Letters: Remote working is demoralising the young and will stifle independence

SIR – I believe that permanent remote working could have adverse effects on young people just starting out in their careers.

The decision to keep offices shut is usually made by company directors, who can work from their studies in big houses with outside space, and who have family members for company.

Our daughter moved to London two years ago to start a job. She lives on her own in one room (all that she could afford to rent in the capital), so working from home means working from her bed, where she props her laptop up on her knees. She misses her colleagues and the social interaction of office life. After four months of this, she is desperate to return to some sort of normal working life, but her employer’s guidance remains that the office in central London has reopened only for essential workers and, even then, only if they can reach it without using public transport.

Remote working is damaging our city-centre economies and our mental health (especially that of the younger generation). If it continues, young people will no longer move around the country for jobs, but will stay where they were brought up and be denied the opportunity to explore and build an independent life in another part of the country or abroad.

I hope that employers will take into account the situation of their younger employees when they make decisions about the reopening of work spaces.

Katharine Nell
Chester

SIR – I read that economic recovery depends on the extent to which workers can be enticed back to the office. I wonder whether companies may consider salary adjustments to reflect working in the aftermath of Covid-19.

It may be prudent to have basic reimbursement for working at home, with extra allowances for working at clients’ premises.

Peter Vickers
Ash Vale, Surrey

SIR – The pandemic has taken a heavy toll on many people’s mental well-being. Not only have anxiety levels risen across the population, but most of us have had support networks and activities wrenched away with little warning.

As the Government relaxes social-distancing rules to boost the economy, the time is ripe to review the rule that forbids socialising outdoors in a group of more than six people from different households. For example, it could permit organised group walks of 15 to 20 individuals – this would give many people an enormous boost.

A good walk strengthens bones, lowers blood pressure, improves our thinking and makes us feel better. For those of us who might get coronavirus, it is now clear that if we keep ourselves fit we will be better able to fight the illness.

A healthy lifestyle is all about balance, and finding this is particularly important now.

Dr Nick Summerton
Brough, East Yorkshire

Capable carriers

SIR – In a “serious war” (Letters, July 15) I would rather be on one of the Royal Navy’s new aircraft carriers (well protected and mobile) than a poorly defended RAF airfield.

The RAF talks down the role of aircraft carriers because it doesn’t like the Navy operating fixed-wing aircraft, and would rather have the money (and the glory) itself. But the fact is, these ships are terrific assets for our country. The RAF’s ineffectual Black Buck bomber raids in the Falklands War and lacklustre response during the 2011 Libyan conflict demonstrated the limitations of shore-based aircraft.

The F-35B aircraft being acquired for the UK carriers (and their Crowsnest early warning helicopters) will provide world-leading capability. The only issue with these aircraft is the paltry numbers of them in service, and the snail’s pace at which they are being acquired.

Squadron Leader James A Cowan (Letters, July 17) underestimates the huge cost and other through-life burdens of fitting aircraft-launch catapults to the new carriers. He cites the French carrier Charles de Gaulle as an example of what should have been done, but this ship suffered endless delays in entering service on account of the decision to proceed with old-style steam catapults. Recent American experience with new Ford-class carriers also highlights the cost penalties and teething problems of fitting more modern electromagnetic launch catapults.

To remain credible in future conflicts, it is highly desirable that the UK starts fitting land-attack cruise missiles to some of its surface ships. Such cruise missiles are a key to allowing aircraft carriers to enter areas protected by anti-access/area-denial weapons of the type now being fielded by China.

The strikes on Syria from the Mediterranean in April 2018 demonstrated the limitations of relying on submarine-launched cruise missiles in limited conflicts, where it is undesirable for a submarine to reveal its location by launching missiles. This year’s UK defence review should give serious consideration to this issue.

Dr Mark Campbell-Roddis
Chartered Naval Architect
Dunblane, Perthshire

Buying from Britain

SIR – William Loneskie (Letters, July 17) suggests that, having left the European Union, British police forces might start buying British vehicles. Unfortunately, buying British has never been a major factor for either government or industry.

In the Seventies, Michael Edwardes, then the chief executive of British Leyland, propounded to me the idea that the British government should only give tax breaks for company-car fleets if they bought them from his company. When I asked if he bought electrical components from Germany, he said that he did, as it was his company’s right to source the cheapest products. Nothing much changes.

