ensuring that leaseholders who have

been enfranchised are given the same

protection as those who have not.

Lord Young of Cookham

House of Lords

Letters to The Times must be exclusive

and may be edited. Please include a full

address and daytime telephone number.

A terrible aeroplane collision

occurred this afternoon at Thieulloy

St Antoine, near Grandvilliers. Two

aeroplanes of the London-Paris

passenger service, an English

machine belonging to the newly

started Daimler Line and a French

Goliath, came into collision owing to

fog, and six out of the seven people

on board were killed. The English

machine, which was carrying copies

of The Times and other newspapers

to Paris, had no passengers on board.

Only the pilot, named Duke, and a

boy steward were in the aeroplane.

The French machine carried three

passengers, M Bouriez and Mr and

Mrs Jules Bruce, of New York,

besides the pilot and a mechanic. All

were killed except the boy steward,

and he is not expected to live. The

Daimler machine left Croydon for

Paris at 10.09 this morning, and the

Goliath left Le Bourget for London

at 12.06. Owing to mist they were

flying low, at a height of about 600ft,

and suddenly each pilot saw the

other’s machine rushing towards

him. They made desperate efforts to

avoid one another, but it was too

late, and over the market-square of

the village of Thieuloy, before the

eyes of the horrified villagers who

had been drawn out of doors by the

noise of the low-flying planes, the

two machines crashed into one

another. For some moments the

planes seemed to be locked together

and rolled, clamped to one another,

in the centre of bursting flames.

Then a wing of the rudder dropped

from the Daimler, and the doomed,

burning machines scattered apart.

The Daimler crashed in a meadow

just outside the village; the Goliath,

with its wings intact, swooped on a

little farther before it plunged to

earth. The villagers rushed to do

what they could for those on board,

but all except the boy steward were

dead. A doctor had the boy taken to

the village school-house, but there

seemed no hope of his recovery. His

name was Hesterman. The pilot was

Mr R E Duke. He flew last summer

for the Royal Dutch Air Service

between London and Amsterdam,

and was only recently engaged by

the Daimler Airways. He was well

known outside air circles as a

composer of music, telling friends

that the exhilaration of flying gave

him ideas for his compositions. He

was a lieutenant in the RAF and had

a distinguished war record.

Channel 4 suitors

Sir, David Aaronovitch’s piece

(“Putin’s big lie makes most Russians

complicit”, Apr 7) highlights the

political consequences when the

media is controlled. Maybe Nadine

Dorries’s determination to sell off

Channel 4 is grounded in her fury at

its antipathy to Brexit, and maybe she

is hoping to sell it to a right-wing

buyer. But what if a foreign purchaser

wants it? A Russian already owns The

Independent and the Evening Standard.

Maybe a Chinese buyer could tempt

her with a huge price.

We should defend Channel 4’s

independence at all costs.

May Woods

London SW6

Sheeran on repeat

Sir, I’m not convinced by Ed Sheeran’s

assessment that the growth of Spotify

will lead to more cases of copyright

infringement (News, Apr 7). Thirty

years ago I oversaw the successful

defence in a New York court of a claim

brought by a part-time composer

alleging that Andrew Lloyd Webber

had copied eight successive notes

from a religious composition when

writing the lead song for The Phantom

of the Opera. While we took the case

seriously, we felt it was another case

of “Where there’s a hit, there’s a writ”.

Keith Turner

Bury St Edmunds

Sir, I have just completed four

applications for a Ukrainian mother,

grandmother and two children to

come to the UK from Poland. If they

cannot arrive by the end of this

month they will be homeless.

I am not a slow worker. It took me

five days to organise a flashmob

orchestra of 200 to play for Ukraine

in Trafalgar Square on March 6, but it

has taken me twice that time to

complete these forms. They are badly

designed, convoluted and generally

obfuscatory, full of needless recaps

and summaries, and completely

impenetrable to anyone without a

sparkling command of English.

The father of the family is fighting

on the front line in eastern Ukraine

and sends a text every two days to

confirm that he is still alive. We have

had to ask him numerous questions,

to photograph his documents, to give

us detailed personal information and

to find paper and pencil to write a

statement allowing his children to be

taken to London. I lived in Cuba for

many years. Its cruel and needless

bureaucracy has been spectacularly

and shamefully overtaken by the

Home Office.

Juliet Barclay

London SE15