Letters and emails: Salary criticism sells GPs short

Medical expenses
Regarding Baxter’s comment about “state-subsidised training”, my son is in year four of a six-year medicine course. The first four years are unsubsidised; for the final two years the fees should be paid by the NHS, although there will be only a £1,000 annual bursary to cover living expenses. If he were meeting his own costs, his debts on completion of his degree would be about £140,000. I have paid £100,000 so far and he lives very frugally. The starting salary for his first job will be, I think, £21,000 a year.

A very high percentage of young consultants in my speciality of respiratory paediatrics are emigrating, and I am saddened but not surprised.
Name and address withheld

Exit strategy
The “benefits” of GP salaries and the chance to retire and continue as a locum are something no current junior doctor could relate to. Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, states that there is only one remaining point not agreed in the proposed new junior doctor contract; there was just one point I could agree with in the column. Employment abroad looks increasingly welcome: the exodus of trainees demonstrates this.
Dr Kate Hawtin, Consultant Radiologist, University College Hospital, London

Strike diagnosis
The strike had nothing to do with patient safety — that was just spin. Doctors are in powerful unions and councils that set guidance on pay, posts and numbers of university places. There are no professional checks and balances that are not controlled by . . . doctors.
Name and address withheld

Working arrangement
Who supports this strike? No one in my family does. Many professions work hard, are full of stress and don’t get the future rewards junior doctors can expect.
Timothy Bent, Norwich

Test of nerves
The sticking point seems mainly to do with certain doctors refusing to be rostered for weekend work, and the financial demands that go with this. Hunt must keep his nerve. He was willing to negotiate, but junior doctors refused to do so beyond a certain point.
Philip Pughe-Morgan, by email

Wish you were here
Christina Lamb’s report on the generosity and heroism of the people of Lesbos was moving (“I was after squid but heard crying. I saved 14 babies”, News Review, last week), but what it did not mention is that the islanders are now suffering from the near collapse of their main source of income: tourism. Having just returned from Lesbos, I can state it is as beautiful and welcoming as ever. Yes, I saw migrants searching for food — the flamingoes on the Gulf of Kalloni. I saw lifejackets, too — on scarecrows. Lesbos, represented by four admirable individuals, deserves the Nobel prize, but what it really needs is tourism.
Judith Magill, Mold, Flintshire

Unesco far from wasteful
The article “‘Wasteful’ Unesco targeted as Britain makes £180m funding cuts” (World News, April 17) misrepresents the work of our organisation. Unesco is not wasting UK taxpayers’ money; on the contrary, a recent report by the UK National Commission for Unesco says Britain derives a “financial value” from membership. In one year, the return was at least £100m — nearly nine times Britain’s annual £11.5m contribution. Our financial controls are sound and our management is efficient, effective and transparent. Reforms led by the director-general reduced administrative expenses by 28% and cut 450 posts in four years. The UK’s own Multilateral Aid report for 2013 credited Unesco for its measurable improvements. In fact, the external auditor uncovered no problem with Unesco’s accounting of its healthcare liabilities, which were disclosed in routine reporting following international public sector accounting standards. Indeed, auditors have consistently declared the organisation’s books clean.
George C Papagiannis, Unesco Spokesperson

Vote of no confidence for Sugar
Sadiq Khan could not ask for a better recommendation than Lord Sugar’s lament (“Khan has wrecked Labour — don’t let him wreck London”, Comment, last week).

Britain is not about a Jewish boy from east London or a Muslim bus driver’s son from south London. It is about a democracy that should care for all its citizens. We want Britain — London included — to be for all its citizens. In order to achieve that, if we have to vote in someone Sugar doesn’t approve of, or a man wearing ill-fitting suits bought with his own honest money, let the people decide.
Naseem Khawaja, Yateley, Hampshire

That’s rich
What credentials does Sugar have to give voters advice? Everything he has done has been for his own aggrandisement.
Pauline Roffe, Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire

State control
In response to Barack Obama’s support for Britain remaining in the EU, Boris Johnson and other Brexiteers suggest the US would never give up sovereignty as part of a wider union (“I’m here to slay you, Boris”, “Cameron allies ‘scare off’ Brexit donors” and “Britain decides”, News, last week). This misses the fundamental point that in 1776 the 13 independent American states did just that by giving up a measure of sovereignty to form the United States of America, as reflected in its motto, “E pluribus unum”, or “One from many”. The UK did likewise in joining the EU, to the benefit of both parties.
Roy Pedersen, Inverness

Flashman in the pan
I am astonished by Johnson’s attack on Obama. He did not take the US president up on the issues, instead resorting to an ad hominem offensive. I used to think Johnson’s buffoonery was a shield for a man of intelligence. Now I wonder. Are we actually looking at Flashman on a zip wire to nowhere?
Reverend Stephen Gough, Liverpool

Personality clash
Ian Botham may swing it for some; I’m holding out for Ant and Dec’s verdict (“Botham swings bat for Brexit”, News, April 17).
Bob Waugh, Newcastle upon Tyne

