How can we wean ourselves from cars?
George Monbiot (Cars are killing us, 15 March) rightly suggests that it is time to drive the car out of existence. But he doesn’t suggest how this might be accomplished.
Two alternatives suggest themselves. First, the Singapore option: make the acquisition of a car so expensive through taxes that only the better-off will be able to afford one. Second, impose a severe restriction on the right of car ownership: eg permit one, and only one, car per household. The latter is clearly the more equitable option, but would any party with this in its election manifesto have a chance of getting elected?
Richard Howard
Wiesbaden, Germany
Macron’s big problem with the gilets jaunes
French president Emmanuel Macron’s only option is to buy off the gilets jaunes (3 May) but the movement will drum on. The old political rats have quit the sinking political ship, along with their privileges and payoffs. François Hollande’s wavering presidency was a symptom. Confusion reigns over the European elections and discontent sizzles.
The idea of sneaking through legislation during the summer holidays has had its day, as many people are not so sure they’ll be having holidays this year.
E Slack
L’Isle Jourdain, France
Voters should be given the benefit of the doubt
It was dismaying to read of concerns about the integrity of Indian voting machines, followed by “None of these allegations has ever been proven” – clearly implying that the machines deserve the benefit of the doubt (12 April). But in elections the burden of proof should properly be reversed.
Citizens should never be called upon to trust that their votes were counted; the process must always be transparent and verifiable.
Greg DePaco
New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
Leprosy is a scourge that we must defeat again
Two pieces in your 3 May issue remind us that we still need to help those who have one of the most dreaded human diseases … leprosy. In your Good to meet you column a former VSO volunteer in a village in India where victims of leprosy are treated says it was there where a Scottish couple, one a doctor, introduced him to the Guardian.
In the same issue Rebecca Ratcliffe uncovers the fact that despite a WHO declaration in 2000 that the disease had been eradicated, it still exists in places such as Nepal, and that authorities have cut funding. The message implied in both stories is that world health and aid organisations must take notice again.
Richard Orlando
Westmount, Quebec, Canada
Technology can produce an infernal racket
It is extraordinary that in Samanth Subramanian’s five-page article on hand dryers (3 May), there is no mention of what is the most disagreeable feature of the air-blade: the horrible noise it makes.
Give me a cotton napkin, a paper towel or nothing at all, rather than this stress-inducing supercharged whine.
Damian Grant
Villeneuve d’Ascq, France
• Five pages on hand dryers v paper towels. A few weeks ago, five pages on a fussy eater of a child. I recall five pages on the history of the sandwich. Either the world has solved all its problems and conflicts, or the Guardian has been transformed into a lifestyle tabloid.
Richard Abram
Sydney, Australia
• Thank you for restoring a sense of balance to the world’s news. As we are drowning in mostly negative news about the coming Australian election and I imagine the British media is likely occupied with non-stop Brexit news, it is refreshing that you find space for the pros and cons of washroom hand dryers!
Keep up the good work, and I hope the paper towel users win.
Margaret Wilkes
Cottesloe, Western Australia
Story suffers from failure to define populism
I found your report on the YouGov-Cambridge Globalism survey (10 May) infuriating. The article’s failure to define the term “populist” renders its findings meaningless. In the UK the rhetoric of both Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May is profoundly populist, in different ways, so trying to separate the global population into populists and non-populists misses the point.
Charles Stevenson
London, UK
