Your report (Last British resident in Guantánamo to be freed after 13 years held without charge, 26 September) is welcome news. However, Shaker Aamer’s nightmare years of abuse and torture will be over only when he is safely home. This is the first time the Pentagon has announced a detainee transfer prior to a 30-day period for approval by US Congress. The UK government should demand his immediate return. He has suffered enough.
Joy Hurcombe
Worthing, West Sussex
• I have no idea about the accuracy of your article on Marxism Today (The long read, 29 September) except for the brief remark about Martin Jacques’s book on China. It has been comprehensively discredited by every China specialist known to me.
Jonathan Mirsky
London
• Bandiera Rossa may well have been Italian, but it was certainly one of the International Brigades’ “anthems” in Spain (Letters, 28 September). I well remember my dear old dad, who was wounded there in 1938, singing it when I was a young lad. Mind you, it was usually after a few pints of “heavy weightlifter” (half Guinness, half old ale).
Jack Jones
Plymouth
• I wonder why Anushka Patchava, who has now quit the Tories, chose now to leave the NHS (G2, 29 September)? Where’s she been for the last 10 years? Speechless.
Jennie Quilligan
London
• Seven days ago bookies were offering longer odds on there being water on Mars (Report, 29 September) than of Jeremy Corbyn becoming PM. A week’s a long time in both science and politics.
Toby Wood
Peterborough
• Susan Loppert writes of the “triumph of contemporary art” (Letters, 29 September). Might it not be best to wait for, say, a century before you say that?
Pete Bibby
Sheffield
