I found Will Hutton’s suggestion that in 2029 there could be a referendum on EU membership most encouraging (“I was one of the millions opposed to Brexit. I’ve seen nothing here to change my mind”, Comment). I am 76 and perhaps I will live long enough to vote Remain again, hopefully resulting in the UK rejoining the EU. I could then die knowing the UK had seen sense and that my grandchild would enjoy all the benefits of being part of the EU.
Virginia Brown
Talgarth, Powys
The Observer provided valuable analysis on the Brexit deal. The deal is essentially one of damage limitation, with the negatives overwhelmingly outweighing the positives. Particularly disheartening were Fintan O’Toole’s analogies with death – “funereal mode” and “moment of finality” (“So long, we’ll miss you – we Europeans see how much you’ve helped to shape us”, Comment). However, whereas death is final, leaving the EU is clearly not irreversible, as upliftingly made clear by Will Hutton.
When the reality of Brexit has an adverse impact on the personal circumstances of the electorate, sentiment will undoubtedly change. One thing is inevitable: the 2016 referendum on EU membership will not be the last.
David Newens
Milton Keynes
Tim Adams’s thought-provoking “adieu” to the EU (“We’re out of the European Union. Just how did we get here?”, Focus) is a timely warning that previous breaks with Europe, notably the 1533 schism from Rome, have, far from opening minds to a more cosmopolitan outlook, resulted in creating centuries of fear, nativist intolerance and even the persecution of those on the losing side.
As the Erasmus programme, which encourages inter-European learning, is closed to British students, can we now expect other iconoclastic pogroms to eradicate all signs and memories of EU influence in this country, whether it be regional assistance grants, funding of the arts or initiatives such as European capital of culture or disabled access city awards? Does a similar fate to Tudor recusants now await the 48% Remainers if they dare to express nostalgic thoughts about ending our 47 years of EC/EU membership?
Paul Dolan
Northwich, Cheshire
Shame the guilty in Goa
Thank you for drawing attention to the environmental destruction facing Goa’s forests (“Fury as Goa’s rare wildlife park faces invasion by rail and road”, World). It is all too easy for us in the west to wring our hands and then look away. Instead, we should find out which western financial institutions are backing the coal and infrastructure projects involved. Investment banks, pension funds, insurers and reinsurers are increasingly sensitive about being involved in unsustainable businesses. Lobby groups such as Greenpeace and Unfriend Coal do a good job in highlighting the guilty parties and help people like us to take our business elsewhere.
Garry Booth
Halesworth, Suffolk
Sutton, London
Not all can afford TV licence
In his letter, David Flower says that it is beyond him why anyone would want to risk all that the BBC gives us “to save the cost of one cup of coffee per week” (“The BBC is worth every penny”, Letters). This reminded me of something that I once read in a Daily Mirror column by Keith Waterhouse back in the 1980s. Waterhouse said that you could always tell when you were being conned whenever anyone reduced the cost of something to so many cigarettes per day.
I am glad that Mr Flower can easily afford his TV licence. Millions of the poorest people in the UK cannot. Ask the Trussell Trust whether it thinks the one in every 50 families in the UK that it says is now accessing food banks, or the 800,000 people and rising who have been made redundant this year, can afford to spend £157.50 a year on a TV licence that they might otherwise spend on heating, food or electricity?
Dr Kenneth Smith
London E2
Teachers raise aspirations
In her article (“With a deal done, can No 10 turn ‘levelling up’ into more than a nebulous phrase?”, Comment), Isabel Hardman writes: “Young people growing up in struggling towns are still told by their teachers or parents that people from their area don’t go to top universities or into certain well-paid jobs. One north-west MP explains, ‘We need to attract better teachers from elsewhere because when you just take from the pool of people in the local areas, it’s no surprise that the aspiration level is the same.’”
I am a teacher and I don’t recognise the teachers who are being talked about. I have taught for 25 years and have never had a conversation with any student where I have tried to lower their aspirations and discourage them from applying to top universities or kept secret the fact that there are “certain well-paid jobs” that they might apply for. Why on earth would anyone do that, let alone a teacher?
I work in the north-west (though I am originally from “elsewhere”, which might, according to this, make me one of the “better” teachers). I would love to invite the north-west MP to spend a day with us and see the work we do daily to raise aspirations. Perhaps they could volunteer to take part in the government’s mass testing scheme, due to be rolled out in schools soon, while they are there.
Suzanne Davies
Chorltonville, Manchester
Impostors all?
Full marks to Jacinda Ardern for her openness about impostor syndrome (“Some pretty smart women claim to be racked by impostor syndrome. Do men just not get it?”, Comment). However, I feel Catherine Bennett has made an issue of sexism out of something that has very little, if anything, to do with gender. In doing so, she does a disservice both to male sufferers and to female leaders, not all of whom are afflicted. To use David Cameron, Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg as a typical representation of male power is absurd, given that all three were Eton-educated Tories. Would she also suggest that Gandhi was arrogant and brimming with egotism or that Margaret Thatcher was full of self-doubt?
Steve Clarke
Northampton
Don’t judge a book…
It was wonderful to read of the support for independent bookshops in Barcelona, and that readers value bookshop owners’ suggestions for what they might enjoy next, rather than being given advice by an algorithm (“In a year of forced solitude, Catalans rediscover the companionship of books”, World).
In either case it’s essential that the expert understands what a given book is about. I remember finding an early edition of The Elephant Man (the reminiscences of Sir Frederick Treves, the Victorian surgeon who helped the deformed Joseph Merrick) in the foreign travel section of a secondhand bookshop in Hay-on-Wye, among volumes on the delights of India and Nepal. There must be many similarly amusing mistaken identities waiting to raise a smile on bookshop shelves or in the “minds” of algorithms. Fifty Shades of Grey for the home improver?
Tina Rowe
Ilchester, Somerset
