30 Thursday April 28 2022 | the times
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the Editor should be sent to
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1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GFhave hoped that Mr Rees-Mogg would
see fit to follow a similar practice and
leave a personal signed note. Perhaps,
following the modern practice of
delivery drivers, he might also take a
picture of himself leaving the note.
That would cover the date and time.
He might have to omit the addressee’s
name, though, as in these days of hot-
desking one does not know who ought
to be sitting where.
Anthony Prosser
Kingham, OxonSir, Jacob Rees-Mogg wants civil
servants to return to their offices
full-time. Given that his own principal
place of work is the Commons, I
would be interested to know the
number of hours a week that he
spends sitting in the House, the hours
a week he spends in his
parliamentary office, and the hours a
week he spends in his private office.
Mont Goldman
Ret’d civil servant, London SE7Sir, The debate about working from
home and productivity seems rather
academic when we are unable to
speak to any human being at many
companies providing essential
services. The country as a wholeMusk and Twitter
Sir, Further to your report “No 10’s
warning to Musk over harmful
content on Twitter” (Apr 27), there is
a simple answer to all the agonising
and complaints concerning Elon
Musk’s acquisition of Twitter: if you
do not like it then do not use it. NoComing up roses
Sir, David Morris-Marsham (letter,
Apr 27) has got it the wrong way
round: heather grows best in acid soil
and roses love alkaline soil, which is
why his are flourishing. You don’t see
much heather growing in London.
Cessa Moore
Herefordwould be more productive if we
wasted less time listening to inane and
insincere messages and firms staffed
up to meet their customers’ needs.
Hugh Cooper
London SW4Sir, Citing the example of Steve Jobs,
Daniel Finkelstein argues in favour of
a return to the office. I suggest that
both working from home and Zoom
meetings may be more efficient than
office working but are less effective.
Robert Court
Hope Valley, DerbyshireSir, To enable people to work from
home, appropriate IT systems are
needed. Most employees need at least
a corporate laptop, a reasonable
broadband connection and a range of
software applications to allow them to
communicate and collaborate.
Without them, employees at home
really are on garden leave. Most
corporate employers provide them
but I wonder how widespread they
are in the public sector. Rather than
calling civil servants back into the
office the government should provide
“work from anywhere” infrastructure.
Bill Hutchison
Freshford, SomersetAudit reform plea
Sir, Darren Jones MP is right that the
government can no longer afford to
ignore audit reform and that there
must be an Audit Reform Bill in the
Queen’s Speech (“Don’t ignore audit
reform, minister told”, Apr 27). It is
more than four years since Carillion
collapsed, more than three years since
Sir John Kingman’s review of the
Financial Reporting Council, more
than two years since the review by Sir
Donald Brydon into the quality and
effectiveness of audit, and more than a
year since the audit white paper. The
time for dithering is over: the
government must bring forward
legislation, which should include
putting the audit regulator on a
statutory footing with the legal powers
it needs to do its job properly. Audit
reform is vital for our economic
resilience and security. With Britain
facing economic uncertainty the lack
of reform is creating a perfect storm of
financial challenges. Further delay
risks tarnishing our reputation for good
corporate governance, undermining
our professional services industry.
John Wood
Chief executive, Chartered Institute
of Internal AuditorsSpadge of honour
Sir, In his enjoyable Nature Notes
column (Apr 27) Jonathan Tulloch
refers to a house sparrow as a
“spuggie” that raised the spirits of
passengers waiting for a train to
Redcar. As a child in Great Crosby,
then in Lancashire, I knew house
sparrows as “spadges”. I wonder if
there are any other regional names
for these delightful little birds.
Philip Roberts
West Lulworth, DorsetFurious bout
Sir, Like Simon Roxborough (letter,
Apr 27) I regard Rocky Marciano as
the greatest heavyweight boxer. It is
interesting to conjecture what his
fight plan might be if he, at 5ft 10in
and 178lb, were to be matched against
Tyson Fury, at 6ft 9in and 270lb.
David Simons
Bakewell, DerbyshireSpecks appeal
Sir, Hugh Pennington (letter, Apr 26)
echoes the position of the pathologist
Cecil Payne at the Jessop Hospital for
Women in Sheffield in the 1960s. As
the hospital’s superintendent I
suggested it was high time that the
laboratories of Dr Payne (noted for
his work on puerperal sepsis), located
in the dreary Victorian part of the
building, be cleaned and redecorated.
He adamantly refused, commenting:
“I know where the bugs are — disturb
them and we’ll be lost!”
Chris Vellenoweth
Heswall, WirralCorrections and
clarifications
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Feedback, The Times, 1 London Bridge
Street, London SE1 9GF
Football ‘needs
better regulation’
Sir, Professional football clubs fail
because they gamble more than they
can afford so that they can play in the
most lucrative levels of competition
(“Own Goal”, leading article, Apr 26;
letters, Apr 27). They are often doing
this in breach of league rules because
there is no real-time scrutiny of their
finances. This leaves clubs that have
been playing in the football league for
more than a century stripped of their
assets and massively in debt, while
former owners walk away and the
community tries to pick up the pieces.
Sporting integrity requires clubs to
compete fairly, on and off the pitch.
Football communities need clubs to
be run sustainably and with respect
for their traditions. The existing
football authorities have been unable
to address these problems, which is
why we need an independent
regulator with the power to enforce
financial rules, require owners to
demonstrate proof of funds, conduct
meaningful integrity checks on club
directors and make sure fans are
properly consulted.
Damian Collins MP
Chairman of the digital, culture,
media and sport committee 2017-19
Sir, The call for an independent
regulator in the Crouch fan-led review
is fully justified. The FA has failed to
govern and regulate the game and to
control the Premier League, which
through its financial muscle dictates
how our national game is run. The FA
had the chance after the 2005 review
by Lord Burns to reform but it failed.
