Letters: Fine words on Ukraine will mean little if Britain doesn’t send jets

SIR – Rounds of applause, standing ovations, multiple handshakes and statements such as “Nothing is off the table”, spoken in the euphoria of the moment, do not win wars.

If Ukraine’s borders are to be restored and its people liberated, Volodymyr Zelensky must be given the “wings for freedom” that he pleads for.

While we in the West watch events unfold on our televisions and mobile devices from the comfort of our living rooms, and complain about the price of electricity, the Ukrainian people are fighting for their very lives.

David S Ainsworth
Manchester

SIR – Like Simon Morpuss (Letters, February 9), I found that Volodymyr Zelensky’s speech in Westminster Hall on Wednesday restored my faith that there is at least one leader with real gravitas in the world.

In the fight against Russia, President Zelensky and his people are defending Western civilisation on behalf of us all. The least we can do is supply them with the weapons they require to defeat the bloodthirsty tyrant in the Kremlin.

Stan Labovitch
Windsor, Berkshire

SIR – President Zelensky is dealing with challenges beyond anything that our politicians face. He comes across as a brave, natural, optimistic person devoid of pretence.

It is a great pity that no one on either front bench at Westminster comes close to matching him. He didn’t start out as a politician but he has learnt the game – and he puts our polished, trained and groomed brigade to shame.

Mick Ferrie
Mawnan Smith, Cornwall

SIR – Dominic Nicholls rightly highlights the potential difficulties of training Ukrainian pilots to use Typhoon and F-35 aircraft, pointing out that it takes years to reach the standard required.

However, there is another problem to address: even if Ukraine did have the pilots needed to fly these aircraft, who would service them? It also takes a long time to train ground crew technicians – first in their specialism (whether working on the engine, airframe, weapons or safety equipment) and then for the particular aircraft on which they work.

I fully agree that we should give as much to Ukraine as we can, but our plans should also be fully thought through.

John Simpson
Kirriemuir, Angus

SIR – Our taxes have reached a 70-year high, our borrowing is close to 100 per cent of GDP, and since cutting public services appears to be out of the question, where exactly does this Government think it will get the money for rearming our denuded Armed Forces after our generous gifts to Ukraine?

Alan Stanley
London SE5

Pointless HS2

SIR – It has long been argued that HS2 is necessary for improving both travel times and capacity between London and the North.

Now, to cut costs, the speed and frequency of the trains could be reduced. The political party that promises to stop this project once and for all will get my vote.

David Barnett
Newark, Nottinghamshire

SIR – It is disappointing to read that HS2 could face further cuts. Infrastructure costs are rising across the board as a result of ongoing inflationary pressures on the economy. The same goes for HS2; higher costs are not because of any problems with the project itself.

Reducing service frequency and line speeds is mooted, yet neither of these would result in massive savings; instead they would dilute the benefits of the project. The land still has to be purchased, the tracks laid, the tunnels, bridges and stations built. These are where the bigger costs lie.

What does add to costs, on any project, is chopping and changing its scope once it is already into the delivery phase. Cutting trains and lowering speeds may save a few pennies, but continually putting the brakes on delivery of the project will prove far more costly.

Richard Thorp
Director, High Speed Rail Group
London NW1

Shame on the Met

SIR – The state of the Metropolitan Police beggars belief. The misogyny, racism, incompetence and corruption have been plain to see for years, yet nothing has been done until now.

The horrendous murder of Sarah Everard by a serving officer, and the despicable rapes committed over many years by another serving officer, are clearly the tip of an enormous iceberg.

The new commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, appears to be the right person to turn the organisation around, but I am astounded that the previous commissioners over the last 15 years or so have got off so lightly. They have displayed staggering ineptitude. Yet Ian Blair and Bernard Hogan-Howe received peerages, and Cressida Dick was awarded a damehood in 2019. It is as if the force’s current problems have nothing to do with them.

John Rump
London SE11

Laughed off the road

SIR – Michael Gough Cooper (Letters, February 9) laments the preponderance of grey vehicles on Britain’s roads.

My last two cars have been chocolate brown (described by the manufacturer as “bronze”) and vivid lime green; and even though I say that you can’t tell what colour a car is when you’re sitting inside it, and I’ve never lost either in a car park, both vehicles (and I) have been the subject of much scorn and ridicule from friends and family.

