Letters to the Editor

Making it up as they go along
Dominic Lawson highlighted the methods used by some charities to mislead the public in so-called good causes (“Slapped down, but still Friends of the Earth mixes frack and fiction”, Comment, last week). It is telling that, just as the government is considering the case for section 40 to curtail freedom of the press, charities can get away with fabrications.
David Taylor, Bridgwater, Somerset

Guards out of date on 21st-century trains
No modern underground transport system that I know of (New York, Beijing or London) has guards or conductors on board (“Rail strikes threaten to spread nationwide”, News, last week). All carriages have direct speaker links to the driver and I believe they are rarely used — there’s no need.
Stuart McDouall, Chesham, Buckinghamshire

Underground announcement
So how does the Tube, carrying millions of passengers every day, manage without guards? Someone needs to take on these destructive union leaders.
Bruce Bevan, by email

Automated response
The driving of a train can be fully automated; they run on tracks controlled by signals, which can stop and start them.
Ray Whitehouse, Romford, London

Strings attached
I wasn’t surprised to read about the political affiliations of the Association of British Commuters (“Rail users’ group linked to left”, News, last week). I joined recently and became suspicious about who is pulling its strings. It is critical of the Southern rail network and the Department for Transport — justifiably — but adverse comments about the RMT or Aslef union are shouted down.
Richard Miles, London

Uneasy rider
Your article “On your bike: angry travellers abandon trains” (News, last week) clearly sets out commuters’ frustrations and their quest to find alternative transport. What a great pity that the new year’s resolution by the software developer Tony Barker to cycle to work did not include wearing a helmet.
Trevor Hobday, Clitheroe, Lancashire

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT
Has it really taken until now to accept what generations of low-paid, single, childless women have always known — that you can’t be fully adult if you remain in the parental home (“Millenni-hell”, Magazine, last week)? One young man in the report felt inhibited having sex in the house of his girlfriend’s parents. He should think himself lucky. As a young adult on no equal pay I couldn’t even make a fresh pot of tea if my control-freak father deemed some stone-cold brew “good enough”. Now that men and the educated are affected, are we going to see some reform of social housing provision?
Sandra Towers, Wigton, Cumbria

Noises off
Being discreet during intimacy is something parents have been managing for years. This couple’s experience will put them in good stead should they eventually move out and start their own family.
Matthew Billingham, Binningen, Switzerland

DON’T TELL GPS HOW TO TREAT PATIENTS
Having read your report “GPs tell patients: Just one illness per appointment” (News, last week), I believe it is the height of stupidity to adopt such a system, which creates double the work for all. The patient has to return to the surgery, thereby taking up an appointment that could easily have gone to someone else. If it takes 20 minutes to deal with their problems, then so be it. We do more for our patients now and are getting better at doing it — but it all takes time. Often it is impossible to deal satisfactorily with a medical problem in 10 minutes.
Dr Michael Rosen, Liverpool

Time management
Assuming a patient arrives on time and speaks English (which is not always the case), it takes a few minutes to ascertain the facts and a few more to examine them, and then for the remainder of the consultation the options for further investigations or for treatment are discussed. There is occasionally time for a second and possibly a third health issue in the 10 minutes available, as long as patients are straightforward. If anything more than this is squeezed in, patient care is neither safe nor high quality, which would lead to a different sort of headline. The problem is that government cuts have left patients who have lots of health concerns unable to see the doctor for longer or to be given another appointment soon enough.
Dr Amit Patel, Sydney, Australia

Consultation period
Limited resources need to be rationed. If two or more problems have to be addressed in the same consultation, the amount of time and effort the GP will be able to allocate to each is reduced proportionately. Doctors are sensible enough to recognise if problems are interrelated and need to be treated as a whole and can make this decision during the consultation. The issue of waiting a month for each appointment is a separate one; again, a question of resources and the sign of an overstretched service.
Name and address withheld

CURBING PRESS FREEDOM FIRST STEP TOWARDS TYRANNY
I doubt the Rotherham sex abuse scandal would have been exposed if it had not been for the investigations conducted by a completely free press (“You have two days to help save press freedom from ghosts in black shirts”, Comment, last week). Do those who wish to censor newspapers really believe that their right to privacy trumps the rights of those vulnerable teenagers who were so wickedly exploited? I would certainly hope not. I also wonder how many of those MPs supporting regulation were involved in the expenses scandal. If the imposition of the media regulator Impress, funded by Max Mosley for just four years and thereafter by the already overburdened taxpayer, should go ahead, then this free country of which we are all so proud will have descended to the level of dictatorships such as China, Iran, Turkey and Zimbabwe, to name but a few.
Lieutenant-Commander (retired) Sam Collins, Gosport

