Letters: The public disconnect from military life puts the Armed Forces in crisis
SIR – No amount of political posturing can disguise the fact that our Armed Forces have a major recruitment crisis (report, January 28).
There is nothing novel about the recruitment problem, or special to this country: it is why so many nations in both the past and present have resorted to conscription. The preferred British way to resolve the issue, however, has been the centuries-old tradition of a trained citizenry. Today organisations like the National Rifle Association, and events like the King’s Prize at Bisley, are ghosts of their former selves because their objectives have been countered by political decisions that have sought to segregate the military from civilian life, and sporting skill and interest.
If we are serious about the need to maintain a credible Armed Forces in the future, we must bridge that divide.
Richard Munday
Much Hadham, Hertfordshire
SIR – Recent articles on the crisis in our military and the reduction in regular service strengths have ignored a key factor, namely the reduction in the number of Reserve Forces locations.
While working for Lloyds Bank in the early 1980s, I joined the Territorial Army (TA) and found myself enjoying soldiering more than banking. I took a regular commission and served a decade in the Army. I was not alone in making that transition from the TA to the regulars and the TA also received many ex-regulars who retained their usefulness on the reserve list.
At the height of the Cold War, there were multiple TA “drill halls”, with units based in every reasonably sized town in Shropshire. Now, there is only one reserve forces centre, in Shrewsbury, meaning that the effort of travel within a rural county puts possible recruits off. More generally, there is no military presence in other towns in order to spark initial interest.
The reduction in reserve forces locations has contributed to the decline in regular Forces recruitment and post-regular service retention. These centres served as a vital gateway, introducing young people to military life. If new investment were available, expanding reserve forces locations might be a useful development.
John O’Brien
Condover, Shropshire
SIR – Highlighting the Royal Navy’s lack of ability to conduct missile attacks on land targets (report, January 28) is correct.
The then defence secretary Geoff Hoon blocked my attempt as First Sea Lord to have the capability in the Type 45s, which had been designed with spaces for such a weapons fit. Thus the land attack capability of the Navy is vested in the submarine force and – more pertinently for operations in the Red Sea – our carrier aircraft.
Why has the RAF starved the carrier force of the aircraft required to enable a carrier to be deployed?
Admiral Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
London SW1
Women in prison
SIR – The authorities at Bronzefield Prison in Surrey are giving pregnant women personal alarms in order to call for help. In a recently built jail it is surprising that this should be necessary.
Sadly this is this just one of the recent reports that have emerged regarding the women’s prison estate. Another even more troubling story is that assaults in women’s jails have gone up three times in a decade, with more violence than in male establishments.
The truth is that very few women actually need to be in jail. Most female inmates have not committed any violent offence. Often they are there because of an unhappy past that has led them into trouble. They need support rather than incarceration.
Andrew McLuskey
Ashford, Middlesex
Young and homeless
SIR – I should like to address a question that must be confronted before the election: that is, the inability of all the main parties to address the problems facing young people.
My generation is very well provided for in terms of pensions and benefits. But for the young, their inability to buy a home of their own makes it difficult for them ever to establish a family. Even students trying to find rental accommodation are priced out of the market. Is it right that people who come here from abroad should have priority over them when it comes to social housing? I know one young man who has a good job but it pays £18,000 a year, which means it is unaffordable for him to rent and impossible for him to pay for transport from outside London. He is in fact homeless and lives in a tent but manages to wash and change his clothes wherever he can.
We are importing labour from abroad but we seem to be unwilling to do what is necessary to make affordable housing accessible to young people living here.
My (wartime) generation had it relatively easy in terms of housing; it is tragic that the young cannot hope to have what we took for granted.
Lady Nott
London SW3
A long way to the bank
SIR – The Post Office had already vanished when the two banks on Ascot High Street closed their doors a couple of years ago. Barclays helpfully informed us the closest alternative bank branch was now Bracknell, a train ride or car journey away.
On Saturday, with a masterful flourish of doublespeak, Barclays informed us: “We’re changing how we support you with your banking.”
They’re closing the Bracknell branch.
Trelawney ffrench
Ascot, Berkshire
Sightless shaving
SIR – Like Tim Pope (Letters, January 27), I shave with my eyes shut.
