Britain’s role in Europe
José Manuel Barroso’s comments on the UK’s relationship with the EU highlight the longstanding contradiction in English attitudes to its neighbours (24 October). On the one hand, it is not all right for Brussels to maintain collective jurisdiction over British affairs, but it is all right for London to maintain collective jurisdiction over Scottish affairs. The clamour south of the border to keep the union shortly before the Scottish referendum stands in sharp contrast to the will to respect the other union we have, with Europe.
When you join a club, you expect to respect commonly accepted rules. This is true for Britain in the EU now, as it was in 1707 when Scotland joined England and Wales.
If Westminster wants power to return to Britain, then it is perfectly logical for Scots to want power to return to Scotland. I am not sure that has been perfectly understood south of the border.
Trevor Rigg
Edinburgh, UK
• Not so long ago, a local was complaining to me about so-called immigrants who had come to take advantage of the host country’s generous benefits. There were so many of them, she complained, that their foreign-language dominated conversations in the school playground.
The complainant was French, the so-called immigrants British. I’m not sure that David Cameron has thought through all the consequences of his latest knee-jerk reaction to Ukip.
Simon Coates
Brussels, Belgium
• When David Cameron claims that he can renegotiate the rules regarding European immigration, a representative of the EU asserts that the free movement of labour is an integral part of the Common Market. And that is the whole trouble, and I wouldn’t bet on Cameron being able to change it. But it is nonsense.
The free movement of tomatoes and washing machines across European borders is one thing: they are merely commodities to be bought and sold. The free movement of labour is a qualitatively different thing. People have families and relationships; they need somewhere to live; they travel; they need access to doctors and hospitals; their children need schools.
We already have a home-grown baby boom to cope with, but in addition we have thousands of people arriving every year from abroad, mostly from Europe, whose needs have to be met as well. It cannot go on.
No wonder Nigel Farage and Ukip are raking in the votes. It is not about keeping out the foreigners; it is not racism or any other form of discrimination. It is simply about the number of people on a small island and the rate at which we can absorb and provide for more. It has to slow down or stop.
Martin Down
Witney, UK
• Regarding Jonathan Freedland’s piece on Dad’s Army (17 October): Nigel Farage evokes a bygone Britain that would have been instantly recognisable to William Faulkner. In writing stories of the defeated south, he used to comment, “The past is present.”
Growing up in California, land of the future, I never understood this until my visiting southern aunt “explained” sotto voce that the family lost their money a century ago “after buying Confederate bonds”: this turned out to be rubbish, but so much more entertaining – and enduring– than the truth. I hope events will prove us able to forget Farage as a flash in the pan. Meanwhile, how about a Steve Bell cartoon? You know, with pan.
Linda Agerbak
Arlington, Massachusetts, US
• Jonathan Freedland wheels out “the foundation stone of British Euroscepticism”, ie “that memory of standing alone against the Nazi menace”. May I remind him and lots of other Brits that there was a second army, the Brits’ first non-empire allies: namely, the Polish army that had regrouped in Scotland after defeat in Poland and being let down in France? My father was a captain in that army. After D-day they landed along with the Canadians and made their way to Bremerhaven. The officers were advised not to go back to Poland after the war, which accounts, incidentally, for my birth in Glasgow, along with other Scottish/Polish kids.
Richard Duda
Villers-les-Nancy, France
IMF and global recovery
So, according to the IMF, recovery is being driven by the US and the UK (17 October). Pity that the facing page informs us that real earnings of British workers have decreased for seven years in a row (Pay squeeze worst since Victorian age). Am I missing something? Or is this an accurate definition of the IMF’s priorities?
Giorgio Ranalli
Ottawa, Canada
No wonder that global economic growth may never recover to pre-crisis levels, as warned by the IMF. The crisis was caused by our living beyond our means, spending, not investing, with banks and others looking for borrowers only to increase levels of personal debt.
Adrian Betham
London, UK
The real risk of Ebola
Not to sound hysterical, but am I the only person seeing a huge disconnect between the headline Ebola spreads a global warning (10 October) and the subheading Experts say flu outbreak would pose a bigger risk, accompanied by a photograph of health workers in full Hazmat gear?
If the disease is less difficult to contract than the flu, I should have thought that rubber gloves and a surgical face mask would be enough protection. But then in the same Guardian issue we are told there are five Ebola cases every hour in Sierra Leone, with a prediction of 10 per hour before the end of October. Doesn’t sound like a low-level risk to me.
Rhona Davies
Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada
Which American values?
Regarding the situation in northern Iraq-Syria, the patent failure of the war the US started in 2003 is more obvious than ever. But after the policies that brought such destabilisation and mayhem, the US has some responsibilities there and cannot simply turn its back and look away from the barbaric (or any other adjective) deeds committed by Isis.
By the way, I haven’t read anything lately about Guantánamo. Yes, remember those 130 or so prisoners still held captive, some for more than 12 years, without trial or even charges and force fed when on hunger strike? A really barbaric (or any adjective you prefer) situation indeed. In his speeches, Barack Obama always refers to the “American values” and “who we are”. Really, by releasing at last the Guantánamo prisoners, the US Congress would show more against barbarism than air strikes which, when they kill five jihadis, 50 new fighters are sent in (17 October).
Marc Jachym
Les Ulis, France
Threats to the planet
Even if leaders from every nation united and built a space-age defence system that could protect every city on Earth from a meteorite impact, it would only highlight how complacent they’ve been about tackling threats to life on this planet (17 October). Asteroid impacts are rare and inevitable, as Peter Jenniskens points out; on the other hand, taking steps to protect humans from each other, and the planet from humans, is a realistic and necessary goal.
The world’s leaders cannot seem to deal with reality or necessity very well, though. I suspect that’s because doing so would require them to be realistic about the impact of their own ambitions, which are a far greater threat to human survival than any meteorite could be.
A Elliott
Berlin, Germany
Briefly
• As a CNES project scientist, I was very pleased to read the short science article (17 October) entitled Satellite map of sea floor. However, as specified in the acknowledgments of the original Science article, two satellite altimeter missions were used to enhance the new sea floor maps: CryoSat-2 data was provided by the European Space Agency, and Jason-1 data by Nasa and the French space agency, CNES.
Indeed, on the CNES side, we worked very hard with all of the different scientific communities to find an orbit that provided excellent new observations of the sea floor, and continued to make regular observations of the ocean dynamics. So it was a bit galling that our long partnership with Nasa for the Jason series was not correctly specified.
Rosemary Morrow
Toulouse, France
• Referring to the “state-owned” SaskPower International is wrong (10 October), as in Canada we do not have “states”. It should have read “provincial/government owned”, as we have provinces in this country.
Janet Downey
Manotick, Ontario, Canada
• I enjoy my Guardian Weekly, not least because of its careful political correctness. So you will understand my dismay to read Stephen Moss’s glorification of the Dull Men’s Club (10 October). He missed the big story and entirely ignored the tough questions: are women members permitted? Is there a Ladies Auxiliary? When will the name be changed to The Dull Persons Club? Seems this article slipped through the Guardian’s PC screen.
Bob Walsh
Wilton, Connecticut, US
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