Letters: It won't just be Tory voters who express their despair at the general election
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SIR – I read with interest your interview with the avuncular, media-friendly Sir John Curtice, and I note the evident certitude of his prognostications.
However, venerating academics and pollsters as modern Nostradamuses is a grave mistake. Their groupthinking errors ahead of the 2016 referendum and various elections clearly misled politicians and media commentators.
Sixty-two per cent of voters in Thursday’s by-elections didn’t bother to vote. I submit that this was mostly not due to idleness, but rather a simmering and widespread sense of betrayal. There is scarcely a voter in the country who hasn’t felt betrayed by our Government or Parliament at some point in the past decade, whether Leaver or Remainer, Labour or Conservative, or Irish, English or Scottish. Trust in politicians has completely gone.
The next general election will be dominated by those few who have clean hands in these betrayals and, I suspect, the results will confound the polling industry – again.
Keith Phair
Felixstowe, Suffolk
SIR – It’s reasonable and logical that there is a law that says that union strike ballots are only valid if 50 per cent of members turn out to vote. Why then is it acceptable to allow by-election results to stand when the turnout is only 37 and 38 per cent, with the winning candidate approved by a small proportion of the electorate?
Paul Webster
Dyserth, Denbighshire
SIR – Judging from Rishi Sunak’s flabby “steady as you go” response to the recent by-elections (“Our Conservative family must come together to defeat Labour”, Commentary, February 17), neither he nor the Conservative leadership understands what has happened. In 2016 and again, emphatically, in 2019 they were given clear instructions. He and they have ignored those instructions and will suffer accordingly.
John Neimer
Stoborough, Dorset
SIR – We didn’t leave the Conservative Party; it left us.
Sue Beale
Maidenhead, Berkshire
SIR – I was glad when Sir Keir Starmer became Labour leader, but have become totally disillusioned by his lack of decision and increasingly frequent U-turns, making me fearful should Labour win a general election in these intensely worrying times.
Despite his many talents, I dislike Rishi Sunak’s apparent lack of empathy and inability to understand the despair and anxieties of the “man in the street”. What should I do, knowing full well the importance of not wasting the vote granted to me?
Lutena Yates
Aveton Gifford, Devon
Army exodus
SIR – Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Comment, February 16) warns of a forthcoming exodus of military officers.
As the wife of a serving Army officer, I must report that as a result of the Ministry of Defence’s decision to strip us of our guaranteed access to officer-standard accommodation, this is well under way. I know officers who have already given notice and we have evidence that significant numbers are now actively planning their exit over the next couple of years.
The reality for my husband and me is this. Because we have not yet produced children, we are set to have our living space slashed by 38 per cent.The long absences – and risks – inherent for service personnel strain family life. The frequent moves – especially for officers – often ruin a spouse’s career, further limiting household income. Now they are coming for our accommodation too.
Members of the Armed Forces are prevented by the chain of command from voicing their objections publicly. The only means left to make their dissatisfaction known is to vote with their feet and leave.
Rosie Bucknall
Warminster, Wiltshire
Stay-at-home workers
SIR – There may be a sting in the tail for those working from home (Letters, February 14). More and more employers are calculating that remote working may be just as well done at less cost by outsourcing to staff abroad.
A wise employee, where appropriate, should be at the workplace because in some cases absence may not make an employer’s heart grow fonder.
David Saunders
Sidmouth, Devon
SIR – The housing crisis is also affecting workers’ mobility. It’s very hard for people who are likely to receive low pay and have no assets to move to popular places, where their entire income would go on rent, if they could find anywhere to rent at all.
It seems that the failure of housing policy is now destroying the economy.
Jonathan Barker
Rochdale, Lancashire
A rural welcome
SIR – I travel each summer into the beautiful English countryside with my husband, who is Chinese. We have never experienced racism (Letters, February 15); he has been welcomed into village pubs and spoken to warmly as we shop for antiques or go rambling down paths.
Of course nowhere is idyllic; racism is the domain of idiots, not a geographic area. It exists where ignorance reigns.