Justice for all
Sarah Baxter seems unaware that the principle of section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act was conceived by Sir Brian Leveson, a very eminent judge, and passed into law by the House of Commons with a majority of 530 to 13 in 2013. Anyone who thinks this has anything to do with fascism or my father probably needs counselling. Section 40 will provide access to justice for anyone who is forced to sue a big newspaper but cannot afford to risk £1m or more in court costs. That is fair, just and manifestly necessary.
Max Mosley, London SW3

Censorship for the masses
Having worked for some months in a Middle Eastern country where the news is what the ruling class see fit to release to the plebs, I would tolerate all the high jinks of British press rather than be told what “they” want us to know. Beware.
John Darnell, by email

Points

Honouring Jill Saward
It is pointed out that the Ealing vicarage rape victim Jill Saward did not receive any honour for all the good she had done (“Jill Saward let herself be named so her rapists would be shamed”, Comment, and “Saward in sex-case clash with Cliff”, News, last week). Even in death she gave her organs away. This is why our honours system is discredited and the public has no confidence in it.
Dr Raj Menon, Leeds

Will of the people
You suggest lowering corporation tax and deregulating the economy to prepare for Brexit (“Mrs May needs an optimistic vision for Brexit”, Editorial, last week). This should not be done without a mandate being sought through a general election. Now that it is clear Britain must leave the EU, Theresa May would be wise to seek the public’s endorsement first.
Gabriel Osborne, Bristol

Right on queue
At the shops I use, the queuing system at discount supermarkets is no worse than elsewhere (“Aldi and Lidl ‘lose battle for Christmas’”, News, last week). And I don’t know why people complain about “getting your own bag”, as plastic bags are available at the till.
John Richards, Oxford

By the book
Over the years, I have looked into the bookshop in Hawes in the Yorkshire Dales on many occasions and have always found the staff to be both helpful and civil (“Blame Yorkshire’s wuthering winter, says wife of UK’s ‘rudest bookseller’”, News, last week). Just like any other shop, in fact, and no mention of a 50p cover charge for browsing either.
Martin Birtle, Billingham, Co Durham

Ask the teachers
There is clearly something wrong with Scottish education, but Keir Bloomer’s attack on the schools quango does little to identify the cause (“Bloomer pins the blame on schools quango”, News, last week). He says that the problems arising from the Curriculum for Excellence “are due to implementation”. Does this mean lack of clarity or resources, or what? A successful educational system depends on a good curriculum and good teachers. The important voice missing is that of the teachers. What does the EIS union think?
John Carder, Anstruther, Fife

Lesson in equality
Gillian Bowditch is to be congratulated on examining the well-intentioned but badly thought-out proposals for closing the equality gap (“To help poorer kids into university, take a leaf out of tiger mothers’ book”, Comment, last week). The proposals at a stroke manage to devalue the importance of school-based achievement and disadvantage one group to benefit another. Surely the best way to widen access would be for tertiary institutions to create courses genuinely available to all?
Ian Martin, Glasgow

Contribution funds
Did Constance Fozzard (“Private medicine needs to give NHS a bigger cash injection”, Letters, last week) realise what a revolution she was kick-starting with the proposal that private companies should pay a levy towards the education of their staff? Surely every employer, then, who requires a literate workforce should contribute extra towards the school system, let alone those who call for higher education qualifications helping to fund universities and colleges?
Bill Boyd, Edinburgh

Loser pays
Nicola Sturgeon had her referendum, paid by taxpayers, and it went against her (“A bad Brexit could be game-changer for independence, believes Curtice”, News, last week). If she wants a second one she and the Scottish nationalists should fund it, not the public purse.
Edward Baker, by email

Park life
Parkruns are behind much of the increased participation in running by women (“Women’s dash makes running our No 1 sport”, News, last week). They take place at no cost in a safe and friendly environment. Women who would have been unlikely to run are now seen every Saturday in parks throughout the UK.
John Lewis, Perth

Population overload
Don’t Neil Oliver and Chris Packham think that the main cause behind loss of wildlife habitation is that there are simply too many people on this small planet of ours? (“Christmas comedown leaves me chewing over meaty issue”, Comment, and “Defiant Packham to make more ‘eco warrior’ TV”, News; last week.)
David Fleetwood, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland

Corrections and clarifications
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Birthdays
Dame Margaret Beckett, Labour MP, 74; Frank Bough, TV presenter, 84; Edith Bowman, broadcaster, 43; Princess Michael of Kent, 72; James Nesbitt, actor, 52; Mary Pierce, tennis player, 42; Skrillex, DJ, 29; Andrew Tyrie, Tory MP, 60; Pete Waterman, record producer, 70; Claudia Winkleman, broadcaster and columnist, 45

Anniversaries
1559 Elizabeth I crowned; 1622 playwright Molière born; 1759 British Museum opens; 1893 composer Ivor Novello born; 1929 Martin Luther King born; 1973 President Richard Nixon orders halt to US bombing of North Vietnam; 1982 Mark Thatcher found after six days lost in Sahara during Paris-Dakar rally; 2001 Wikipedia launches