Sir, Further to your report (“Britain spends billions on flawed fighter jets”, News, July 17), in the mid-1990s we were working on a collaborative programme, known as the Future Offensive Air System (FOAS), with the French. Despite the fact that this would have retained fighter design and development capability in the UK for more than half a century, it was ruled out as too expensive alongside the cheaper Joint Strike Fighter, now the F-35.
While we are certainly key partners with the United States on the F-35, our involvement is far less than it might have been with a European project, similar to Tornado and Typhoon, both of which provided quality jobs on assembly lines in the UK. Instead, largely as a result of external factors outside our control, what started as a £50 million per aircraft acquisition has led to costs escalating, not to mention the irrecoverable loss of a much-envied component of the British aerospace industrial base. Is there a lesson to be learnt here?
Sir Christopher Coville
(Air Marshal Rtd)
Sir, The problems facing the new F-35 fighter mirror those facing the new Ajax armoured fighting vehicle — a lack of a cohesive communications network. The combination of lack of budget, delays in the introduction of networking technology and the lack of tri-service integrated communications means that the ability of our armed forces to communicate seamlessly across the battlefield is years away.
One solution would be a privately financed solution for industry to build the network and rent it by the hour to the MoD in the manner of the Skynet 5 satellite system.
Julian Nettlefold
Editor, Battlespace
Sir, The real scandal of the new aircraft carriers is the decision to have a ski ramp instead of a catapult. This restricts the choice of aircraft to the most expensive and second-best option of the F-35 series and to second-best options for airborne early warning and electronic countermeasure (ECM). It also denies the possibility of operating aircraft of any other ally except the US Marine Corps. If development of the F-35B continues to disappoint, might not the aircraft carrier, HMS The Prince of Wales be refitted with a catapult, and an existing aircraft, such as the F-18, be procured?
Colonel Michael Woodcock
Cullompton, Devon
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Sir, Before the RAF ordered 138 complex F-35 aircraft, including at least 48 of the B variant, at a cost of about $21 billion, the basic airframe price of the effective and world-proven F-15 fighter had dropped to a mere $12 million. Granted, the F-15 does not take off or land in a short space or vertically, as does the F-35, so it would have needed a catapult launch. However, the launch system for our new carriers was omitted to save money, thus committing them to the expensive F-35, but had it been included, a saving could still have been made, and other conventional aircraft could have also operated from the carriers.
Malcolm Parkin
Kinnesswood, Kinross
Sir, Your report reminded me of an air show I attended last year. The F-35 was being demonstrated in the air. The American commentator told us that the aircraft was the most advanced in the world and could carry out manoeuvres that no other plane could do, which would be demonstrated. There was a pause. “There is a slight technical problem” he said. “ We will not be able to show you that right now.”
Anthony Saunders
Horsell, Surrey
BRITISH BEEF
Sir, Timothy Lang’s article (“Buying British can’t save beef from a sustainability crisis”, Thunderer, July 17) highlights concerns over land use for beef production and the need for us to grow more horticulture. But this is not just a land issue; it is also about water. Producing 1kg of beef takes about 15,000 litres of water. This comes mostly from rainfall on pastures and cereals.
In contrast, horticulture requires irrigation to meet the high-quality standards that supermarkets demand. Increasing production will mean taking more water from our rivers and underground supplies, many of which are already in danger of over-abstraction.
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If we want more horticultural production then Michael Gove will need to make sure that water resources are an integral part of a future agricultural strategy. Increasing storage is the most important way to improve our water security.
Melvyn Kay
Executive secretary, UK Irrigation Association
Sir, Timothy Lang claims that beef production in the UK is “seriously distorting land use” by the intensive feeding of cereals and that we should grow “low carbon fruit and vegetables” on this land. However, beef animal diets are based almost exclusively on grass and conserved grass in the form of silage and hay.
Grassland forms an essential part of crop rotations or it is permanent; it is unsuitable for alternative cropping, particularly fruit and vegetables. Less than 5 per cent of UK cereals are used to feed beef animals.
UK beef production is sustainable; animals spend most of their time grazing pastures. It uses resources and land that are not transferable to other production and makes a contribution to environment, wildlife and habitat. These are all benefits that British consumers can encourage by continuing to buy British beef.
Richard Harvey
Oakham, Rutland
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FUNERAL SECURITY
Sir, Further to Lord Bew’s assessment that intimidation “had taken politics to tipping point” (“Social media giants tackled on MPs’ abuse”, News, July 17), I would like to place alongside that report the funeral this month at Chichester Cathedral of the Right Rev Geoffrey Rowell, the late Bishop of Gibraltar in Europe.