My husband has been spat at outside our London home and subjected to racial slurs. Let’s not condemn the decent folk of England’s green and pleasant land when the issue is individual stupidity.
Mark Peaker
London W1
Ads worth watching
SIR – Anne Jappie’s letter (February 17) reminded me of the infancy of commercial television: the chimps in the PG Tips advert, or the Murray Mints “they’re too good to hurry mints”, or the question of whether Sharon Maughan and Anthony Head would get together in the Nescafé Gold Blend saga. These adverts were so memorable, clever and enjoyable.
How many of today’s can you say that about?
Alan Edwards
Steyning, West Sussex
Foreign dentists
SIR – The news that NHS dentistry is to be undertaken by foreign dentists without the need for the overseas entrance exam (report, February 17) is outrageous.
False documentation and unaccredited medical schools are rife in some parts of the world, and there are those who, for a fee, would willingly sit examinations for candidates who would fail otherwise. Dentists in Britain also have to keep up to date, which is not obligatory abroad. Lowering the bar further in medical practice is not acceptable.
Dr Robert J Leeming
Coventry, Warwickshire
SIR – Why would foreign dentists want to work in a broken and underfunded NHS any more than British dentists?
Peter Rosie
Ringwood, Hampshire
Overpriced theatre
SIR – I tried to book tickets for the West End’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, in which Sarah Snook is the sole performer (Arts, February 16), and was astonished to discover the cost.
On the Theatre Royal Haymarket’s own website, the cheapest seats (in the gallery) are an affordable £40, but come with the warning: “Limited view, cushioned bench, 65 steps up”. The most expensive (stall) seats are £289 each. Such pricing policies are a terrible reflection on London’s theatreland and risk killing off the industry as we know it. Tourists will feel ripped off and British audiences, facing additional travel and meal costs, could find themselves forking out £400 per head for a night out.
Very few one-person shows can justify such prices. Excellent though Snook may be, she is surely not one of those rare global stars. This “one hour and 50 minutes with no interval” play must, therefore, be an example of cynical pricing that can only be explained by greed.
Veronica Timperley
London W1
Fairground fantasy
SIR – I wonder if Peta, which believes that carousel fairground horses encourage “exploitation” (Letters, February 13), could be appeased by the addition of horns to the animals, thereby turning them into unicorns – which, as far as I am aware, have never existed and will probably never be genetically engineered in the future.
Ian Saponia
Purley, Surrey
The cost of keeping English churches beautiful
SIR – It was good to read your report (February 16) about the five small grants given to churches by the Church of England as part of its conservation policy.
We should not overstate these contributions, however. I was brought up next door to St George’s in Trotton, West Sussex, mentioned in your article, which received the smallest of the grants listed (£1,300 for technical surveys preceding the conservation of the church’s medieval paintings). I actually witnessed the 1952 effort to restore these wall paintings.
Two years ago I took part in a further fundraising initiative for the same purpose. It was a low-key and local effort, appealing predominantly to our friends and neighbours, who very generously gave £18,500.
That generosity enabled the conservation project. The total cost, of more than £30,000, puts the sum being provided by the Church into context.
On a more optimistic note, we are hoping that another grant application, now before the Church Buildings Council, will find favour.
Christopher R Hill
Midhurst, West Sussex
Artist, ecologist, war hero – and Oundle old boy
SIR – Your list of distinguished former pupils of Oundle School (“Prince George’s new home? Welcome to Oundle, the co-ed school where ‘elitist braying’ is a no-no”, telegraph.co.uk, February 13) omitted the late Sir Peter Scott.
Son of Scott of the Antarctic, he had many achievements to his name, including as a wildlife artist, Olympic medal-winning yachtsman and decorated naval officer during the Second World War. He was also a pioneer of the conservation movement – and, together with his friend the late Prince Philip, was one of the founders of the Worldwide Fund for Nature in the 1960s.
Not a bad recommendation for his old school.
Vincent Phillips
Naburn, North Yorkshire
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