Letters

Walking through treacle Sir: Rory Sutherland suggests that poor productivity can be correlated with the explosion of roles designed to support those ‘who do actual, useful work’ but, in practice, only act as anchors buried in the deepest mud, impeding progress (The Wiki Man, 6 January). Winston Churchill, frustrated at the length of the administrative tail of his armies in the North African campaign compared with the modest proportion of those actually fighting, defined them as ‘useless mouths’. The NHS offers an excellent example of this principle: the number of frontline clinical staff over several decades has increased but has been overwhelmed by those innon-essential posts.

Beyond good and evil Sir: In your Christmas issue, both James Macmillan (Composer’s Notebook) and Israel’s President, Isaac Herzog, in his interview with Andrew Roberts, refer to the ‘war between good and evil’, as if most of us experience life on Earth as a continuous struggle of this kind. But many issues cannot be polarised so simplistically, and our understanding of religion and psychology has moved on. Who is to decide which people are good and which evil? Some fundamentalist Christians regard the Dalai Lama as evil. In international relations, it is surely dangerous to use this kind of language: while the actions of Hamas are undoubtedly evil, I doubt if it is helpful to revive the rhetoric of G.W. Bush and ‘the axis of evil’.

The leasehold scam Sir: In June 2018, Rishi Sunak told me in a Bethnal Green living room that leasehold is ‘a scam’ (‘Flat broke’, 9 December). At party conference, Sunak portrayed himself as a truth-teller who would take on the vested interests who have held back this country for so long. I am therefore baffled why his government’s signature homeownership policy, the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill, is such a modest package after six years of government and Law Commission work that has cost millions and which concluded that leasehold was fundamentally flawed. England and Wales are outliers in the world for persisting with this rip-off system. Ending leasehold is the hegemonic programme the Conservatives so badly need.

Power to the readers Sir: I would suggest that even if the government of the UAE gives a ‘cast-iron’ guarantee not to interfere with The Spectator’s editorial line, this should be taken with a very large pinch of salt (‘The real deal’, 2 December). Why don’t you ask your subscribers to buy the magazine? With nearly 140,000 of them, and 300,000 subscribing to your TV channel, surely we could raise £70 million, enough to satisfy Lloyds Bank? (It’s called ‘crowdfunding’, I believe.) Jo Aldenham London SW10 To the barricades Sir: In its leading article of 2 December, this magazine quotes John Howard’s comments recently about what makes up a functioning democracy, namely the law, parliament and a free press.

No control Sir: Your leading article (‘The welfare monster’, 25 November) has fallen into the increasingly common trap of posthumously attributing to Brexit voters imagined reasons for their voting to leave. No, we didn’t ‘in large part’ do so in a search for a better economic model. We did so to rid ourselves of the Brussels behemoth and regain control of our borders. The economically literate of us knew there would be an economic price, but we believed the break for freedom was worth the (allegedly temporary) drop in living standards. How wrong we were. Our borders are as porous as ever, the Whitehall leviathan squats on us more firmly than Brussels ever did, and now the fiscal reality of an ageing and apparently idle populace condemns us to ignominious economic stagnation.

Culture clash Sir: Rosie Millard doesn’t like the current Arts Council England (ACE) strategy (Arts, 18 November). She quotes the experience of two organisations, ENO and the Fitzwilliam Museum, ‘who did not get their regular grant’ and who have fallen ‘out of favour’. It is often forgotten that no arts company is guaranteed funding beyond the agreed three-year period. All trustees know this and plan for different outcomes. ACE funds a broad range of organisations across the country. A few facts may help reassure that this strand of arts funding is in good hands. DCMS negotiated an increase in funding for ACE in the last round. ACE received a record number of applications last year and funded an equally record figure, almost a thousand, around the country.