Perhaps that is why most people opt for grey cars.

John Shires
Rastrick, West Yorkshire

Trifle tip

SIR – Xanthe Clay put forward a valiant defence of sherry trifle.

However, I’m afraid she forgot to strew the top with toasted, flaked almonds.

Shirley Puckett
Tenterden, Kent

NHS understaffing

SIR – When ministers invoke “affordability” as a reason not to compromise with health unions on pay, they are using the word inappropriately.

Striking health workers are particularly concerned about the inability of the NHS to recruit and retain staff because of a failure to value their work highly enough compared with the private sector. Their only alternative to strike action is to leave the service.

There has been a constant stream of reports – such as the Ockenden review of poor maternity care with disastrous outcomes for mothers and babies – which have stressed the key role of understaffing in their findings.

In 2022, Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor (then chair of the Health and Social Care Select Committee), said: “Persistent understaffing in the NHS poses a serious risk to staff and patient safety, a situation compounded by the absence of a long-term plan by the government to tackle it.”

Health care cannot be governed by politically determined “affordability”, and senior ministers need to be called to account at the next investigation into poor NHS outcomes for knowingly funding an unsafe service.

Dr Phil Taylor
Kilmington, Devon

Welby’s defiance

SIR – The Archbishop of Canterbury says he won’t be told what to do by MPs over wedding blessings for same-sex couples.

Fair enough, except that he has become accustomed to giving regular gratuitous lectures to parliamentarians about what they should think and do about a wide range of topics.

Perhaps we’d all be better off if he focused more of his time on the plight of his parishes, the poverty of his priests, their declining congregations and their crumbling places of worship.

Ken Torkington
Abergavenny, Monmouthshire

Dress-down nation

SIR – An acquaintance now resident in Dubai recently visited us in Britain. I asked him if he had noted any stark changes in the decade he’d been away.

He recounted an evening out at an upmarket stag celebration, to which he arrived smartly turned-out. The shabby and scruffy appearance (Letters, February 8) of many there left him shaking his head in disbelief.

Julie K James
Muston, Leicestershire

The reassuring sight of a reliable power supply

SIR – During my daily walk of the dog in Allestree Park I have the pleasure of seeing Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station, 14 miles away, which is helping us keep the show on the road (“Coal power station put on standby as low winds forecast”, report, February 6). It is both impressive and reassuring.

A Bennett
Derby

SIR – We now have a government department focusing on energy and net zero (Letters, February 8). Will this make the slightest difference to the current structure and workings of the energy market? Probably not.

The zealous support for renewables coming from Labour and the Liberal Democrats was sunk on Tuesday, with wind contributing a miniscule 4 per cent to aggregated generation. Wind was outperformed by solar generation until dusk.

The repeated assertions that wind power is the cheapest form of generation are misplaced. Both wind and solar are intermittent. Industry and commerce need reliable, cost-effective and secure power supplies. The impact of high energy prices is serious and a major constraint on British competitiveness.

Renewables have a favoured position in the current overly complex and opaque market structure. Strip away this position and they would be uncompetitive.

Philip N Mortimer
Bognor Regis, West Sussex

The House of Lords has overstepped the mark

SIR – I have never been in favour of abolishing the House of Lords. As a revising chamber it is a useful protection against extreme legislation, but after Wednesday’s vote on the Public Order Bill (Letters, February 9) I am seriously reconsidering my opinion.

That the blocking of a road by a protest group walking slowly and deliberately along it should not be an offence is beyond belief. If it is not a “serious disruption” of people’s legitimate activities, I do not know what is. The Lords are more interested in making trouble for the Government than implementing common sense on behalf of the public. Their action suggests to me that if I dislike a proposal by the Government or a local council, I should get friends together and walk slowly arm-in-arm along the high street or local motorway.

J I Macnab
Bolton, Lancashire

SIR – The House of Lords has turned our once-proud democracy on its head. It is overcrowded and unrepresentative of the balance of power in the House of Commons. It also has a sizable majority ready to oppose any aspect of the Brexit that was voted for and is yet to be achieved.

Promises of reform have been made in the past but, scandalously, nothing has been done.

David Rammell
Everton, Hampshire

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