Letters: Is there any policy that the Labour Party is prepared to stand by?
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SIR – Labour has scrapped its £28 billion green investment plan (report, telegraph.co.uk, February 8).
Another U-turn! What, exactly, are this party’s policies?
J L Greenwood
London SW18
SIR – It will be fascinating to compare the pledges that Sir Keir Starmer makes at the next election with those he made during the Labour leadership election in 2020.
It appears there will be no “green new deal”, no higher tax rates for top earners and no scrapping of tuition fees. I wonder if Sir Keir will thank his “friend” Jeremy Corbyn, as he did in 2020.
Richard Allison
Edinburgh
SIR – I despair of the Labour Party, which lacks the vision and purpose to defend its green energy plan. Abandoning the pledge is a backward step. Revitalising the green economy would have put Britain in a strong position.
Instead, Labour constantly looks over its shoulder, terrified of any voter backlash. British politics are being stifled by this absence of courage.
Trevor Rigg
Edinburgh
SIR – Allister Heath (Comment, February 8) describes the “monstrous deception” of the campaign for electric vehicles.
If you are an urbanite making short journeys, these cars make sense. But if you live in the countryside and want to go somewhere, you need to know that you will be able to get there and back. In my case, for instance, a journey to see an elderly relative takes three-and-a-half hours – on a good run – without having to stop to charge a battery.
I am yet to read anything that persuades me to buy an electric vehicle, and remain put off by the problems above – along with the expensive cost of buying one in the first place, and the lack of suitable infrastructure.
Jonathan Williams
Sleaford, Lincolnshire
SIR – I cannot praise my electric vehicle highly enough.
I have had it for just over a year and have driven more than 15,000 miles in that time. During the summer I paid about £70 a month for both gas and electricity, which included the cost of charging the car at home. In December and January my energy bills rose to £250, again including the car. I do, however, have solar panels, which have helped to keep the cost down.
On the rare occasions I have had to top up at a public charging point, I have been amazed at the speed of the process. There is no way I would return to driving a car with an internal combustion engine, given the pleasure and savings I get from running my electric one.
John Fretwell
Doncaster, South Yorkshire
Dental service gaps
SIR – The current dental contract (Letters, February 8) means that NHS dental services are centrally commissioned. Before it came in, contract dentists could commission services themselves. This meant that successful practices could grow and, in areas short of services, young dentists could set up their own practices and wait for patients to come. The system was flexible. I was able to buy a one-dentist practice and grow it to four dentists, plus a full-time hygienist.
The top-down contract stifles this flexible model. A £20,000 golden hello for dentists who move to “dental deserts” (report, February 7) won’t solve the access problem.
John Cottingham
Healing, Lincolnshire
SIR – As a primary school pupil in the 1950s, I remember dentists coming to school to assess children’s teeth. What happened to this service?
Michael Fielding
Winchester, Hampshire
SIR – Peter Rosie (Letters, February 7) recommends a return to the “fee-per-item” model of dentistry that was in place when I was young. I have doubts.
I and most of my contemporaries had all our back molars filled routinely, even when there was no need. I have suffered the results of this vandalism ever since, with deteriorated amalgam fillings. It is also worth noting that my son, and most of his friends, have no fillings at all, and my dental hygiene has always been excellent. I haven’t “needed” a new filling since this model was abandoned.
Alison Levinson
Hastings, East Sussex
Banks and charities
SIR – I was interested in the letters (February 7 and 8) about Barclays bank requesting information from charities.
When I was a group’s secretary, Barclays obtained my address from our Charity Commission record and sent a list of questions, including whether I owned or rented my house, how long I had lived there and where I was born.
I refused to answer these questions unless the bank could explain why it needed this information when I had no involvement in the group’s financial affairs. Needless to say, no explanation was provided.
Rachel Keegan
Ashford, Middlesex
SIR – When visiting a small town in northern France recently, I noticed that five banks were available to its population of just over 2,000 people. Another small town a few miles away also had at least four branches.
How have the French managed to retain their banking services in small communities, while those in the UK have become fewer and less accessible?
Patricia Jagger
Elstow, Bedfordshire
SIR – Poor service seems to have spread to National Savings and Investments. It has taken three weeks to transfer money between my accounts. My building society takes nanoseconds.