At this 900-year-old place of worship, leaders of the established church and 2,000 others were greeted on arrival by five armed policemen. For many in the Christian community, we have already reached a “tipping point”.
The Ven Arthur Siddall
(Former Archdeacon of Europe)
BREATHING UNAIDED
Sir, It is misleading to describe withdrawal of mechanical ventilation from Charlie Gard as a procedure “to end Charlie’s life” (letter, July 17), thereby making it sound like an act
of euthanasia.
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The ability to breathe spontaneously for oneself is fundamental to anything that could be called “natural” life. Ventilation is only required for a person who, through illness or injury, does not have this ability — put crudely, were it not for the machine they would be dead already.
The life that is artificially sustained by the ventilator may be richly rewarding, the prolonging of an agony or anything in between. It is this immensely difficult decision in Charlie’s case that is being decided in the courts.
But when or if it is decided to withdraw Charlie’s ventilation, it will not be the lack of a machine that causes his death, but the nervous system damage that deprives him of the capacity to breathe for himself that is essential to any self-sustaining living organism on earth. Euthanasia, on the other hand, is the giving of a lethal drug to someone who has not lost that self-sustaining ability and would otherwise continue to live. That is indeed a procedure to end life.
Dr Nigel Sykes FRCP
Beckenham, Bromley
POLICE TRAINING
Sir, Nazir Afzal is correct about the abilities of the police service (“We need a police force that is fit for purpose”, July 17). Training that used to be comprehensive in knowledge, understanding, skills, attitudes and behaviour has been undermined since the review by Field-Smith in 2003.
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Police constables used to attend immersive training for more than 15 weeks and be tutored over two years at a district training centre and in theatre. This training, which I was involved in as a trainer and team leader, was exhaustive in all aspects of the law. Now supervisors are not trained in management and leadership, and the service has little or no diversity in the strategic ranks.
We do not need 40 police forces based on county boundaries. Seven regional forces with devolved Basic Command Unit management supporting intelligence-led, neighbourhood policing would be more efficient and would be supported by national police for national threats.
Tod O’Brien
York
ARCTIC SKILLS
Sir, You report that the government is to end the training of Royal Marines in Norway (News, July 14, and letter, July 15).
As members of the House of Commons defence committee, we visited the training in February and were impressed. Cold-weather training is a vital British contribution to Nato and to deterrence. The retreat of the Arctic ice makes military confrontation in the High North, Arctic and North Atlantic a risk. There is increased Russian military activity in the north — they have two divisions near Murmansk undertaking training in Arctic warfare.
The committee hopes to publish a report in the autumn, and we must not prejudge what it will say. However, cutting training would leave Britain less prepared, our allies confused and our military weakened.
James Gray, MP, chairman, defence sub-committee on the Arctic; Madeleine Moon, MP, committee member
NOISES OFF
Sir, The difficulty of finding quiet places is growing in a society that does not appreciate our need for tranquillity (“Turn off, tune out and treasure the silence”, Comment, July 17). Unwanted noise is an
under-recognised health problem, for it can raise blood pressure and depress the immune system. Noise is annoying in libraries; it is intolerable in hospitals where patients may be powerless to escape television or piped music. That is why we continue to press for government action to make hospitals and similar places quiet zones.
Nigel Rodgers
National secretary, Pipedown
SEAT OF POWER
Sir, The bus company that served the village in Somerset where I was brought up left no doubt as to who should be able to sit down for the ride into town (“Age trumps youth for a seat on bus”, News, July 17). A notice said: “The half fare paid in respect of children does not entitle them to a seat when adults are standing.” The London buses should follow suit, especially as children travel free.
Prue Raper
London SW18
BEETHOVEN’S GIFT
Sir, The links between Beethoven and London music were strong and, in what some might take as an allegory, the British commissioned and paid Beethoven for the Ninth Symphony and, with it, Ode to Joy (Proms 1 and 2 review, July 17).
In 1824, in response to a commission for £50, the manuscript score was sent to London bearing on its front page, in Beethoven’s hand, the dedication “written for the Philharmonic Society in London”.
Two years later, when the Society learnt that Beethoven was ill and in need of money, it sent him £100 “to be applied to his comforts and necessities”. The money reached him a few days before he died, but time enough for him to express his appreciation. Schindler, his amanuensis, reported that “the Society had comforted his last days, and . . . on the brink of the grave he thanked the Society and the whole English nation for the great gift”.
Thomas Sharpe
Hurstbourne Tarrant, Hants
Letters to the Editor should be sent to letters@thetimes.co.uk