Letters: Western resolve is wilting while Putin inflicts genocidal horror on Ukraine
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SIR – Pessimism, fatigue, historical ignorance, and an immoral attempt to appease an aggressor for whom the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for the war crime of illegally transferring nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children: these are what threaten to bring about the end of the international liberal order.
The 143 countries across all continents that voted for the UN General Assembly Resolution ES-11/4, which declared the annexation of parts of Ukraine by Russia illegal, clearly have more economic and military power at their disposal than Vladimir Putin.
If Putin walks away from a negotiation with any part of Ukraine, instead of walking into a prison cell, it will be our responsibility as well – not just that of governments, but people in liberal democracies, people who grew tired of helping Ukrainians willing to die for the freedom and self-determination we take for granted.
The material circumstances have not changed. Russia still has a clumsy army and an even clumsier economy. President Volodymyr Zelensky’s bravery remains unsurpassed, and the Ukrainian people’s heroism unmatched.
We, the rest of the liberal world (from politicians to ordinary citizens), were the ones who changed – blaming the Ukrainian counter-offensive’s slow progress on Ukrainians, instead of on our governments’ inability to supply them with adequate weapons to liberate their homeland, and forgetting the unity of purpose that made even France and Germany’s executives change their official positions at the start of this genocidal war of aggression.
João Freitas
Lisbon, Portugal
SIR – With the United States and parts of Europe showing signs of weakening their support for Ukraine, so encouraging dictators, bullies and tyrants, Sir Francis Drake’s words should be recalled: “There must be a beginning to any great matter, but the continuing unto the end until it be thoroughly finished yields the true glory.”
Richard Hayward
Litlington, East Sussex
SIR – You comment on “the lamentable failure of European countries to re-arm” (Leading Article, December 15). You also report (December 15) the Army’s intention to accept “borderline” candidates for officer training.
As a former vice president of the Regular Commissions Board, I can only agree with Colonel Hamish de-Bretton Gordon: “Reducing standards, however excellent Sandhurst is, is a retrograde step.”
Amid mounting threats, what does the Army’s inability to recruit sufficient officers or soldiers to fill a reduced establishment of 73,000 say about the attractiveness of a military career to young people today? And, to the extent that such unwillingness to serve applies in much of Western Europe, what price rearmament, even if our respective governments were belatedly to wake up to the peril they face?
Brigadier Rod Brummitt (retd)
Bournemouth, Dorset
Rwanda compromise
SIR – The Rwanda Bill has passed (Letters, December 14), and while this has spared Rishi Sunak some personal embarrassment, it will only mean more trouble for his party in the near future.
The Government persuaded MPs who wanted firmer resolutions with that cliché of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. However, to be effective, the Rwanda Bill cannot be anything less than perfect.
MPs must be aware that liberal activist lawyers are poised to pounce on every last errant comma in the Bill as an excuse for endless litigation. Unless the law goes all the way and is watertight and without exceptions, it will only lengthen the delays for Rwanda flights. Voting on Bills is an easy, cost-free way for the Government to pretend that it is doing something, but all this paper is pointless if there are no actual deportations.
Mr Sunak may have survived, but he has increased the likelihood that voters see he still hasn’t got a handle on immigration by election time.
Robert Frazer
Salford, Lancashire
Music stopped
SIR – Our family was horrified to learn that the music department at Oxford Brookes University is to be closed (Letters, December 2).
Our son did his music degree there in the early 1990s. When he graduated, he was given an award for the most achievements beyond his degree, having put on shows including Jesus Christ Superstar and City of Angels. He is now musical director of the renowned Vocal Works Gospel Choir, based in Bath and performing all over the country. Without the music department, life would have been so different for him and countless others.
Pamela King
Streatley on Thames, Berkshire
Baroness Mone’s case
SIR – Baroness Mone and her husband, Douglas Barrowman, have at last defended their actions in the PPE scandal with a documentary on YouTube (“The PPE scandal made me ashamed to be a Tory – I am purely a scapegoat”, report, December 10).
Most will recall numerous instances when the Baroness denied that she had any interest in PPE MedPro – the company being investigated. Now we read that it is up to Mr Barrowman to decide who will benefit from the £65 million in profits the company made from Government contracts.
Does the Baroness take us for fools? Does she think we won’t remember her denials? While the company may be innocent, it is only right that the circumstances are investigated.
Michael Edwards
Haslemere, Surrey
Abuse of referees
SIR – There is no need for football referees to go on strike (Letters, December 7). Under the laws of the game, using offensive, insulting or abusive language is punishable by a sending off.
During initial training, referees are encouraged to “manage the game” rather than officiate; referees who use the laws of the game properly are often accused of being too officious, spoiling the game, and wanting to be the centre of attention.