The submariners’ parade Sir: My thanks to Matt Ridley for his excellent article on the Cenotaph (Symbol of peace’, 11 November). As a former Cold War submariner, while I was well aware that we paraded a week earlier than the official celebrations, I did not know the reason why. However, we did join the Armistice Day parade in 2001, the centenary of the Submarine Service: 167 submariners and ex-submariners marched to mark the memory of the crews of the 167 boats lost over the 100 years. We each had a badge with the individual name or pennant number of a particular boat. I was proud to have HMS Triumph, lost with all hands on 31 December 1941. She was finally located in June this year.

Ill-judged Sir: Professor Carl Henegan’s authoritative demolition of the Covid Inquiry (‘The Covid whitewash’, 4 November) prompts the question of why judges are normally appointed to chair public inquiries. Lady Hallett has clearly had a distinguished law career, but has no apparent expertise in government, public health, epidemiology, medicine or science. Her first move on being appointed was not to remedy these deficiencies but to spend more than £100 million hiring other lawyers – and the only possible explanation for the inquiry’s behaviour is that they believe they’re in a court of law and having already stated their positive view of lockdown, see themselves as acting for the defence.

Call for common justice Sir: Rod Liddle’s piece on the true desires of Palestinians was rare in its acceptance of the complexity of aspiration (‘What Hamas promised its electorate’, 28 October). People cleave to those who stand for their best hopes. They voted for Hamas. Rod ends saying only Israeli Arabs in his experience did not loathe Jews. Why would they? Presumably being the right side of the ‘peace’ wall, they had no fear of losing their birthright to illegal settlers acting in defiance of UN resolutions with official acquiescence. If the Israeli rule of law could have extended to the occupied West Bank Arabs, then there would be no indefensible double standard. It is clearly a missed opportunity and did not need a ‘two state solution’, just common justice and sense.

End the war Sir: Timothy Garton Ash’s article on Ukraine evokes echoes of the first world war, with interviews of brave soldiers who have lost limbs in Russian minefields (‘Europe’s problem’, 21 October). He acknowledges that Ukraine’s losses have been huge, yet supports bullish calls for the war to continue ‘for years, or even decades’. The big lesson we should take is that Ukraine’s offensive has been a dismal failure. Large quantities of western hardware lie burnt out on Ukraine’s steppes. The Russians are well dug in. They have many more troops than Ukraine, and Vladimir Putin is prepared to sacrifice them if need be.

The least deserving Sir: In your leading article (‘All that glitters’, 14 October) you point out that Keir Starmer avoided mentioning inflation and illegal migration at the Labour conference because the Labour party has historically been weaker than the Conservatives on the two issues. On the first of these issues, the current administration, and indeed the Tory party as a whole, is surely showing itself to be equally devoid of ideas on how to solve it. On the second we were treated at the Tory conference and before to the unedifying spectacle of the Home Secretary using unpleasant and unfeeling language about asylum seekers and migrants, amounting in the minds of many who have supported the Tories in the past almost to hate speech.

Court creep Sir: As a former foreign secretary, Sir Malcolm Rifkind gives eloquent voice to the conventional wisdom that the UK should remain within the ECHR not for our own sake but for the good of others (Letters, 7 October). On this view, membership of the ECHR has always been about foreign policy, not our own constitutional order. This is a reasonable point, save that it does not grapple with the vast difference between the ECHR that the UK joined in 1950 and the law that has been invented by the Strasbourg Court in the meantime. The Court now openly admits that it remakes the Convention, not least by creating out of whole cloth extensive restrictions on states in relation to asylum and migration.

The sanctity of the ECHR Sir: Jonathan Sumption’s criticisms of the European Convention on Human Rights (‘Ruled out’, 30 September) are as lucid and as logical as one would expect from such an admired jurist. He provides a persuasive case as to why the UK could withdraw from the ECHR while preserving all the basic rights that we value and which are enshrined by the Convention.  Uncharacteristically, however, he fails to mention the single most important reason why the UK was at the forefront of the creation of the Convention – and the accompanying court – in 1949.   It was not to ensure that basic human rights were enjoyed in the United Kingdom or in other stable democracies which already enjoyed the rule of law and personal freedom.