The Crouch review has
unprecedented political support so the
government should stop “kicking the
can down the road” and include
legislation in the Queen’s Speech.
Richard Caborn
Sports minister 2001-07; Sheffield
Rees-Mogg’s home truths about civil service
Sir, Daniel Finkelstein’s analysis of
home working (“Sometimes even
Rees-Mogg gets things right”, Apr 27)
omits an important point: the
responsibility to support the tens of
thousands of small businesses such as
cafés, restaurants and shops that rely
on business customers for their
survival. Unlike the civil service, those
who work in these places have no
safety net to call on while the country
debates the merits of returning to the
workplace. The result will be the loss
of yet more small independent
businesses and the further march of
the large national and global chains.
Huw Marks
Kingston upon Thames, SurreySir, The notes left in the name of Jacob
Rees-Mogg on civil servants’ empty
desks seem rather impersonal. They
were printed, addressed to nobody and
were unsigned. Leaving such notes,
although rare, is hardly a new practice.
When I was a civil servant I recall one
manager who liked to visit me a
couple of minutes after the beginning
of my contractual hours. If I was not
there he would leave a manuscript
note about the matter he wished to
discuss, signed, dated and timed. I
learnt to cycle a little faster. I shouldSir, 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 the Marshall 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 (“Russia threatens strikes
against western targets”, Apr 27).
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 2000-04Attacking Russia
one is obliged to do so. Other, similar
services are available; if they are
better then use them instead.
Richard Collins
Prestbury, CheshireSir, Now that Elon Musk has taken
control of Twitter, I sincerely hope
that the first change he makes is to
ensure that everyone who uses the
platform is made to use their real
name. If he gets rid of all the silly and
stupid pseudonyms, people will
perhaps think twice before tweeting
vicious abuse and the platform will
become more friendly.
Richard Madin
Buxton, Derbyshirefrom the times april 28, 1922IRISH TERROR.
ANGRY DAIL
DISPUTE
Covid loan cash
Sir, Taking on a team of 1,200 staff to
track down the billions of pounds lost
to the Covid business support scheme
may well be wasting more money
than it saves (“Pandemic Plunder”,
leading article, Apr 27). There was no
due diligence, it took ten minutes to
apply and the money arrived days
later. Surely looking at those banks
that administered the scheme for the
repayment of the money would be
more effective, as presumably they
were paid to make the loans.
I also wonder now how many of
those people who have not paid these
loans back are now paying the
interest due after the first year.
Sue Thompson
Aldeburgh, Suffolkthetimes.co.uk/archiveChristmas passport
Sir, In the spirit of expecting better, I
would say that Anne Hulse (letter,
Apr 27) got a reasonable service from
the Passport Office. My online
application was made on December- Imagine my surprise when I saw
someone walk up the drive on Boxing
Day and post something through the
letter box: my new dark-blue passport.
I still do not entirely understand who
delivered it and why they did so on a
bank holiday. A case of above and
beyond the call of duty? I am grateful.
Sue Rooke
Guildford
Post apocalypse
Sir, The great unanswered question
posed by the Post Office scandal
(Thunderer, Apr 26) must surely be:
didn’t anyone at the top realise how
unlikely it would be for more than
700 sub-postmasters across Britain to
team up to carry out such a fraud?
Such an audacious plot would have
required joined-up thinking on a
national scale. Clearly, when it came
to dealing with the problem there was
no such joined-up thinking on a
managerial level, although a desire
for self-preservation is clearly evident.
Stephen Dowson
Sheffield
Letters to The Times must be exclusiveLate on Wednesday night armed
men visited Dunmanway, West Cork.
Much rifle and revolver firing in the
town followed, and later it was
discovered that three prominent
citizens, Mr Francis Fitzmaurice,
solicitor, Mr W D Gray, chemist, and
Mr James Buttimer, a retired draper,
had been shot dead in their homes.
There were lively scenes in the
Dail today, when the Presidential
statement made yesterday by Mr
Griffith came up for discussion. Mr
de Valera, in the course of his
criticism, declared that there was,
properly speaking, no such thing as aGovernment at the present moment,
but only a body of men entrusted by
the Dail with certain executive
functions. Every member of the Dail
was a member of the Government of
Ireland and had a duty to perform.
Every time the Provisional
Government acted as a Government
it was a usurpation of the rights of
their Assembly. Mr Griffith’s reply at
once brought matters to a crisis.
After ascribing the responsibility for
the disorders in the country to those
men who, having been defeated in
the Dail, had gone out and employed
the weapons of intimidation, he
declared that when he went to
London to negotiate Mr de Valera
admitted to him the impossibility
that a Republican Constitution could
be brought back and he went on to
suggest that Mr de Valera had in fact
asked him to get him out of the
straight jacket of a Republic. Mr de
Valera angrily protested, and when
an opponent of the Treaty rose on apoint of order Mr Griffith stood his
ground and declared, “I am not
going to be intimidated by any
gunman here.” Mr de Valera
protested excitedly against an Irish
soldier being called a gunman, but
interruptions followed frequently.
When Mr Griffith asked how many
speeches Mr de Valera was going to
make Mr de Valera retorted, “One
for every lie you tell.” Mr Griffith
went on to combat Mr de Valera’s
complaint that he did not know
what was being done in London, and
declared that a courier with a full
report crossed every night to
Ireland, and he quoted Mr de Valera
as having told him before he left that
there might have to be scapegoats.
Both he and Mr Collins, he said, had
expressed their readiness to be made
scapegoats so long as the Irish
people got what they wanted.