Other voices on UK in Europe
Martin Kettle (12 February) is right to point out that the UK press paints a one-sided picture of David Cameron’s dealings with Europe, belittling his achievements. In the Spanish press there has been much gnashing of teeth and fist-shaking at what have been seen as yet more concessions to Europe’s most recalcitrant member. Concessions that Europeans see as endangering some of the core values of the EU, such as freedom of movement, and which will lead to furthering different levels of privilege within the EU states. Britain’s unique status within the EU irritates its partners intensely.
The debate in the UK seems to focus exclusively on a one-way movement of hordes of evil Europeans bent on invading Britain to devour UK benefits and in passing destroy everything truly British.
The UK media seems to forget that many Britons live and work in mainland Europe. Spain is full of resident Britons and receives millions of British tourists every year, all of whom benefit from the overstretched Spanish social services and healthcare.
But what is really galling is that many expatriate Britons have no voice in Europe’s construction. We are disenfranchised citizens of Europe: we cannot vote in UK general elections, or in those of the countries where we reside. And now we have no voice in the referendum on the UK’s place in Europe. If we had, Cameron would gain a large number of votes, many from people who do not normally support him on anything.
Ian Alexander
Madrid, Spain
• Why don’t we improve on the Europe that we have got instead of cracking it up? Has everybody forgotten about the second world war when, only 71 years ago, we were all fighting one another? Have they forgotten the present advantages of a united Europe? Isn’t it great to be able to drive from one European country to another easily, to get free healthcare if you are sick when abroad, let alone the working together of the European police and security network. We have so much if we work together for the good of all.
Certainly the immigration problem is huge and needs intelligence and cooperation to find solutions. It is far better to work together and construct rather than to split.
Sally Roschnik
Grandvaux, Switzerland
Beyond Catholic Ireland
Harriet Sherwood’s article Ireland on brink of change as church power wanes (26 February) mentions Catholics and the other 6%: “atheist, agnostic, lapsed or ‘no religion’”. What about non-Catholic Christians? They do exist, and information on trends in those churches would give some idea how much the move away from Catholicism is also a move away from Christianity.
Second, it is implied that school teaching about the origin of life is “creationism” - a term usually given to a literal understanding of the book of Genesis held up to show “science is wrong”. As a sensible theological understanding of “God made this worm”, in partnership with the truth-seeking scientific process, is widely taught in UK churches and classrooms, I would take a lot of persuading that this is not also the case in Ireland.
Martin Jewitt
Folkestone, UK
Work may not be the panacea
Christina Patterson’s article, The best prescription for mental health? Sometimes it’s just a job (Opinion in brief, 26 February) is at odds with the UK’s “fit for work” tests that were last November linked to 590 extra suicides and hundreds of thousands of additional antidepressant prescriptions. She quotes a study, commissioned by the British government in 2005, which claimed that work was “the most effective way to improve the wellbeing of individuals”.
No doubt this is true of some kinds of work. But what about jobs that are continually stressful, in which one feels over-reached yet never good enough and always insecure, perhaps subject to nonstop surveillance? Jobs that have no space for personal wisdom or creativity but merely require one to follow the rules, to be a facet of the corporate image, and that, after a full day’s work, a long commute, then family and domestic responsibilities, leave no time or energy for oneself?
An awful lot of jobs are like this. Little wonder that people feel suicidal rather than “fit for work”, or fulfilled by it.
Julie Telford
Haut Rhin, France
Preserved by sugar
It comes as no surprise that there have been changes in eating habits in Britain since the 1970s (Goodbye fish and chips, 26 February).
My mother-in-law recently passed away. While clearing her house, we came across her Co-op grocery book for the 1950s and 1960s. It contained her weekly grocery order for the family – two parents and two sons. The first item each week was 8lbs (3.6kg) of sugar! None of us could believe that the family could have consumed that much every week.
Some calculations were in order: my mother-in-law drank nine cups of tea a day (just one more than the current average, it seems). In each cup of tea, she put two spoons of sugar. We have her sugar spoon and weighed 18 spoonfuls of sugar on our digital scale: 85g. Each day at breakfast, she covered her cornflakes with a heaped dessertspoon of sugar and she also had a sugar-laden cup of Camp “coffee” each morning. Another ounce of sugar, for a weekly total of 800g of sugar in drinks and cereal alone – for just one person. Of course, there were also fruit pies, custard and rice puddings. We soon understood that it was possible to account for the amount of sugar she purchased each week.
Needless to say, our sugar consumption is much lower. However, it is important to note that my mother-in-law was 98 when she passed away. Perhaps her sugar consumption “preserved” her very well.
Avril Taylor
Dundas, Ontario, Canada
Bread and butter for the left
Owen Jones is right to suggest that increased economic insecurity has fuelled the rise of youth movements on the political left (12 February).
However, the decimation of the middle class is also fuelling support for the extreme right. Tellingly, Jones does not consider this. It is my sense that the left is too complacent in thinking that the any disadvantaged person – young or otherwise – will naturally gravitate to support their position over time.
The key question voters ask is, “why is my situation not improving, and who is to blame?” If the problem is considered to be structural, supporting the left is a natural response. But my feeling is that there are many poor and disaffected people who gravitate to the right because they perceive the problem to be at an individual level. They ask, “why should hard-working people like me who are already struggling be taxed more to help out people who refuse to work hard for a living?”
The right naturally speaks to these people, especially the irrationally angry and populist. The left needs to put more effort into winning this argument of perceptions; it must focus on bread-and-butter issues to win over these voters. Instead, it has often moved to an almost post-materialist, intellectual discourse. The left cannot just wait and assume that widening gaps will deliver electoral success.
Brendan Madley
Hamilton, New Zealand
Briefly
• Can we be sure that the discovery of a single fossil toe bone is that of a giant flightless bird known as Gastornis which roamed the Arctic 53m years ago (Discovery, 26 February)? I remember a TV comedy sketch where a tiny fragment of pottery morphs into a huge decorated pot, in an ancient building, in an ancient land until the fragment is discovered to be a tiny piece of plastic!
Patricia O’Brien
Rozelle, New South Wales, Australia
• In his review of West of Eden (19 February), Peter Conrad mentions the author’s recalling William Mulholland and his “stealing water from neighbouring states”. I don’t know if it was the author or Conrad who got that wrong, but, for all his many faults, Mulholland stole water from other parts of California, yes, but from other states, no.
The film There Will Be Blood reincarnated the oil baron Edward Doheny, and, it should be mentioned, Chinatown reincarnated Mulholland (Darrell Zwerling as Hollis Mulwray).
Kenneth Salzberg
Portland, Oregon, US
• In his tête-à-tête with a penguin (Shortcuts, 4 March), perhaps Patriarch Kirill thought he had encountered a flock of diminutive nuns?
RM Fransson
Wheat Ridge, Colorado, US
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