Letters

Poor countries need tariffs Contrary to your leading article (‘Full marks to Blair’, 19 November), ActionAid is absolutely correct to challenge Tony Blair’s commitment to forcing free trade in manufactured goods in the WTO ‘Doha round’ of global trade talks. Labour’s general election manifesto promised no forced liberalisation, and the ‘Doha round’ is about development, not just market access. Rather than lead to more jobs and less poverty, our research shows that the current proposals for deep tariff cuts in developing countries could bring massive job losses, bankruptcies and factory closures — a development disaster.

Why children need usIn attacking charities such as the NSPCC, the RSPCA and Cancer Research UK (‘Bullying for charity’, 12 November) Guy Adams also harms the beneficiaries. Both larger and smaller charities have a vital role to play in the voluntary sector. Each has its strengths and they complement one another. It is also wrong to assume that because the NSPCC is a national charity, it is not ‘local’. We have 177 projects across England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands, all with strong links to the local community. Some of these projects work to help children rebuild their lives after abuse, and some work to prevent cruelty in the first place. Campaigning and lobbying are a key part of preventing cruelty.

Nuclear hedge fund Andrew Gilligan (‘A terrifying plan for nuclear strikes’, 29 October) is being unduly alarmist about the future of Britain’s small nuclear deterrent. The development of so-called ‘usable’ nukes does not imply a wish or intention actually to use them, but rather is an essential element of effective deterrence. If you rely simply on the sheer awfulness of nuclear weapons for their deterrent effect (‘existential’ deterrence in the jargon), the person you’re most likely to deter will be yourself. You won’t then deter anybody else, which defeats the whole purpose of a deterrent in the first place.

Power to the locals Leo McKinstry takes a dim view of the new localism (‘Local schmocal’, 22 October), but most of the new intake of Conservative MPs have signed up to the localists’ ‘Direct Democracy’ charter. We have done so because we believe Britain’s centre-right needs a strategic rethink. Why? First, because we recognise the government has failed to improve public services because it has tried to micro-manage them from Whitehall. Second, because we realise that no matter who wins elections, power will still reside with unelected and unaccountable quangos, judges and Eurocrats.

All present and correct The accusation that the Liberal Democrats were somehow absent from Westminster for the opening of this session of Parliament is daft and wrong (Politics, 15 October). Of course we were there — in force. Don Foster was leading the battle on the licensing Bill and Lib Dem frontbenchers handled the Iraq, South Asia earthquake and business statements as usual. The facts are that the Liberal Democrat shadow cabinet was using the weekend before Parliament resumed to have a strategy meeting about how to provide the real opposition to the government while the Conservatives are mired in their leadership debate. We returned to Westminster for the start of business on Monday at 2.30 p.m. The Tories put out a misleading press release suggesting something else.

Appeasing evilIsraeli policy in the occupied territories, says John Denham (‘Israel’s actions affect our security’, 24 September) ‘is not simply a matter of foreign policy, it is a matter for British domestic security policy too’. His logic seems to run as follows: the Palestinians suffer from their conflict with Israel, their plight is heeded by ‘young Muslims [who] very much identify with Palestinians’, some of whom express their dissatisfaction by self-immolation in locations chosen to ensure the maximum death toll among British civilians.

The case for Ken In last week’s issue you conducted a poll on how the public would view the Tory leadership candidates if they were better known, and concluded that ‘without the advantage of recognition, Ken Clarke would no longer be the front-runner’ (‘Clarke’s advantage fades away’). But surely what your poll actually shows is that Ken Clarke is, in fact, the only man for the job. It demonstrates both that Clarke is (leaving aside hypothetical situations) the only candidate people have heard of and how important this recognition factor is. How is it that Labour is in its third consecutive term? The fact is that the lies, broken promises and control freakery are all ignored when the time comes to vote.

Prepare to leave Iraq As one who was against the invasion of Iraq from the start, I feel I must now urge a complete reappraisal of what our forces can realistically be expected to achieve there. Whatever views people may have had on the legitimacy of the various reasons presented to them for going to war, the operation — from the moment the military objectives were achieved — has degenerated into a disaster. Last week there were reports from usually reliable sources in the press that the militias have infiltrated at least half the police and internal security forces in the Shia and Sunni regions, and barely 10 per cent of the Iraqi army is considered loyal to the authority of the central government.

Comments on Why do we tolerate intolerance? by Rod Liddle As Secretary of the Scottish Friends of Israel, www.scottishfriendsofisrael.org, I read Rod Liddle’s article and considered it going some way to explaining some of what gets in the way of the seemingly simple idea of differing shades of humanitarian aid working together for the better good. Yet, among many of the friends which I forwarded the article to many, like me, were a little perplexed at who Mr Liddle was describing as "Zionist cockroaches of Israel". I would very much appreciate a short explanation of that remark from Mr Liddle as to who it was, and wasn't, he was referring to.Stanley Grossman Excellent article and it hit the nail right on the head. This should be published in all the national press.

Pro-God, anti-religion Theo Hobson makes some interesting points in his article about ‘literary atheism’ (‘Writing God off’, 10 September) but his case is fatally flawed by his repeated tendency to assume that ‘religion’, ‘faith’ and ‘belief’ are somehow synonymous. They are not. It is, in fact, perfectly possible to reject religion without rejecting God; one can be anti-religion without being an atheist. In many minds, especially today, ‘religion’ has come to mean the kind of established and organised institutions, be they Christian, Jewish or Muslim, noted more for their intolerance of dissent — or much, much worse — than for anything positive.

RSPCA is off target Simon Heffer was right to warn about the danger to shooting, and Charles Moore was equally right last week (The Spectator’s Notes, 3 September) to point to the real issues that shooters must address. But whatever its position on shooting, it is clear that the RSPCA has already utterly corrupted the public’s understanding of what constitutes real animal welfare. Their aggressive campaign to ban hunting seduced many members of the general public into thinking that fox-hunting is the worst form of animal cruelty imaginable. Many people now assume that they are ethical animal lovers just because they oppose hunting. At the same time they quite cheerfully keep their dogs locked away in tower blocks or buy battery chickens at £2.50 from Tesco.

Strange customs Having suffered similar humiliation and over-zealous inanity at the hands of British immigration, I can only sympathise with James Hughes-Onslow’s friend (‘Hop off, you Aussies’, 27 August). However, I do have to point out that this is neither a new phenomenon following an increased threat level, nor is it specific to Australians. It happened to me in 1996. I was an American citizen, an 18-year resident of Switzerland, who as the child of a former diplomat had lived abroad my whole life, and had been travelling back and forth to Britain since I was a child. I simply wished to visit my British boyfriend for a couple of weeks.