As an enthusiastic allotment tenant of more than 30 years, I heartily endorse the findings of the Sheffield University report that “allotments are good for you – and your mental health” (News). As the article emphasises, the problem is both the lack of allotments and other community food-growing spaces and the long waiting lists.
The Scottish government recently passed legislation under which every local authority must “take all reasonable steps” to provide allotments where there is a demand, to maintain and monitor waiting lists and to have a food growing strategy. Another way in which this situation could be improved, in all parts of Britain, would be for a legal requirement for all housing developments to include food-growing space – either allotments or community gardens – in their planning applications, as a condition for consent. Any such spaces not wanted by the residents would be quickly snapped up by people on the allotment waiting lists.
Rose Harvie
Dumbarton, West Dunbartonshire
Britain must sign treaty
As bishops of the Church of England, we warmly welcome and applaud the recent ratification, by the required number of member states, of the United Nations’ treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons and we rejoice that the treaty will therefore come into force on 22 January 2021.
For so many of the nations of the world to speak clearly of the need to ban these weapons of mass destruction is an encouraging and hopeful sign. We commit ourselves to pray and to work so that this ratification will indeed help to see an end to nuclear weapons in the future. We very much regret that the UK, together with other nuclear states, has not yet signed the accord. We call on the UK government to do so and thereby to give hope to all people of goodwill who seek a peaceful future.
We echo the UN secretary general, who “commends the states that have ratified the treaty and salutes the work of civil society, which has been instrumental in facilitating the negotiation and ratification of the treaty”. Accordingly, we renew our support for the work of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, together with sister organisations and agencies in each nation, whose advocacy and commitment continues to make such a difference.
Justin Welby, archbishop of Canterbury; Stephen Cottrell, archbishop of York; Paul Bayes, bishop of Liverpool; Christopher Cocksworth, bishop of Coventry Richard Atkinson, bishop of Bedford; Jo Bailey Wells, bishop of Dorking; Pete Broadbent, bishop of Willesden; Sarah Bullock, bishop of Shrewsbury; Jonathan Clark, bishop of Croydon; David Court, bishop of Grimsby; Guli Francis-Dehqani, bishop of Loughborough; Jonathan Goodall, bishop of Ebbsfleet; Martin Gorick, bishop of Dudley; Olivia Graham, bishop of Reading; Clive Gregory, bishop of Wolverhampton; Joanne Grenfell, bishop of Stepney; David Hamid, suffragan bishop in Europe; Peter Hill, bishop of Barking; Anne Hollinghurst, bishop of Aston; John Inge, bishop of Worcester; Roger Morris, bishop of Colchester; Philip North, bishop of Burnley; John Perumbalath, bishop of Bradwell; Lee Rayfield, bishop of Swindon; Tony Robinson, bishop of Wakefield; Alan Smith, bishop of St Albans; John Thomson, bishop of Selby; Graham Tomlin, bishop of Kensington; Rachel Treweek, bishop of Gloucester; David Walker, bishop of Manchester and Pete Wilcox, bishop of Sheffield
The height of automotive folly
Jack Gordon’s defence of SUVs should not be left unchallenged (Letters). The popularity of sports utility vehicles is the prime reason why CO2 emissions from cars are going up even while total car registration numbers are going down. This is due to the increasing fondness of buyers for gas-guzzling SUVs. While occupants are likely to be safer than those of smaller cars in a crash, the same cannot be said of those they hit. Their greater height and rigid frame make them more lethal to passengers in smaller cars and to pedestrians. There is also a suggestion that SUVs are driven less safely because the protection makes drivers feel less vulnerable.
Chris Barker, Future Transport London
London N8
Sadly, the winner takes it all
Thanks to Simon Tisdall for an excellent article (“Trumpism isn’t dead. The battle for free democracies just got harder”, News commentary). However, his statement that “anywhere else, Biden’s lead of more than 4m votes would have won him the presidency” requires context.
In the UK, we also have a system where a party can win the popular vote but lose the election. In 1929, Labour had more MPs than the Conservatives but with a smaller popular vote. The February 1974 election also produced more MPs for Labour than Conservative, again with a smaller share of the popular vote. If we are to have a first-past-the-post, winner-takes-all election system, we have to live with these aberrations. The alternative of some type of proportional representation is something for which the UK has shown little appetite.
David Mishan
Brighton
Macron is no hypocrite
President Emmanuel Macron is not being illiberal or hypocritical when he insists on the importance of laïcité – literally, “lay-ness” (“Fanatics have no right to censor critics. But neither does Macron”, Comment). It is one of the fundamental principles of the French republic: the separation of state and religion, enshrined in a law of 1905, for the very good reason that ever since the 1789 revolution the Catholic church had aligned itself with every attempt to overthrow its achievements.
Two weeks ago, the Great Mosques of Paris and Lyon and other French Muslim associations said: “There are times when we must stand in solidarity with our country… We would like to recall that French law places great emphasis on freedom of expression… It is thanks to this essential foundation of the republic that we, as citizens of the Muslim faith, can exercise our worship.”
France has for 60 years been the main target of well-funded hardline Islamist movements whose goal is to impose a universal caliphate and sharia law. They are political movements, which is why Macron speaks very deliberately of “Islamist separatism”, not Muslim or Islamic.
Tim Salmon
London NW3
Right said Fred
In the 1992 general election, I was proud to be the Liberal Democrat candidate in the constituency where the mill part-owned by the father of Friedrich Engels once stood.
It was good to read Tristram Hunt’s tribute to Engels (“Does Marx’s man deserve more than ‘second fiddle’?”, Focus). Many of us on the non-socialist left believe that Engels’s analysis was superior to his predictions and prescriptions. Much of that analysis can still inform our politics but Friedrich probably had a better sense of humour than Karl. He would have relished his statue occupying Tony Wilson Place, named in honour of the co-founder of Factory Records.
Geoff Reid
Bradford
Cheese plant, anyone?
James Wong asks: “Is your cheese plant worth a small fortune?” (Magazine). He must be in a different world. I have two giant ones, for which I have been trying to find good homes, as they have taken over ours, but with no luck.
Martin Cooper
Bromley, London
