Times letters: Putin’s crimes tarnish our view of Russia

Sir, I was at the Fabergé exhibition at the V&A last night, looking at a tiara that I realised had once belonged to a great aunt. Taken up with reading the label, I hadn’t noticed the couple behind me, who were speaking Russian; to my shame my reaction was similar to that of Matthew Parris when he overtook two women last week in London. A month ago I wouldn’t have thought twice about Russian speakers, let alone felt hostile.
Jenny Nicholson
London SW4

Sir, Matthew Parris was slightly unfair to Fawlty Towers. The episode in question made fun of Basil Fawlty’s absurd and antiquated attitudes, and the German guests themselves were represented as sympathetic, sensible and somewhat bemused. In 2001 RTL produced a pilot for a German version of Fawlty Towers entitled Das Hotel Zum Letzten Kliff (The Hotel on the Last Cliff). John Cleese was a consultant and was complimentary about it. It featured Igor, a Ukrainian, as Manuel, the waiter from Barcelona. The director acknowledged that “The Germans” was the one episode that could not be replicated. Sadly the full series was never broadcast.
Sir Paul Lever
Ambassador to Germany 1997-2003, London SW3

Sir, Sir Tony Brenton (letter, Mar 26) is right to say that the first responsibility of the government is to the interests of the British people but is wrong to insist that helping the Ukrainians should not include “taking a serious risk of thermonuclear war”. As a member of Nato the UK is part of an alliance that is bound to respond to a Russian attack on any of its member states so as to prevent the kind of depredations that Putin is inflicting on Ukraine. There is ample evidence that Putin takes the likely response of the West into account before deciding how far he can push his military interventions. A thermonuclear war is much more likely to be the end result if Nato does not give Russia a clear warning now that there will be a military response to any use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
Michael Patterson
Swineshead, Lincs

DESPERATE NEED TO EXPEDITE VISAS
Sir, A month after the conflict in Ukraine began, millions of mainly women and children have fled violence in desperate search of safety. Yet those who want to come to the UK are having to navigate a complex web of bureaucratic paperwork to get visas, leaving them facing protracted delays without any information about the status of their application.

While it is welcome that our country is offering sanctuary, the visa process is causing great distress to already traumatised Ukrainians and increasing frustration to tens of thousands of Britons who want to welcome them into their homes.

The government must urgently review the use of visas and waive them as an immediate short-term measure, as has been done by the EU, and look to introduce a simplified emergency humanitarian visa process. It also needs to rethink the Nationality and Borders Bill to ensure all refugees fleeing conflict and persecution can be protected in the UK. Now is not the time to put paperwork and bureaucracy before the needs of people who have had their lives shattered by war or to weaken our commitment to protecting refugees.

Enver Solomon, CEO, Refugee Council; Mike Adamson, CEO, British Red Cross; Kirsty McNeil, executive director of policy, Save the Children UK; Danny Sriskandarajah, CEO, Oxfam GB; Laura Kyrke-Smith, UK executive director, International Rescue Committee

HOME-GROWN ENERGY
Sir, In your leading article “Energy Independence” (Mar 26) you rightly urge an impetus to renewable energy but unwisely include nuclear power under this heading. The nuclear option makes no economic or technological sense. Energy costs from wind and solar power fell precipitously over the last decade and are now less than half the cost of new nuclear. History also teaches us that no nuclear power station has ever been built on time and on budget. The notion that we require nuclear power to provide base demand is incorrect as costs of batteries and of other storage and grid management options, including hydrogen production, are also declining rapidly.

Recent Lazard data confirm that the cost advantages of renewables now typically dwarf the costs of managing wind and solar power intermittency. The unresolved issues of nuclear waste management and the need to provide new clean generation within years and not decades using existing, simple, reliable technologies requires that the UK’s abundant onshore and especially offshore resource capable of delivering projects at cost and on time is now our only option.
Professor Leon Freris
Loughborough University; founding member, RenewableUK

CONTINUITY OF CARE
Sir, Patients like being able to consult a GP who knows them and understands their problems, and GPs appreciate this relationship too (letters, Mar 23-26). Sadly, many patients complain of the difficulty in receiving continuity of care. The role of the Royal College of GPs is crucial in this. Dr Andrew Cairns refers to the decision by the NHS to “allow patients to register with a practice rather than with an individual GP”. At that time the college believed that patients would still receive continuity of care from the practice, even though many patients disagreed, and patients have been shown to be correct. It is now time for the college to redress the situation and support the registration of all patients with a named GP.
Dr Patricia Wilkie, FRCGP (Hon)
President, National Association for Patient Participation

Sir, It is a myth that personal GP lists are needed for continuity of care. What is needed is for the patient with a continuing medical problem to have access to the GP of their choice within a practice on a regular and timely basis.
Dick Page
Ret’d GP, Newton Ferrers, Devon