The reason? Years ago I was with a friend who was blind and he showed me how he managed to shave entirely by touch. I was living in lodgings at the time with no convenient mirror to shave by, so I gratefully started using the technique he showed me. I’ve been shaving by touch ever since.
Clive Harding
Newcastle upon Tyne
SIR – Though I do not shave with my eyes shut, I dispensed with a mirror some time ago, and use feel alone. This saves a middle-aged man the trauma of viewing his own reflection before breakfast.
Neil Sewell-Rutter
Oxford
After Nottingham
SIR – Will “lessons be learnt” from the shocking killings in Nottingham by Valdo Calocane, a mentally disturbed man (Letters, January 26)?
In the accounts of his contacts with mental-health services, the circumstances sound familiar: he was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, frequently declined to engage with mental-health professionals, was thought to use cannabis, and regularly refused to take his prescribed medication. Most crucially, he had a record of aggressive behaviour.
It is about time the public was protected from such individuals, by a system that ensures either that – at the very least – they take their medication every single day, or that they are confined to a mental hospital and not left at large in the community.
Michael Staples
Seaford, East Sussex
SIR – Those who are bereaved and traumatised by heinous crimes must be allowed to express their views on the circumstances leading to such acts (“‘Nottingham attacker wasn’t schizophrenic as he stabbed my sister to death’”, report, January 27).
However, most of those who suffer from serious mental-health problems are not dishevelled; they do their utmost to conceal their hallucinations and delusions from others; and, when commanded by voices, will carry out their instructions with careful planning. At its most extreme, mental illness can overwhelm pre-existing personality and personal values, judgment and capacity.
This is what I have learnt from working for 40 years in the field of mental health and caring for a close relative with serious mental-health challenges which have put him at grave risk.
Jeremy Walker
London WC1
Parrots at play
SIR – We once had a group of parrots (Letters, January 27) at a bird rescue centre where I worked, keeping them in the main block while they waited for their premises to be built.
They learnt everyone’s phone ringtones, and would intersperse these with people’s names, which they would call out in the voices of members of staff. It’s very weird hearing your own chuckle floating along on the breeze.
It was even more weird, during evening visits to check on the birds, to hear a little voice saying: “Let me out…”
Sally Goulden
Ashford, Middlesex
The welcome vogue for mismatched earrings
SIR – How satisfying to read that counterparts of lost earrings, kept safely for years, can now make their comeback – with the Queen’s approval, it seems (“The dos and don’ts of mismatched earrings”, Features, January 24).
Margaret Reed
Trowbridge, Wiltshire
SIR – Visiting Edinburgh in 2011, after studying the line “Leave symmetry to the cemetery” in the Holyrood poem, I decided to get an extra piercing in my left ear as a 60th birthday “statement”. It was far less painful than a tattoo and gave me the opportunity to experiment with mismatched earrings. It caused consternation among family and friends at the time. Now it seems everyone of note is copying me.
Mary Ross
Warrington, Cheshire
Tory leaders have betrayed party members
SIR – Sir Simon Clarke MP writes (Commentary, January 24): “If we change the leader to a prime minister who shares the instincts of the majority and is willing to lead the country in the right direction, we will recover strongly in 2024.”
He also asks: “Where is the radical supply-side programme to jolt our economy out of the low-growth rut we and much of the West are clearly trapped in?”
May I remind him that the Conservative Party membership gave him just such a leader on September 6 2022? Just 50 days later she was forced by her colleagues to resign.
The membership is not deserting the Conservative Party; the parliamentary party has deserted the membership.
Andrew Perrins
Measham, Leicestershire
SIR – Dale Fletcher (Letters, January 26) suggests that Penny Mordaunt may be the one to “unite both party and voters” against Labour. The last thing the Tories need is yet another futile attempt to unite their present disparate group of MPs.
There are far too many whose natural home would be with the Liberal Democrats or the Greens, or even in Brussels. Voters will soon sort that out. The Tories’ future selection process should be far more rigorous and not aim for a broad church. The trouble with a broad church is that it doesn’t stand for anything.
M A St Clair-George
Rye, East Sussex
SIR – Penny Mordaunt may well be an excellent choice for the next Conservative leader. The only problem is that The Daily Telegraph recently published a list of Tories at risk of losing their seats at the next general election, with Ms Mordaunt among the likely casualties.
Gordon Moser
Barkingside, Essex
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