Your correspondent (Letters, 29 October) suggests that the first aid and rescue facilities provided for the likes of football supporters and mountain goers provides the same “pull” factors as search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean. It is worth noting that (successive) governments consider such services so inessential that they signally fail to provide them, leaving such support to charities viz St John Ambulance, various mountain rescue groups, the RNLI and the likes of the Yorkshire Air Ambulance. Perhaps the coalition is hoping a charity will step in to replace the navy?
Dr Neil Denby
Denby Dale, West Yorkshire
• It was not only prominent academics kept under surveillance (Letters, 27 October), it was the ordinary person too. When I worked in the planning department at the London borough of Haringey in the 70s, I was approached to provide details of organisations opposed to the Archway Road proposals in north London.
Richard Bull
Woodbridge, Suffolk
• Should we not be concerned about the outcome for Henry (Notes and queries, 30 October)? That’s what has been worrying me all along. Perhaps the writer has an ultimate outcome planned of Rob being a thoroughly good egg (a nervous breakdown might do it) so that no concern for Henry has been necessary.
Margaret Davis
London
• Tesco managers go on holiday to reconnect (Report, 27 October). Have they considered asking a few NHS managers for their advice about running a large organisation?
Barry Coomber
Pinner, Middlesex
• Lack of interest in DIY may not necessarily be linked to whether you rent or own your own home (Letters, 28 October). Both my sons are buying their homes. Neither of them appears to be interested in DIY. This may be related to their teenage experience of witnessing their father’s attempts at hanging wallpaper.
Peter McKinney
Brentwood, Essex
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