Sir, I am a hospital doctor who shares the frustration of Janice Turner (Notebook, Mar 24) and Carol Midgley (“It takes me 437 redials to reach the GP”, Times2, Mar 23) about GP surgeries that haven’t moved past 2020. We see patients face to face in outpatient clinics and meet relatives on the wards for updates. There is also a “Hospital at Home” initiative in Scotland that provides hospital-equivalent care in a patient’s own home to reduce admission among the elderly and frail. My mother, who is based in North Yorkshire, lives across the road from her GP and has no time for apps. After walking across she was told to go home and to phone in or go online. She now no longer has time for NHS receptionists.
Dr Viveka Biswas
Glasgow

MAKING THE GRADE
Sir, Will Wyatt (letter, Mar 26) refers to Lord Grade of Yarmouth’s “unsuitability” to be chairman of Ofcom because as chairman of ITV he presided over the making of “probably the nastiest show ever to run regularly on British television, The Jeremy Kyle Show”. May I point out that when Martin Bashir was faking “evidence” to secure the 1995 Panorama interview with Princess Diana, the managing director of BBC Television at the time was Will Wyatt.
Ian Monier-Williams
Micheldever Station, Hants

MUSICAL INTERLUDE
Sir, Richard Morrison reports that “if you want your child to learn an instrument you have to pay for lessons in English state schools” (“The UK music industry is worth £5.2 billion — and it’s dying”, Times2, Mar 25). Under this paltry provision many primary school music lessons are a mere 15 minutes’ duration, scarcely enough time for a pupil to warm up, let alone form a relationship with his or her teacher and progress. Morrison argues that a rounded education in English schools is no longer possible due to the focus on narrow “academic” subjects, to the exclusion of music and the arts (not to mention sport). This is not inconsistent with what I and my husband found when researching and visiting state secondaries in recent months: it needs urgent attention.
Sarah McKenna
Barnet

MEMORABLE CHATS
Sir, The word confabulation (a chat or confab) may be dying out in The Times, as Rose Wild observes (Feedback, Mar 26), but it is alive and well in medical literature in its meaning of innocently making up stories to fill gaps in a faulty memory.

With increasing life expectancy, its use will only increase.
Dr John Doherty
Stratford-upon-Avon

CULTURAL HERITAGE OF UKRAINE IN PERIL
Sir, As the shelling of Ukrainian cities continues, we are deeply concerned about the horrific loss of civilian life as well as the increasing damage to art, architecture, archaeology and antiquities. William Morris, the founding spirit of Britain’s conservation movement, valued historic buildings of all kinds, for what they tell us about people — their loss is inextricably linked to suffering and cultural identity in a time of war.

Russia is a signatory of the Unesco 1954 Hague convention to protect historic and cultural heritage during armed conflict. Russian shelling imperils the Unesco world heritage sites of Kyiv, the constructivist and art nouveau legacy of Kharkiv, the Renaissance and Baroque buildings of Lviv, the unique culture and architecture of Odesa and the ecclesiastical buildings of Chernihiv (restored by both Ukrainian and Russian experts after 1945). The continuing conflict threatens places, sites and collections representative of the whole of Ukrainian society, culture and identity, including fragile historic timber buildings and places of worship of all kinds. We urge the Russian government to end this senseless war and avoid any further loss of life or damage to the rich and diverse cultural and built heritage of Ukraine.

Jeremy Musson, trustee, Historic Houses Foundation; John Darlington, executive director, World Monuments Fund Britain; Clem Cecil, trustee, SAVE Europe’s Heritage; Henrietta Billings, director, SAVE Britain’s Heritage; John Sell, former executive vice-president, Europe Nostra; Lizzie Glithero-West, chief executive, Heritage Alliance; Olenka Pevny, associate professor of Slavonic studies, University of Cambridge; Oliver Caroe, Surveyor to the Fabric of St Paul’s Cathedral; David Adshead, director, the Georgian Group; James Bridge, secretary-general and chief executive, Unesco UK; Professor Colin McInnes, chairman, Unesco UK; Dr Charlotte Joy, non-executive director for culture, Unesco UK; Kate Pugh, non-executive director for culture, Unesco UK; Matt Rabagliati, head of policy, research and communications, Unesco UK; Professor Derek Matravers, Open University, editor of Conflict and Cultural Heritage; Catherine Leonard, secretary-general, International National Trusts Organisation; Dame Fiona Reynolds, chair, International National Trusts Organisation; Sara Crofts, chief executive, the Institute of Conservation; Joe O’Donnell, director of the Victorian Society; Matthew Slocombe, director, the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings; Dr John Goodall, architectural editor, Country Life; Dr Olivia Horsfall Turner, senior curator architecture and design, Victoria & Albert Museum; Laura Searson, cultural heritage preservation lead, “Culture in Crisis Programme”, Victoria & Albert Museum