As a former referee, I found that trying to control the language of two adult teams at grass-roots level (who loudly exchanged foul language on a public field with children walking by) was often more onerous than ensuring tackles were fair, offsides were dealt with properly and goals were awarded correctly. However, whenever that language was directed at me and the offender dismissed, it was very noticeable how much quieter and less abusive the language became.
Referees need to be strong enough to deal with such instances properly, and the FA needs to support referees who deal with bad language and abuse according to the laws of the game, punishing offenders with the sanctions available to them.
Will that happen? I fear not – because the FA and the Premier League want entertainment, not a properly officiated event.
Steve Fisher
Kidlington, Oxfordshire
Britain’s narrow roads
SIR – Fergus Nicolson’s observations on inconsiderate parking (Letters, December 10) are correct but he omits an important point. Roads, especially in towns and cities, are roughly the same width as when used by horse-drawn traffic. Early motor vehicles were narrow (like the Austin Seven) but over time cars, vans and lorries have become bigger and wider.
Three average cars will not fit side by side on most roads, so one is unable to pass a stationary vehicle (when parked correctly) if there is traffic coming the other way. This greatly increases journey times. Moreover, the explosion of housing estates produces around two cars per dwelling, and that makes the roads even more saturated. There appears to be no satisfactory solution to the problem.
Ted Bottle
Coalville, Leicestershire
SIR – I recently oversaw the installation of a new parking scheme in our village. Cars are now parked safely at 90 degrees to the pavement in front of the shops in a newly created layby.
Inevitably this required the removal of a couple of parking spaces on the other side of the road, yet people consistently park in these spaces, despite double-yellow lines, resulting in a complete traffic blockage. The offenders drive Rolls-Royces, Ferraris and oversized Range Rovers.
Duncan Rayner
Sunningdale, Berkshire
Napoleon’s glory
SIR – As a schoolboy encountering Napoleon first in a Ladybird book, I had no idea that his great victory at Austerlitz was won because his Austrian and Russian opponents crashed through ice into freezing water. Or that his defeat at Waterloo involved just two lines of troops on each side, with no farmhouse in sight, no Marshal Ney, and Blücher’s Prussians arriving from the wrong direction. Wargamers with Airfix little soldiers would have known better.
In the 1970 film Waterloo, Napoleon’s aide tells him that he extended the limits of glory. Ridley Scott’s film (Letters, December 9) overplays Napoleon’s relationship with Josephine and downplays the glory.
Ian France
Penrith, Cumbria
SIR – During my Saturday morning shop, the conversation with the young lady on the till went as follows.
“Are you doing anything this evening?” she said.
“Going to the cinema”, I said.
“Oh, that’s nice. What are you going to see?”
“Napoleon.”
“Who was he?”
I gave a brief background. It was received with a blank expression.
“I did Higher History” – the upper-level Scottish school exam – “but we never did him.”
I despair.
Michael Innes
Cupar, Fife
SIR – I share with Napoleon a love of the very smelly Époisses cheese (Letters, December 9).
I once cleared a whole train carriage bringing some home. French law has banned it from the Parisian public transport system. High praise.
John Hopkins
Beckenham, Kent
Among the dignitaries at a Buddhist monastery
SIR – In 1981 I was in the remote east of the Himalayan Buddhist Kingdom of Bhutan, where I chanced upon a large funeral of a high incarnate Lama in a small monastery.
The body had been preserved in salt and it had taken 19 years, due to many other commitments, to be able to assemble all the necessary dignitaries from isolated areas of the kingdom for the lengthy religious occasion. His reincarnation, by now in his late teenage years, was there. How many people can attend their own funeral (Letters, December 10)?
Roger Croston
Chester
SIR – Alan France (Letters, December 10) asks if anyone else has played the organ at their own funeral, as was the case with his mother. Although she didn’t play the music, my beloved late mother-in-law, who was well known locally in Farnborough, Hampshire, and later in Horning, Norfolk, sang at her own funeral.
She and my father-in-law were leading lights in local operatic societies and choirs. She was told that, with proper training (unaffordable at the time), she could’ve been the second Kathleen Ferrier. Aged almost 97, she had a wonderful funeral.
Patricia Mowat
Camberley, Surrey
SIR – At my father’s funeral we used a recording of him playing the piano as the Recessional music. He had composed this piece himself as The Balloon Song for a musical he wrote in the late 1950s in for St Philip’s Players, Norbury. He reused the tune with different lyrics for the Ditchling Players, Sussex some 40 year later. In the 1960s he played the song live on the BBC’s evening programme, Town and Around.
Jonathan Legat
Winchester, Hampshire
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