Letters and emails: March 8

Animated debate on tuition fee loans

REGARDING “Labour’s tuition fees bribe will give us second class universities” (Camilla Cavendish, last week), I am shortly starting a BA degree in animation at Gloucestershire University. I will be 71 when I do so. A pleasant surprise is that I will be eligible for a student fees loan for the £9,000 a year. I’m not sure if I should feel guilty about this, as the chances of me paying it back are remote — I shall be 74 when I qualify.
Mark Wilkins, via email

GAINING ACCESS

Cavendish is right to highlight the significant progress in improving access to higher education. Indeed since 2011 we’ve also seen a 40% increase in disadvantaged students entering those universities with the highest entrance requirements. On the sector objectives that draw her wrath, we developed these in direct response to sector consultation on our new strategic plan. Universities and colleges said they wanted us to be more specific about our goals — so we have been. These aren’t targets for individual institutions but a way for us to set out the level of progress we want to see over the next five years.
Professor Les Ebdon, Director of Fair Access to Higher Education, Office for Fair Access

SNOB VALUE

Well, at least Rod Liddle got halfway down the second column of “Jihadi John: made in Britain by naive white liberal halfwits” (Comment, last week) before his jibe at the — horror! — “third-rate polytechnic” Mohammed Emwazi attended. Snobs such as Liddle talk a good game about giving the “peasants” a chance of higher education but sneer when something is actually done about it.
Professor Chris Barton, Former Polytechnic Lecturer, Stoke-on-Trent

Jehovah’s Witness abuse has many guises

THE Jehovah’s Witnesses have a policy of shunning all those who do not agree with their teachings; I have not been able to speak to my parents for seven years (“Jehovah church faces flood of sex abuse cases”, News, last week). This is not in any way meant to take away from the seriousness of the reported criminality, but just to say the culture of abuse is not limited to that of a sexual nature.
Bo Vestergaard, Luton

OUTSIDER STATUS

I too was abused by a Jehovah’s Witness, who is in jail for what he did to me. Bizarrely, while he is still acceptable to the group, I am not and am shunned by my own mother.
Nick French, Cumbernauld, Lanarkshire

HELP AT HAND

In the past four years in the UK we have seen at least 27 Jehovah’s Witness abuse convictions, and many are awaiting the outcome of this latest case you reported on. I speak as the grandmother of two girls who were abused by their Jehovah’s Witness father.

I run a secret Facebook support group for survivors, and am also a member of the UK’s AWAA (Advocates for Awareness of Watchtower Abuses) support team. We need people to know about these cases and the help available to save other children and families from going through what we suffered as a family.
M Marshall, Bridlington, East Yorkshire

UNCHRISTIAN MESSAGE

It is worrying that a company such as Marks & Spencer has taken it upon itself to censor messages online customers can send with a bouquet (“Jesus banned from M&S flowers”, News, last week). One is tempted to say “God forbid” — but maybe that is not allowed.
Gloria Edwards, Cockermouth, Cumbria

Grey squirrel cull is a black and white issue

WHAT is all the fuss about killing squirrels (“Squirrel cull lets reds branch out”, News, last week)? We already inflict suffering and death on billions of farm animals. Dairy cows and egg-laying hens also feel pain and even they end their days being slaughtered.
Emily Stevens, Brighton

PEST CONTROL

Researchers from Sheffield University found that the mere presence of grey squirrels was enough to reduce visits to garden bird feeders by 98%. Overwinter feeding of birds in gardens can make the difference between life and death for many. Continued receipt of state-funded support to the royal parks, councils and agencies such as the National Trust should be made contingent upon their implementing active squirrel control measures on their land.
Keith Cowieson, Director, SongBird Survival

UNNATURAL SELECTION

Greys have been here long enough now to be called “native”. When we interfere with any species, we inevitably cause other problems.
Valerie Russell, Tonbridge, Kent

Computer greyhounds could stop suffering of real dogs

GREYHOUND racing is run for the benefit of the bookmakers, the shareholders and the Treasury
(“40,000 racing greyhounds hurt”, News, February 22). The cruelty and corruption that are the result of self-regulation still exist and it’s time for virtual reality to replace uncontrolled breeding of thousands of dogs for the gambling fraternity.
Annette Crosbie, London SW20

Sturgeon mustn’t take the nuclear option

IS NICOLA STURGEON not getting a wee bit too big for her boots? (“The SNP is already sending shivers down Westminster spines”, Comment, last week). She postulates removing Trident ( or its replacement ) without regard to the fact that it defends all of Britain and, in case she has forgotten, we recently voted to stay as part of Britain despite her protestations about Trident, etc, at the time. She therefore does not have a mandate, even from the Scots, to alter British national policy. Her attitude threatens the safety of all Britons, especially given Vladimir Putin’s stance. How is this a progressive or fair policy?

Gerald Edwards, Glasgow

SNP Won’t take no for an answer

Sturgeon and the SNP seem to belong to the Humpty Dumpty school of thought — acting as if words mean what they want them to mean. This applies particularly to democracy. Want to separate from the UK? They say it’s democratic to do it with a simple majority only. Pull out of the EU? They say it’s democratic only if each constituent country agrees.

The majority of Scots — 55% of those voting, and all but three constituencies — voted against independence. The SNP thinks it’s democratic to push it through by other means, maintaining the “no” voters “can be persuaded”. The party also claims to represent the will of the Scottish people — and the media and other parties seem to be falling for this — when the only wishes tested objectively have been on independence, which was rejected decisively. Or maybe it isn’t trying to redefine democracy, just ignore it.

