I agree with your editorial (“Separating children from parents marks a new low”). The Trump administration appears to be rowing back from its heinous policy, presumably because of the worldwide opprobrium it has received. Snatching children from their parents has been the nadir of gross inhumanity to people whose only crime is wanting a better life for themselves and their families. As you state, this generation of children has known nothing but war, poverty and conflict, and you can only wonder at the future mental health implications.
Hopefully, there will now be a global change of heart: Britain is not alone in failing to provide the necessary and humane support to disenfranchised people from war-torn areas. Somehow, refugees have been viewed in a way that should be alien in a civilised society. In the future, governments will be judged harshly for their dereliction of moral duty.
Angela Merkel may now be feeling the legacy of her “let them come” policy, but at least she stood by her principles and conscience. Through his cold, callous actions, Trump’s conscience in this matter appears to be missing – and this is the scariest indictment of them all.
Judith A Daniels
Cobholm, Great Yarmouth
Norfolk
There were two holes in your editorial calling for improved immigration policies globally. First, Donald Trump still has massive support, probably from people who agree with his “zero-tolerance” policies; and second, Theresa May will do nothing even remotely useful about this issue.
Even an “uncompromising message” from Britain will be ignored by Trump, so forget about trying to change America. Here at home the battle is just as nasty, since May’s “hostile environment” still rules the day, and almost all of the Brexit vote came from anti-immigrant attitudes fostered by the Tory party and the rightwing press. But, with the Tories prepared to run Britain into the ground and crash out of Europe, there will be no change in my lifetime.
We have utterly failed to play a decent role over this issue, leaving the poorest nations in southern and eastern Europe having to deal with the difficulties mass immigration is causing, with no input from Britain whatsoever. Hence the rise of fascism in Hungary and elsewhere. Change begins at home.
David Reed
London NW3
Don’t call us, Rhik…
What planet does Rhik Samadder live on (“Funny how we don’t talk any more”, Magazine, last week)? Is he too young to understand how society works? Everybody I know uses the telephone, leaves messages, uses various forms of call screening.
Janet Longden
Felton, Bristol
The sadness of Southwold
As someone who recently rented a property for a week for the second time in the beautiful town of Southwold, I share the locals’ concerns (“Locals rise up against blight of empty holiday homes”, News).
Even in June the number of empty properties seems to outnumber those occupied and the town is in danger of losing its identity and becoming merely a holiday village for the elderly.
I am happy to pay the high price for staying there, but was annoyed to find out that the “investors”, laughingly called homeowners by the rental companies that appear to run the town, do not pay council tax. But that is probably why there is not even a tourist office in the town, and poorly subsidised local transport.
Trevor Hopper
Lewes, East Sussex
Masterly mystery
While I applaud the church’s newfound enthusiasm for the occasionally scurrilous and always engaging Mystery Plays (“Cathedrals pull in crowds with revival of the middle ages”, News), I’m afraid Chester’s acting dean Jane Brooke promulgates the old myth about the reason they were so named.
Far from being a “mystery” to the non-clerical population (who would hardly forget something mounted annually), the name derives from the makers and performers of the plays, the guilds. The members of these medieval trade unions were also known as “masters” and, according to professor Glynne Wickham’s equally masterful 1974 account, The Medieval Theatre, “mystery” is merely an accented corruption of “mastery”.
Richard Lee
Leigh-on-Sea, Essex
Racist? You’re having a laugh
Judging by her photo, Rebecca Nicholson is very young and has never actually seen an episode of Till Death Us Do Part (“That’s quite enough silly walks. New voices please”, People). Therefore I wish to explain to her, and anyone else suffering from a similar misapprehension, that to call this comedy classic overtly racist is like calling The Handmaid’s Tale overtly misogynistic, or accusing Nineteen Eighty-Four of being a public relations job for totalitarianism.
The programme is in fact a brilliantly satirical attack on the delusions, narcissism and mind-numbing stupidity of racism. In the 1970s, only the wilfully ignorant and terminally bigoted thought otherwise.
Steve Edwards
Haywards Heath, West Sussex
Reward NHS whistleblowers
With regard to Catherine Bennett’s article (“After Gosport, who would want to be elderly and in hospital now?”, Comment), I would make the observation that safety is disaster-led.
After the Herald of Free Enterprise ferry sank in 1987, killing 193 passengers and crew, marine safety regulations were tightened. Shipping companies were made responsible for safety of life at sea, in addition to the duties of captain and crew. Safety improved. Working as a ship’s doctor from 2003 to 2015, I witnessed an innovative development. A monthly prize was awarded to the crew member who reported the most significant safety concern leading to a change in practice.
The NHS needs to reward whistleblowers, especially those whose testament leads to an increase in safety. It must fundamentally change the current situation in which staff are worried about the personal consequences of whistleblowing, often unsupported or victimised.
How about an annual prize for the NHS organisation that has made the most effective safety improvements as a result of staff-reported concerns? Regulation and reward. Carrot and stick.
Dr Ruth Taylor
London N1
Town mouse, country mice
I’ve finally had it with country folk having a go at Londoners (“Of birds and bees”, Letters). Our organic London garden is full of frogs, toads, newts, lone bees and butterflies. But then we don’t live in the middle of the barren chemical wasteland that used to be the countryside. We even still have hedges.
Country dwellers have allowed landowners, estate managers and agribusiness to blitz the land with pesticides and chemical fertiliser, killing everything that made the country what it once was – a natural habitat.
When, country dwellers, you have repaired the appalling, criminal damage around yourselves, you may refer to our own polluted failings, but until then – shut up!
Christopher Jackson
London SE24
