Matthew Taylor’s piece, “Housing is the nation’s most urgent and complex challenge. Yet we’re paralysed”, (Comment), mentions many things but ignores the British planning system. Nearly 25 years ago, the then Conservative government laid down that if land was to be used for housing then it had to be in the local authority’s five-year plan. Since it takes some years for these plans to be prepared and approved, land had to be put forward for approval many years before it might be developed. It was also decided at that time that market forces, ie the price of housing, should have no impact on housing supply, as had been possible with the more flexible system of the 1980s. The result has been that housing construction has never reached the levels that had been possible in the previous 40 years.
Successive governments, both Labour and Conservative, reduced the level of mortgage interest tax relief from 1976 onward, and it was finally abolished in 2000. Thus the tax advantage of borrowing large sums of money to buy a property has ceased to exist and renting has become more advantageous for the young.
Finally, he talks of having a land value tax and so providing “an incentive for land owners to develop their land”. But this would only be true if the land already had planning permission, when there is already an incentive. .
Professor Alan Evans
Department of Economics
University of Reading
Copper mine maligned
John Vidal targets the Escondida copper mine in Chile (“The map that shames the world”, News), certainly the largest in the world and probably not the place for quiet contemplation or a nice cappuccino. However, to imply that it has destroyed a “vast area of the Atacama desert” is wrong. The Atacama desert is huge, about 105,000 km sq, which is about four times the size of Wales.
The whole mine site barely covers 20 km sq and employs more than 2,000 people who certainly wouldn’t get a livelihood selling carved trinkets to passing tourists. Until they start making iPads out of wood then someone has to dig the dirty stuff from the ground. Wishing it were otherwise doesn’t make that any less of a reality.
Prof Mark Davenport
Beckenham, Kent
Don’t glorify biodynamics
Lucy Siegle thinks biodynamics is ethically an easy win (Magazine). Perhaps if she looked a little more closely she might reach a different conclusion. Far from being a scientist and philosopher Rudolf Steiner was an occultist and charlatan with an objectionable line in racial theory that persists in the movement to this day. Biodynamics is nothing more than organic agriculture with a thick layer of magical thinking piled on top. Worse, it helps to support a massive and opaque network of companies and institutions that exists solely to promote anthroposophy and its agenda.
The ram’s horns and so on might seem like a bit of harmless new age fun but they are all part of a backward looking, superstitious outlook that also pervades Steiner schooling, medicine and social care. So not such an ethical easy win.
Jim Watson
Stroud
Corbyn extreme? No
t at all
The accusation is widely made that Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters have moved to the extreme left on economic policy. But this is not supported by the candidate’s statements or policies. His opposition to austerity is actually mainstream economics, even backed by the conservative IMF. He aims to boost growth and prosperity. He voted against the shameful £12bn in cuts in the welfare bill.
Despite media coverage to the contrary, it is the current government’s policy and its objectives that are extreme. The attempt to produce a balanced public sector budget primarily through cuts to spending failed in the previous parliament. Increasing child poverty and cutting support for the most vulnerable are unjustifiable. Cutting government investment in the name of prudence is wrong because it prevents growth, innovation and productivity increases, which are all much needed by our economy and so, over time, increases the debt due to lower tax receipts. We are not all supporters of Jeremy Corbyn. But we hope to clarify just where the “extremism” lies in the current economic debate.
David Blanchflower professor of economics, Dartmouth and Stirling; Mariana Mazzucato professor, economics of innovation, Sussex; Dr Judith Heyer Emeritus Fellow, Somerville College, Oxford, plus 39 others. See observer.co.uk/letters
Grazia Ietto-Gillies, emeritus professor, London South Bank University
Malcolm Walker, emeritus professor, Leeds
Robert Wade, professor, LSE
Michael Burke, economist
Steve Keen, professor, Kingston
Victoria Chick, emeritus professor, UCL
Anna Coote
Ozlem Onaran, professor, Greenwich
Andrew Cumbers, professor, Glasgow
Tina Roberts, economist
Dr Suzanne J Konzelmann, Birkbeck,
Tanweer Ali, lecturer, New York
John Weeks, professor, SOAS
Marco Veronese Passarella, lecturer, Leeds
Dr Jerome De-Henau, senior lecturer, Open University.
Stefano Lucarelli, professor, Bergamo
Paul Hudson, formerly Universität Wissemburg-Halle
Mario Seccareccia, professor, Ottawa
Dr Pritam Singh, professor, Oxford Brookes
Arturo Hermann, senior research fellow at Istat, Rome
Dr John Roberts, Brunel
Cyrus Bina, professor, Minnesota
Alan Freeman, retired former economist
George Irvin, professor, SOAS
Susan Pashkoff, economist
Radhika Desai, professor, Manitoba
Diego Sánchez-Ancochea, associate professor, Oxford
Guglielmo Forges Davanzati, associate professor, Salento
Jeanette Findlay, senior lecturer, Glasgow
Raphael Kaplinsky, emeritus professor, Open University
John Ross, Socialist Economic Bulletin
Steven Hail, adjunct lecturer, Adelaide
Louis-Philippe Rochon, associate professor, Laurentian
Hilary Wainwright, editor, Red Pepper
Arturo Hermann, senior researcher, ISAE, Rome
Joshua Ryan-Collins
James Medway, lecturer City University
Alberto Paloni, professor, Glasgow
Dr Mary Roberton, Leeds
Too many children lack love
Your article about Ritalin prescriptions and ADHD misses an important issue (“Prescriptions for Ritalin more than double in a decade”, News). The majority of underachieving pupils, excluded pupils and pupils with behaviour problems suffer from attachment issues. Put simply, many of our children either do not feel, or are not, loved. A drug such as Ritalin cannot replace the lack of love and its partner, insecurity. It can only cover the symptoms caused by a society that is unwilling to recognise that a lack of love for young people is resulting in a crisis in child wellbeing, which no amount of drugs or academies can cure.
Geoff Logan
Runcorn
Cheshire