Cynthia Shuken, Edinburgh

No trust in NHS complaints service

YET another NHS scandal of poor care, this time at University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust (“Hospital damned over baby deaths”, News, last week). My experience is that the problem begins with the so-called Pals system (Patient Advice and Liaison Service). If a complaint rates an investigation, it is conducted by an officer employed by the trust that has been criticised. Small wonder the scandals continue.
Anthony Beck, London SW6

WELL MANAGED

Reader Bernadette Collins says NHS managers “would not survive in other organisations” (“Correct diagnosis of NHS management ills”, Letters, last week). As someone who has been a manager in the NHS, I suggest they would. Few organisations are as complex and require administrators to have the political skills to deal with such strong professional groupings (and egos), plus multimillion-pound budgets.
Rhianon Pearson, Swansea

Gainfully underemployed MPs

I have always been puzzled as to why MPs should consider linking their salaries to those of GPs and head teachers (“Can you live on £67,000?”, Focus, last week). Your article provided a solution. Worthy professions such as solicitors, vets, architects, accountants and teachers earn on average between £37,000 and £42,000, whereas GPs and head teachers make closer to £100,000. Since MPs have time for a second job, dare I suggest that they are actually overpaid.
Jim Stather, Lowestoft, Suffolk

EXPERIENCE COUNTS

I would be in support of a ban on second jobs for MPs were it not for the fact that quite a number of them are still in need of work experience.
Keith Hunter, Ilkley, West Yorkshire

OUT OF POCKET

Dominic Lawson is wrong to assert that “it has not been possible to buy a seat in [the House of Commons] since the abolition of ‘pocket boroughs’ in 1832’’ (“The best House of Lords that money can buy”, Comment, last week). The Reform Act of that year only disfranchised some “rotten boroughs”; constituencies with small electorates remained vulnerable to bribery — and coercion — by landlords. The practice was only stopped by the Ballot Act of 1872, which introduced secret voting.
Mike Thomas, London SW1

PEER REVIEW

In referring to the costs and expenses as £130,000 per peer, Lawson is somewhat disingenuous. The majority of these are fixed costs, including maintenance of the building, payment to the Metropolitan police for security and expenditure on house staff. The actual figure for personal expenses and allowances of peers last year was approximately £28,000 per peer, which equates to about 75p for each taxpayer annually — or less than half the price of a cup of coffee at a cafe. For that, the government gets nearly 800 “consultants” of unrivalled expertise to scrutinise and revise legislation for the public benefit.
Professor the Lord Trees of the Ross, House of Lords

TAXING QUESTION

Alex Wild, research director of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, calculated that households with the lowest 10% income spent 13.9% of their gross income on VAT (“Brass tacks”, Letters, last week). By my calculation this means they spend 83.4% of their income on VAT-rated items plus 7.2% on council tax. Can this be right? A total spend of 90.6% of income would not leave much for food (zero-rated) and the alcohol and tobacco on which they are said to spend 5.6%. Or is this a case of lies, damned lies and statistics?
Philip Piddington, Harefield, London

GRATEFUL DREAD

Camilla Cavendish in her Comment piece and Tanya Gold in the Speakeasy column (“A tall, handsome, future PM saved me once from brain fade — damn him”, last week) both express themselves to be “pathetically grateful”. Surely independent-minded 21st-century female columnists should announce themselves to be robustly and forcefully — even fiercely — grateful.
Antony Edmonds, Waterlooville, Hampshire

HANGING ON THE ANGLOPHONE

GILLIAN BOWDITCH says “many pupils are struggling with English, let alone French” (“Jean Brodie knew that education needs good teachers, not policies”, Comment, last week). This is not restricted to primary education. One of the pluses of the influx of young eastern European workers is the delight in hearing very good English, especially in a customer-facing role. I remember hearing one such employee in a restaurant just off the A9 in Perthshire taking the time to engage in conversation with an elderly gentleman who was waiting for his daughter. Her English was flawless. I now hear that, in some schools, primary pupils, who may be struggling with English, are being taught the Scots language. How confusing for them and how annoying for us of the older generation who claim, at last, to have mastered English.

Alex Murray, Strathspey, Moray

FLIGHT OF FANTASY

Having lived and worked on the Farne Islands for more than 35 years I could not agree more with Lynn Barber that they are “heaven” (“The Farne Islands”, Magazine, last week). However, the chances of seeing “penguins . . . flying” would be little short of miraculous — these birds cannot fly and are a southern hemisphere species. Pay a visit anyway; they’re brilliant.
John Walton, Seahouses, Northumberland

LIGHTS, CAMERA, DETRACTION

Asking Camilla Long to review The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is like asking my grandmother to review The Lego Movie (“Second worst”, Culture, last week).
Prue Moore, Eastbourne

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Birthdays

Cheryl Baker, singer, 61; Gyles Brandreth, writer and broadcaster, 67; Phil Edmonds, cricketer, 64; Lord Grade, TV executive, 72; Lord Hurd, former foreign secretary, 85; Dick Hyman, jazz pianist, 88; Gary Numan, singer, 57; Joanna Read, theatre director, 47; Lord Sacks, former chief rabbi, 67; David Wilkie, swimmer, 61

Anniversaries

1859 birth of Kenneth Grahame, author; 1917 February Revolution — so called because of the old-style calendar then in use — begins in Russia; 1921 Eduardo Dato, Spanish prime minister, shot dead by anarchists; 2014 Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 vanishes with 239 people on board en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing