Andrew Rawnsley says the lesson of the Scottish referendum is that negative campaigning works and that the coming election will be “a long and fear-fuelled campaign” (“Lots of donkeys but no lions in a year of political trench warfare”, Comment). There are certainly many indications that fear does indeed work, but it’s not the only effective approach and it promotes distrust of the political process and disengagement from it. In the US Barack Obama won on positive and uplifting messages of hope and change. How might the emphasis be switched? There is plenty of evidence showing that more equal societies are better for everyone, not just the poorest. Many better-off people want to live in a fairer, more cohesive society, and others are open to be persuaded about the personal benefits of this if the case is put to them. Surely it is time for Ed Miliband and Labour to return to the one-nation theme which they seem to have sidelined since it was first introduced?
Professor Ron Glatter
Hemel Hempstead
Herts
Jane Bown’s terrific legacy
My late mother Teresa Tutt was photographed by Jane Bown at the Field of Remembrance in November 1984 and the photograph appeared on the front page of the Observer the next day. The photograph showed my mother, a war widow, framed by two Chelsea pensioners to the rear, looking in the opposite direction. My mother is wearing my father’s medals looking straight to camera. When I learned that Luke Dodd was working on the Jane Bown archive I contacted him and later that morning I received a telephone call from Jane herself enquiring after my mother, saying how well she remembered her. Jane has left a wonderful archive, not just of the rich and powerful; a gift to remember her by.
Rilba Jones
Sutton-on-Hull
Call for secular choral music
It’s all well and good that the BBC Radio 3 carol competition (“Gloria in excelsis deo: Britain tunes in to its spiritual side”, News) adds some nice new feel-good repertoire to the existing mountain of choral music available but I have spent a lifetime excluded from choral singing because that repertoire is almost exclusively religious; endless masses, passions, motets and the rest that proclaim beliefs and emotions that I cannot identify with or want to sustain. Fact is, Carmina aside, there’s almost no serious secular repertoire that good amateur choirs and orchestras can tackle. Here’s a challenge: let the BBC (and the Observer?) commission from the best poets and composers a prom of new secular work that is technically achievable by skilled amateur groups. This could kickstart a 21st-century legacy, opening choral singing to a new contemporary community of performers and audiences.
John Forster
Saltash
Cornwall
What makes people give
Tracy McVeigh is to be congratulated for her media first of “natural” disasters (“Natural disasters, not wars, prompt Brits to give to charity”, News). Forty years of UK research and publication have shown how, while hazards may be from natural origins, the disasters they trigger are created by actions and inactions, by others, of a vulnerable humankind – those in poverty being the principal victims of any country. After so many years of effort to break the “natural disaster” barrier, this was a treat to see.
James Lewis
Author: Development in Disaster-prone Places: Studies of Vulnerability
Marshfield
A truly great politician
In the New Review’s “Those we’ve lost” obituaries issue, you have made sure to honour some minor names including TV actors and daughters and wives of rock stars, but decline to even mention the death in October of somebody that should be more of an Observer-type of figure we should be reading about – the late-20th century political icon Gough Whitlam. This giant of a politician single-handedly dragged Australia into the modern age, proving to politicians that once in power you don’t have to renege on all your promises, that you can have the courage of your convictions and change the political landscape of your country for the social good.
Andy Hall
London SE7
How could you possibly have failed to include Johnny Winter in your list? He is acknowledged to have been one of the first blues rock guitar virtuosos. A multi-instrumentalist, he produced three Grammy award-winning albums for blues singer and guitarist Muddy Waters and recorded several albums of his own which were Grammy-nominated. In 1988, he was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame and, in 2003, he was ranked 63rd in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time”.
Dave Hirons
Binley Woods
Warks
I was disappointed that you did not include the extraordinarily talented musician Christopher Hogwood. His influence on music in the last 30 years has been profound.
Hester Doherty
Shrewsbury