Enlightened perspective
Trevor Phillips expressed surprise that many British Muslims do not accept what several prime ministers have called “British values” (“An inconvenient truth”, April 10). If Muslims had accepted the values of 50 years ago they would have agreed that homosexuality was a crime and that illegitimate children should be hidden or adopted. And now presumably they should accept drunken behaviour overstretching A&E departments, obesity, huge numbers of children born out of wedlock at others’ expense and littering. Correct values, roughly speaking, are those of the Enlightenment, which were universal, not national, and mainly anti-religious.
Dr Ardon Lyon, Templecombe, Somerset

Different strokes
The responses to Phillips’s concerns made pessimistic reading (“Muslim home truths”, Letters, April 17). I confess it was a view I shared, but I have changed my mind. Resistance to integration means it may take generations for a desirable outcome, which will mean agreeing to peacefully respect our differences. It is up to all of us to make it work.
Bernard Kingston, Biddenden, Kent

False starter for 10
Your feature “Fingers on buzzers: what next for the highbrow eyebrow?” (News Review, last week) somehow implied that Hannah Woods was the brains of the Peterhouse, Cambridge, team in University Challenge. The answers came mainly from Oscar Powell. While it is understandable for a child to suppose, “There’s a woman — she’s getting the questions right”, it’s a bit unfair for adults to ignore the contribution made by Powell simply because he’s a man.
PM Woods, Hornsea, East Yorkshire

Back of the class
David Cameron is still intent on turning primary schools into mini academies, yet thousands of hours of classroom and parental coaching of six-year-olds to “perform” in spelling and grammar tests are wasted by the blundering of the Standards and Testing Agency (“A very testing reception”, March 20). How
many more times does the lesson of less, not more, political intervention need to be spelt out to the dullards at Westminster? I also wonder how many teachers wished they had followed their consciences and simply taught, rather than joining the “coaching for scoring” bandwagon.
Professor Bill Boyle, former Professor of Education, University of Manchester

Corrosive ideology, hollow vows
Gillian Bowditch captures perfectly what many in Scotland fear as we seem set to re-elect the SNP (“Sturgeon has power to lift cloud of uncertainty”, Comment, last week).

The SNP displays two of the worst possible characteristics for those we might entrust with leading our country. First is its tendency to an absolute, centralised form of government and a reluctance to accept criticism. Second is a core belief in an idealised separate Scotland, seemingly unshaken by the reality of what we would have faced if we had jumped off the cliff with Alex Salmond in 2014. Many have succumbed to the simplistic and corrosive ideology of Scottish nationalism.

All Scots, from the most progressive to the most conservative, should reject such hollow promises.
Keith Howell, West Linton, Scottish Borders

I vote to stay in the EU. Yes I do
In the 2014 independence referendum the “yes” campaign failed to answer key questions. How much will it cost? How long will it take? Will we be in the EU? Will we keep the pound? How much better off will we be? The forthcoming EU referendum is playing out the same way. I believe multinationals such as HSBC, Nissan and Honda are based in the UK because we are in the EU. Withdraw and they withdraw. As for those pantomime characters Johnson, Michael Gove and Nigel Farage? Would you place your trust in stooges Moe, Larry and Curly?
Stewart Millar, Stirling

When in the UK, do as the Americans say
The Atlantic trade agreement already sees American firms in the UK having autonomy over their affairs. This is supported in parliament, is it not?
Tom Cullen, Ardfern, Argyll

Pick and mix on EU Law
The picture shown in “Matadors lock horns in battle of paternity” (News, last week) was shocking. How can people go to this kind of thing for entertainment? Also, pigs are still caged on the continent in spite of it being unlawful since 2013. It makes you wonder how much authority those running the EU have if they cannot even get their own laws put into practice.
Elizabeth FitzGibbon, Elgin, Morayshire

Naked truth
Your picture of Jeremy Clarkson wearing skin-coloured jeans on page 2 (News, last week) and apparently naked from the waist down was truly scary. Please don’t do that to me again. I am an ageing pensioner with anxiety issues.
Gray Pratt, Banchory, Aberdeenshire

Corrections and clarifications
In the “Reality Cheque” feature (Rich List Magazine, last week) we wrongly stated that Alisher Usmanov is Ukrainian. He was born in Uzbekistan. In the details on Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay, ranked No 12, we wrongly stated they own the Channel Island of Sark. The brothers hold the lease on Brecqhou, a tenement of Sark. We apologise for these errors.

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Birthdays
Wes Anderson, film director, 47; Bernard Butler, musician and producer, 46; Steve Cauthen, jockey, 56; Judy Collins, folk singer, 77; Jamie Dornan, actor, 34; Joanna Lumley, actress, 70; Ray Parker Jr, singer, 62; Una Stubbs, actress, 79; Antony Worrall Thompson, TV chef, 65; John Woo, film director, 70

Anniversaries
1707 Great Britain formed by Act of Union between England and Scotland; 1759 Wedgwood pottery company founded; 1820 five Cato Street conspirators hanged; 1840 world’s first adhesive postage stamp, the Penny Black, issued; 1851 Great Exhibition opens; 1994 F1 driver Ayrton Senna killed at Imola