Bed and breakfast Sir: Cindy Yu asks, in her ‘Leaving Hong Kong’ piece (23 September): ‘Where are they?’ I can help with that one. I live near Epsom, Surrey, and there has been a huge influx of people from Hong Kong here over the past 18 months. The area is attractive because housing is affordable in south-east terms compared, price-wise, with where they have come from. There are half a dozen very good schools in Epsom, Sutton and Cheam – and the area has very low crime rates. If anybody wants to seek positives from controlled immigration then it is here. The influx of the Hong Kongers (as Yu described them) has undoubtedly stimulated the local economy in terms of house and car sales and given the hospitality industry a big boost.

Whose victory? Sir: Politicians are often accused of engaging in doublespeak, and I fear in the case of Boris Johnson’s article (‘Bombshell’, 16 September) the accusation may be valid. According to our former prime minister we’re to believe two contradictory assertions; firstly that a Russian victory risks an immediate and existential threat not only to Russia’s neighbours but to the broader West. Then secondly, that the victory of the Ukrainian armed forces is as inevitable as night following day. Those two positions cannot both be true – either the outcome of the war is still in the balance, or Ukrainian victory is assured. I fear a degree of romanticism has crept into what I hoped would be a dispassionate analysis from a usually insightful mind.

No compromise Sir: Kate Andrews is quite right to identify ‘short-termism’ as the cause of so many of our national failings (‘Raac and ruin’, 9 September). It is a systemic problem rather than a human one, requiring constitutional reform to put right. Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer and their colleagues are, like the rest of us, far from perfect but they operate within a system which makes long-term thinking and compromise (other than with the extreme wings of their parties) almost impossible. Following the next general election, the victors will celebrate on the steps of No. 10, but it will inevitably end in tears. The British people deserve better.

Sick note Sir: Kate Andrews illuminates how, for us British, the successful diagnosis of a major medical condition is frequently a matter of chance and, even then, usually occurs later than it should (‘Why are the British so anti-doctor?’, 2 September). The near asymptomatic nature of many serious conditions combined with the cultural pressures of stoicism and reluctance to be the bearer of bad news allows many cancers, for example, to run free for years before discovery. In addition, while treatments from the NHS can be brilliant, they vary enormously across the country in terms of accessibility and availability.

Murder mystery Sir: I once made a diagnosis of a very rare condition too late to cure the patient. She was nevertheless grateful and thanked me, though my conceit evaporated when she asked: ‘What took you so long?’ I suspect the managers at the Countess of Chester Hospital must feel as I did (‘Hospital pass’, 26 August). Murder was not on the top of their differential diagnoses. Many senior clinicians who have had leadership roles in NHS hospitals bear the scars of conflicts with management, though perhaps not as deep as those of the Chester paediatricians.  We would nevertheless acknowledge that most managers are dedicated, conscientious professionals committed to the success of their hospitals.

Wild abandon Sir: As upsetting and pointless as is the National Trust’s cancelling of the fishing lease on the River Test at Mottisfont Abbey (Letters, 19 August), it is all of a piece with the way the National Trust is going. On the 13,000-acre Wallington Estate in Northumberland, the Trust has recently spent a small fortune elaborately fencing off 50 acres to release beavers on one of the two farms they have recently taken out of agricultural production. They trumpet their intention to create ‘Wild Wallington’ by abandoning it to nature and planting trees on as much of the estate’s farmland as they can.

Identity politics Sir: Your lead article (‘On board’, 12 August) highlights numerous issues related to refugees, but does not offer much in regard to why this country is a magnet for economic migrants. You state that this is a rich country. How can this be the case when government debt is 100 per cent of GDP? Further, when we cannot provide adequate services in healthcare, education and housing, why should we take in migrants who cannot make an immediate contribution to the country’s tax base? The reasons that this country is so attractive are, firstly, the English language, which we can’t do much about. Secondly, we have an easily accessible benefits system, including healthcare.