Lesley Ott
Settle, North Yorkshire
A long way from home
SIR – Reading about “migrating” milk bottles and fish boxes (Letters, February 7) reminded me of a family holiday in Scotland in the 1990s. We arrived by train at Mallaig, on the west coast, to be greeted on the platform by a luggage trolley bearing the message: “Not to be removed from King’s Cross” – a journey of more than 550 miles, which involved at least two changes.
Max Ingram
Emneth, Norfolk
‘Racist’ countryside
SIR – The assertions reported in your article, “British countryside is a ‘racist and colonial’ white space, wildlife charities claim” (February 8), are both absurd and unreasonable. Absurd, because there have obviously been no colonies inside Britain since ancient times, when much of it was a Roman colony. Unreasonable, because it is the choice of the great majority of non-white Britons to live in our cities rather than our countryside. As a result, 96 per cent of our rural population remains white.
Furthermore, what is wrong with our green spaces being “governed by white British cultural values”? These are not racist but tolerant and reasonable, which is why so many people want to come and live in Britain. The idea of rural racism and colonialism is total baloney, and it is a sickening dereliction for those running rural charities to suggest otherwise.
What your article demonstrates is that too many charities are being run by the wrong people. They have apparently been poisoned by misguided, Left-wing thinking and a strange middle-class self-loathing, which drives them to condemn the very nation that has nurtured them. Their entire focus should be on working to fulfil the actual purpose of their organisations.
Gregory Shenkman
London SW7
Mystery soup
SIR – I am a creature of habit, with limited culinary tastes, and always have soup as my starter.
In my extensive experience, I have never met a waiter who knows what the soup of the day is (Letters, February 8).
When I ask, my inquiry is usually followed by a scowl – plus a shrug if I am in France – as the irritated waiter disappears into the kitchen to find out.
Whatever the answer happens to be, the brutal truth is that it is soupe des restes d’hier − anything left over from the previous day.
Nicholas Young
London W13
SIR – While in France, my wife ordered a mojito cocktail.
When it arrived it didn’t taste quite right, and the waitress was called over. She produced a straw and asked if she could taste it.
After about half a minute of deliberation, she offered her verdict: “Madame, the cocktail is not the problem. You are.”
Craig Heeley
Badminton, Gloucestershire
The greatest prize of a winter’s pruning
SIR – For those who don’t have wisteria (Letters, February 8), but whose thoughts are turning to the winter pruning of fruit trees, and the cutting back of holly and hazel before the sap rises, I suggest looking out for next year’s walking sticks and staffs.
Matured for a year, these boughs are easily carved or “dressed”, then straightened and smoothed with sandpaper, with sculptures of birds and mammals at the top. Later, in warmer weather, they can be painted with watercolours and varnished, then used for clearing nettles, propping up the doddery or leaning on at country fairs.
A good stick can easily take 5 per cent of an adult’s weight on a two-mile walk. This is no mean feat and offers welcome relief for old knees. As a hobby, carving such sticks is lots of fun, and can provide delightfully utilitarian presents for young and old alike.
Dr Andrew Harding
Haywards Heath, West Sussex
Post Office culprits mustn’t slip off the hook
SIR – I agree with Charles Simon (Letters, February 8) – there is a danger that Sir Ed Davey and other senior figures could escape punishment for the Post Office scandal.
The BBC recently reported that in 2014 the Post Office sacked a firm of forensic accountants that had found bugs in the Horizon system. The findings were allegedly then covered up by a committee that included the Post Office chairman and chief executive, and senior civil servants. These officials must be brought to account.
Tim Oldfield
Wye, Kent
SIR – I was horrified to read that the compensation offered to Alan Bates and others has been, in Mr Bates’s words, “cruel” and “derisory”.
It took a television programme to prompt action, and now each and every claim must be settled properly as a matter of urgency.
J M Chamberlain
Brancaster, Norfolk
SIR – The Government should not just be talking about “compensation” for the sub-postmasters. What they are owed is a refund of the money stolen from them by the Post Office – plus interest. They should then receive an additional sum as compensation for their disgraceful treatment.
Penny Cole
Watlington, Oxfordshire
SIR – If sub-postmasters are liable for their legal expenses to put right the biggest miscarriage of justice in British history, please tell me that at least they will not have to pay tax on their compensation.
Ginger Irby
London SE23
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