I am with David Attenborough, who said, when it was revealed that the filmed interior of a polar bear den supposedly in the Arctic was actually in a European zoo: “Come on, we were making movies.” (“BBC shots of lightning over volcano looked fantastic but were faked”, News).
His bear cubs were real and so was all of this volcanic smoke – it was just footage of two eruptions digitally stuck on top of each other – in Patagonia. Ever since American civil war photographer Andrew Gardner pulled a corpse around the Gettysburg battlefield, re-dressing it for different shots as he went, photographs have been faked – and more seriously than in this incident.
Wouldn’t it make better sense for the press to insist that photographic images are, if not actually untrustworthy, then certainly no more trustworthy than are other communications? Would it be such a tragedy if television documentaries were no more automatically believed than, say, printed journalism?
Professor Brian Winston
University of Lincoln
Criminal justice must be free
Katharine Whitehorn (Magazine) notes how nasty some charities have become, but is “glad that so many other things – roads, police, firefighters and judges – are simply financed by taxes”. Sadly, we can no longer include judges (or magistrates) in this list. Since the introduction in April of the aptly titled criminal courts charge, guilty defendants now face a charge ranging from £150 to £1,200 for the privilege of having their case heard in a court.
The government feels that it is right that wrongdoers should meet the cost of bringing them to justice, and that they should pay this charge on top of their fine, costs, compensation and victim surcharge. We need some action from Mr Gove to right this serious wrong.
Anthony Young
Chidham
West Sussex
Don’t ignore sporting success
Andrew Anthony’s article entitled “Nervous, leaden, paralysed by expectation: it’s the English way” (News), pursued themes discussed in an Observer Sports Monthly article in 2007, claiming that “major setbacks are… the rule in English sport”. In 2007, Anthony conflated “English” and “British”, claiming both lacked the qualities for sporting success. Now he focuses on the English; Britain’s Davis Cup success is apparently due entirely to “the Scotsman” Andy Murray.
Anthony’s analysis is perplexing. Evidence shows that, in 2007, Britain was on the way to surpassing continental Europeans in Olympic medal tables. Why does a women’s football bronze weigh heavily in his scale of judgment and piles of English gold count for little? Bizarrely, in 2007, he argued that the English were inherently less competitive than other people, but also that enhanced funding would lead to more success for English/British athletes!
Feature writers persist in claiming that the English/British have “losers’ mentality”. This stems from the “declinist” ideology identified by Robert Tombs. Pessimism is fashionable; optimism is beneath the dignity of intellectuals.
Tom Callaghan
London N6
Politicians should know science
Scientific illiteracy is widespread (lettersk), and when policy-makers hold no understanding of even basic concepts, it is no surprise that there is no support for environmental initiatives, but, instead, unquestioning enthusiasm for fracking and nuclear power and weapons.
Policies framed in purely free-market economic terms, which take no account of simple but hugely significant chemical reactions and biological and physical processes, have led us to the brink of planetary environmental catastrophe.
Perhaps there should be a requirement that cabinet members are tested on basic scientific ideas that are relevant to the policies they decide upon?
Max Fishel
Bromley
We must stop HS2 rail link
Frank Field (“Tax credits and trains can help Corbyn outflank the Tories”, News) argues that it is too late to stop the huge white elephant HS2, which he rightly compares to the Millennium Dome and correctly believes will benefit the south. He thinks Labour should focus on building “HS3”, the desperately needed links between cities in the north, which the Tories have “paused”.
The cities of the north can better be linked without HS2. Field neglects the fact that building HS2, which will now take at least until 2033, will suck away all the money that will be needed for HS3, and will damage the rest of our railway network into the bargain. Labour can and must stop HS2 if it wants a sane transport policy.
Richard Janko
London NW3