John Ralph
Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire

Garden hospitality

SIR – Recently we have taken great joy in asking people (six at most) to enjoy the delights of our garden. It has given them the chance to meet like-minded people and discuss topical subjects and their worries. I think perhaps more people could do this, especially after hearing some say that it was the first time they had ventured forth, having been too frightened and unsure to do so before.

Lucy Hopkins
Arundel, West Sussex

Lethal wind turbines

SIR – I am appalled that the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets has given the go-ahead for a £6 million subsea cable to Shetland, which will allow the 103-turbine Viking Wind Farm project to proceed.

The Shetland landscape will be trashed for ever. The island’s importance to bird life can hardly be overstated. Who could forget the sight of a white-throated needletail being felled by a turbine in front of horrified bird watchers on Harris in June 2013?

The blades of a turbine can be as long a football field and rotate at over 180 mph, meaning that birds, bats and insects don’t stand a chance. The number of insects killed annually in Germany by wind turbines stands at a staggering 1.2 trillion, equivalent to one third of the total annual insect migration in southern England. Wiping out wildlife is an abhorrent way to attempt to save the planet.

George Herraghty
Lhanbryde, Moray

Tackling knife crime

SIR – Kneeling on the neck of someone armed with a knife is not excessive force when an unarmed police officer attempts to disarm that person and place him in hand cuffs (report, July 18). Immediate suspension seems harsh when the officer was doing his job. He should be supported by his superiors for removing a knife from the streets, not castigated by them.

Lt Col Paul d’Apice (retd)
Dawlish, Devon

Sandwich fraud

SIR – Duncan Rayner (Letters, July 17) refers to “the famous British Rail sandwiches”. They were the butt of numerous jokes, as many will recall.

They also featured in a number of fraud cases where buffet-car staff planned to sell sandwiches made from their own bread and tomatoes, passing them off as British Rail ones in order to pocket the proceeds. Complex legal arguments turned on whether the passengers would have refused to buy had they known they were not getting the genuine article. In 1977, Lord Justice Bridge thought that passengers may not care “as long as the sandwich was palatably fresh and sold at a reasonable price. Who knows but that the steward’s sandwiches might have been fresher than British Rail’s?” The question was further investigated in the House of Lords in 1986.

Richard Taylor
Professor of English Law
University of Central Lancashire

Flying the flag for Black Country chainmakers

SIR – What shameful ignorance of history is displayed by the West Midlands Fire Service, which has banned the use of the Black Country flag because it has a design based on chains and therefore has “a potential link to slavery” (report, July 17).

Chainmaking was a staple industry of the Black Country, especially in Cradley Heath. The glory of the industry was the manufacture of anchor chains for Britain’s once vast merchant navy. The Titanic was one of many great ocean liners equipped with anchor chains from the Black Country.

In the Sixties I dealt briefly with one of the last of the chainmakers of Cradley Heath, which supplied the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. I remember seeing chainmaking in progress, with leather-aproned workers handling the huge links, which glowed red-hot.

Robert Darlaston
Goostrey, Cheshire

More testing could have protected care homes

SIR – After the death of my wife from Covid-19 in April, I wrote to her care home with questions regarding infection-control protocols and testing in the home.

The reply said: “If everyone living and working in a care home had been regularly tested from the beginning of the UK’s pandemic, then the situation could have been quite different.”

It is imperative that we have a public inquiry into what went wrong in care homes. The present piecemeal provision of care is no longer fit for purpose. The Government must take responsibility for the manner in which the care industry conducts its affairs.

Maj Gordon G Bonner (retd)
Leeds, West Yorkshire

SIR – My wife is in a care home that has not had any cases of Covid-19. The reason I believe is that the home went into its own form of lockdown well before the official lockdown. It reduced the numbers of visitors, all visitors had to wash their hands before entering the main part of the home and all staff had their temperature taken when reporting for duty. The managers did not submit to pressure from hospitals to admit patients.

I believe if many care homes had adopted a common-sense health policy, the high death rates may have been avoided.

Alan R Brown
Godalming, Surrey

SIR – Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, has ordered a review into recorded deaths after a positive Covid-19 test (report, July 18). Recorded deaths following a negative test should also be considered.

My 99-year-old father died in hospital of old age. His death certificate quoted Covid-19 even though he had tested negative for the virus just hours before he died. This was his second negative test.

I have had no confidence in the Covid-19 death statistics ever since, believing them to be over-inflated.

John West
Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire

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