Steven Pinker certainly provides much food for thought (“Enlighten me…”, the New Review).
He is right to emphasise “the extraordinary progress that humankind has made in the past couple of hundred years”. And one may – reluctantly – agree that in some respects “humankind was becoming progressively less violent”.
Reluctantly, since the threat of a nuclear holocaust, the ultimate of nihilistic violence, is still hanging over us. But his claim that combating poverty is more important than reducing inequality or, indeed, that poverty can be eliminated without tackling inequality must be challenged.
The examples he gives still show that it is only some who benefit, as he himself points out: mainly the lower middle classes in the burgeoning economic giants such as China and India; the poorest are left further behind. Further, the academics Wilkinson and Pickett have shown that inequality is bad even for those who are not poor. The healthiest and happiest societies are those with the lowest levels of inequality.
Even more fundamentally, the fact remains that we live on a finite planet, with finite resources that we are already exploiting almost to the limit and in some cases beyond.
Frank Jackson
Harlow
I agree with Steven Pinker about the seminal greatness of Enlightenment thinkers and the absolute importance of reason and scientific method guiding our actions. However, I strongly disagree with his views on capitalism and the environment.
Capitalism has certainly created more rich people across the globe, but has this reduced inequality? The absolute poor have nothing that can be described as wealth. This is as true today as it has been at any time in the past. Yet 100 years ago, the absolute poor were at one end of a spectrum that extended to a handful of multimillionaires. Today, that spectrum worldwide extends from the same base to increasing numbers of obscenely rich multibillionaires. Also, I would contend that, owing to unchecked population growth, the actual numbers of absolute poor are greater now, even though in convenient percentage and percentile statistics they can be portrayed as decreasing.
Steve Edwards
Haywards Heath
Taxpayers profit from rail
It is simply not true to claim that the taxpayer will lose out on around £2bn from the East Coast franchise (Business leader). Indeed, millions of pounds each month are returned to taxpayers via this line and this will continue to be the case, no matter who runs it. There is no taxpayer subsidy required for this franchise to run and, since 2015, the franchise has returned almost £1bn to the public purse, paying 20% more, on average, to the government than when it was directly operated before 2015.
Stagecoach got its numbers wrong with the East Coast franchise. It overbid and is now paying a price. It has made a nearly £200m loss and will soon no longer be able to afford to pay the government the expected premiums. To put this figure in context, the rail profits for every franchise combined were only about £270m last year. In a competitive market, franchises will sometimes fail. When that happens, the government’s duty is to protect passengers and taxpayers and ensure continued investment in the railway. This is why passengers on the East Coast mainline can be assured that services will continue as normal.
Privatisation has helped transform our railway. It has driven competition, improved customer service, doubling the number of passenger journeys, and brought in £5.6bn of private investment over the last ten years. We have one of the highest satisfaction levels and safest networks in Europe and we are delivering new trains, which would not have happened without the private investment from rail franchising. There will be 7,000 new carriages introduced on the rail network between now and 2021.
You also claim that “the option of imposing a franchise-bidding moratorium was discarded”, but I was very clear on this point that the government has no adequate legal grounds to restrict Stagecoach from bidding for other franchises.
Chris Grayling
Transport secretary
Obama proved right on Syria
Your special report on the Syrian conflict provokes various melancholy thoughts, of which two stand out (News).
If you start a civil war, be as certain as possible that you have overwhelming support and will win it quickly; such wars have famously been the most savage and intractable of any. It’s not enough to get a nod and a wink from powerful backers, in this case, the Saudis.
The decision by Obama, following the British parliament, not to intervene was one of the wisest, if hardest, of his career; your report hardly does him credit. With already four or more parties to the conflict in 2013, it would have been impossible to reduce the chaos; if the intention had been to topple the Syrian government, the resulting mayhem and refugee crisis would have dwarfed even what was already happening.
Robin Milner-Gulland
Professor emeritus
University of Sussex
Simon Tisdall (News) explained to the lay person what a difficult situation has been building up in that benighted region for the last seven years, and how the attitudes of western governments influenced events and led to Russia’s decision to intervene seriously from 2015. Sadly, the piece wasn’t able to provide any hope. When even Russia’s attempt at getting the factions to speak to each other in Sochi has come to nothing, it doesn’t inspire hope for efforts by the west or the UN. Maybe, for the present, there is no answer, no magic bullet. However, we can at least be sure that serious journalists are monitoring and analysing the situation and that has to be a good thing.
Brenda McCraith
Geddington, Northamptonshire
Money could help teachers
Kartar Uppal, a teacher, tells us: “Throwing money at recruitment is not working. The government needs to sort out the conditions in the classrooms” (Letters). I’m not a teacher but am married to a former teacher and I have to take issue with your correspondent. It will only be possible to assess the effectiveness of throwing money at recruitment after this has happened, not before. Surely conditions in the classroom are affected by teacher numbers.
Recruitment has failed because teachers, who tell it like it is, easily outclass the panglossian adverts.
This government is not aiming to achieve universal equality in education (for teachers and pupils) and is, instead, obsessed with divisive free schools and academies, which is privatisation in all but name.
Multi-academy trusts are failing, much like rail franchises, but are still being encouraged to expand their control over the education of our children, regardless of proof of shortcomings and worse.
Eddie Dougall
Bury St Edmunds
Putting on hairs and graces
Assuming she’s not being ironic, Barbara Ellen (Comment) shows too much sympathy over Donald Trump’s hair “malfunction”.
While he may not be able to help his hair loss, he can avoid the choice he’s made to conceal it.
Trump’s constant gainsaying of truth makes his vainglorious bonnet the perfect metaphor. Fake news in, yes, a nutshell.
Ed Collard
West Bridgford
