Devil’s choice is easy: Corbyn-led government
Jonathan Freedland (11 January) imagines the devil in 2016 offering progressive types the choice between Britain remaining in the EU or Trump losing the US election. Of course they got neither. What if progressives were now offered either Britain remaining in the EU or Jeremy Corbyn winning a 2019 general election? I agree with Freedland that leaving the EU would be catastrophic and am very hopeful that we will get a second referendum. However, if I had the power to choose only one option, it would have to be a Corbyn-led Labour government. Despite his initials, Jeremy Corbyn is not the messiah. But his policies would feed and house the poor and heal the sick by putting an end to the cruel austerity that is sadly a feature of Conservative Britain.
Angela Smith
Norwich, UK
Book on fat displayed obvious sophistry
Bee Wilson is right to denounce the sophistry of Anthony Warner’s book, The Truth About Fat (11 January). Without saying it explicitly, this book disregards one of the essential facts about obesity development: the loss of a balanced energy sheet. Obesity will inevitably occur if energy intake exceeds the sum of energy expenditure by the body. This is the direct consequence of the first law of thermodynamics that nobody or nothing can violate, even the most eloquent sophist.
Jean-Marie Gillis
Wezembeek-Oppem, Belgium
Chickens could not cope with harsh conditions
I am no expert on Tanzania, Rwanda or poultry farming but John Vidal’s article (11 January) has a hole. I want to know how the inbred, crippled Cobb 500 chickens are going to preen the fly eggs from their feathers. And how will they deal with the lice, the rats, the mosquitoes, the mites, the cats, the fleas, the ticks that all chickens in Tanzania and Rwanda must be exposed to? Surely “treating them like babies” will either be impossible or will make these chickens unaffordable for locals.
The local “scrawny” hens are the type that survives local conditions. I am not sure if Vidal is leading us to draw our own conclusion that rich Americans sent by God to Africa are deluded, but I can’t help feeling someone has removed the basic biology from his article.
Mary Morgan-Richards
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Universities surrendered to advertising creed
George Monbiot, in his opinion piece about how ads and academia are controlling our thoughts, states: “The Enlightenment ideal, which all universities claim to endorse, is that everyone should think for themselves.” He goes on to ask: “So why do they [universities] let researchers explore new means of blocking this capacity?” (4 January).
The answer lies within the changes undergone in universities over the last 30 years or so. Knowledge produced in universities is measured not for its contribution to help people think for themselves, but by criteria that are in many ways about advertising: metrics on the number of times research is quoted by other researchers, league tables about the best universities, and research impact as applauded in the Research Excellence Framework.
The research that Monbiot is rightly complaining about is a symptom of how universities have helped weaken their own resistance to the advertising creed.
David Schiff
London, UK
Good to meet you people should get subscriptions
To all the Good to meet you contributors who lavish well-deserved praise on the Guardian Weekly, who write of their long affinity with the paper that has enriched their lives, but who are not subscribers, often receiving the paper from friends or neighbours, I would suggest a thought. The Guardian Weekly cannot live from praise alone. Publishing such a paper and paying its journalists requires money. Don’t read the paper second-hand but take out a subscription. A true Guardian reader has a responsibility for promoting critical thought in a world of fake news. Paying for the paper can give substance to this responsibility.
Anna Schrape
Recklinghausen, Germany
Better build that wall: to fight climate change
Trump is right: the US needs a wall – against climate change (11 January). America needs to build a human wall from Washington state to Washington DC to get the message out. Tax the corporations to pay for it! Build the wall – the people’s wall, the fresh air wall, the climate security wall – the wall of resistance against climate change.
Christine Dann
Diamond Harbour, New Zealand
