Letters: Jeremy Hunt’s Budget will do little to save the Conservative Party from electoral disaster
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SIR –I am offended by Jeremy Hunt’s implication that income from “other sources” is somehow unfair and gaming the system (report, March 7).
My “other sources” are an occupational pension that I worked hard to achieve, and a state pension that I paid 47 years’ worth of National Insurance to earn. Mr Hunt’s Budget could so easily have been delivered by a Labour chancellor. The Conservative Party is surely heading for electoral disaster, because long-time Conservative voters like me cannot see any good reason to vote for this high-tax, big-state Government.
Norman Inniss
London SE9
SIR – I know little about economics, but I worked as a doctor in the NHS for nearly 40 years. To learn that it is to receive yet more money, without a solid plan to radically change service delivery, makes me despair.
The NHS is increasingly just a facility to treat acute illness and serious medical conditions such as cancer. Older people and those with a non-urgent problem – whether it is orthopaedic, minor surgery or dental treatment – either have to go privately or soldier on. Quality of life gradually diminishes, but no one seems to care.
The extra money will (indirectly) go on pay rises, while doctors continue to earn more money through private care from those who can just about afford it. We can and should do better.
Dr David Walters
Burton Bradstock, Dorset
SIR – It seems paradoxical that Jeremy Hunt should abolish the Furnished Holiday Lettings tax regime a couple of weeks after Rishi Sunak claimed to back farmers and rural communities (report, February 20).
Farmers have been encouraged to diversify since the 1970s, but now find their businesses are being attacked. Holiday cottages are not the same as long-term lets; they are businesses, which require hands-on attention and management. Their diminution will cost jobs and reduce visitor spending in rural areas of the country that have little else to fall back on.
Doubtless the idea of second homes reducing local housing stock will be blamed, but this has already been addressed by increasing the number of letting days needed to qualify for holiday-cottage business rates.
The majority of people affected by this will be rural business owners and their localities, not distant second-home owners.
Thomas Methuen-Campbell
Swansea
Landmark drug case
SIR – After many years of campaigning, veterans whose lives have been blighted by the drug Lariam have finally won a chance to state their case against the Ministry of Defence in the High Court next year (“Soldiers harmed by anti-malaria drug launch landmark legal claim against MoD”, report, March 3).
That the essential characteristic of quinoline drugs such as Lariam is that many of their side-effects are prodromal is key to this case. Even ostensibly insignificant events, such as restlessness or confusion, may be the only warning of a much more serious neuropsychiatric event – or even suicide – and mandate transfer to a safer alternative. As it is impossible to determine if such effects are caused by the drug or an operational environment, the use of Lariam is incompatible with safe military deployment.
Roche Pharmaceuticals, which manufactured and marketed Lariam, removed prodromal warnings from its UK patient and doctor leaflets in 1996 – only reinstating them in 2013, 11 years after they were restored in America.
Serial Ministry of Defence carelessness notwithstanding, the safety of many thousands of service personnel was compromised by this negligence. There is surely, a priori, a case for Roche to answer.
Lt Col Andrew Marriott (retd)
Great Smeaton, North Yorkshire
SIR – Your excellent article highlighted the true courage of the veterans who have persisted until, finally, 10 lead cases have been listed for trial at the High Court in March next year. I would like to pay tribute to both former infantry officer Dr Andrew Marriott and former paratrooper Dave Rimmington, who have fought tirelessly over many years to bring the Ministry of Defence to account over the prescribing of Lariam to Britain’s Armed Forces. I would also like to pay tribute to all the veterans’ wives and widows, who have given unfailing support to their husbands and partners.
I gave evidence with Lt Col Marriott at the Defence Select Committee Lariam Inquiry in 2015. A very damning report was published in 2016, but no one imagined that it would take nearly 10 more years until the veterans would get their day in court.
In 2014 one general commented: “Do not take on the MoD – you will never win.” The MoD underestimated the veterans’ determination.
Trixie Foster
Totnes, Devon
High-tech health
SIR – Regarding the NHS forcing patients to use its app and the latest technology (Letters, March 3), I have a scheduled hospital appointment for which I have received four text-message reminders and a call to my mobile phone. I have also had two emails, the latest of which told me I had to have a QR code on my phone to gain access to the unit in the hospital.
Fortunately, my husband sorted this out by forwarding the email to his tablet, taking a screenshot of the code, then transferring that to my phone by Bluetooth. But he also gave me a printed version of the QR code.
Helen Bacon
Bordon, Hampshire
SIR – I have read the numerous letters bemoaning the fact that smartphones are now de rigueur. Let’s just face it – like nuclear weapons, these things cannot be uninvented, they are a fact of modern life and must be accepted as such.
I will be 77 next year and now use my mobile or tablet for nearly everything, from payments, parking, prescriptions, banking and music, to appointments, shopping, booking flights and switching on electrical equipment. It is not hard – though it can be frustrating at times – and is certainly not impossible.
Remote access is also ensured, so for offspring to cite the unfairness of this technology to the elderly is a bit rich as they could, if so motivated, perform the tasks for their elders. So stop moaning and catch up.
Andrew McLeod
Witney, Oxfordshire
Britannia redux
SIR – In January, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, the cellist, reignited the debate about whether Rule, Britannia! should be included in the last night of the Proms, and now the MP Thangam Debbonaire has also spoken out against it (report, telegraph.co.uk, March 4).
When Ms Debbonaire objects to its inclusion in the Proms, is she unaware that it is an anti-slavery anthem (Letters, March 3) that celebrates the idea of defeating the Barbary Pirates? For centuries, they terrorised the coastal communities of the British Isles, infested the Irish Sea and are estimated to have taken hundreds of thousands of Britons into captivity. In fact, the slave-taking by these pirates was widespread across European coasts right up until the slavery system was challenged by the actions of European navies, including the Royal Navy.
The repeated moans about Rule, Britannia! are particularly irritating because those complaining never seem to acknowledge that slaves and slavers were both black and white. I would like to think that MPs know their history and believe that all Britons – regardless of their ethnicity – should be entitled to celebrate freedom from slavery, then and now.
Jenny Unsworth
Congleton, Cheshire
No substitute for reading Genesis in Hebrew
SIR – I enjoyed the review by Dr Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, of Reading Genesis, by Marilynne Robinson (“Think you know the Book of Genesis? This will make you think again”, Arts, March 6).
Though his review was very favourable, it seemed to me that what Dr Williams was actually trying to say – but could not quite bring himself to articulate – was that if you really want to understand the Book of Genesis, you need to have an in-depth knowledge of Classical Hebrew. This would mean that you are then able to read the text as it was originally written, together with the great Talmudic and post-Talmudic commentaries.
Indeed, if that is too difficult (though I have no doubt that Dr Williams is himself a formidable Hebrew scholar), then the seeker of understanding will find a wide range of far more enlightening books than the one he was reviewing, containing detailed exegesis of the text, in any Jewish bookshop.
Brian Gedalla
London N3
War connections
SIR – My father, who was born 1891, and his brothers – three Irish Guards and one Royal Lancer – all saw action on the front line (Letters, March 3). Against the odds all survived, though my father was wounded twice, and all served again in the Second World War, as did many of their surviving contemporaries.
My father recalled liberating a picture of the Kaiser from a German officers’ dugout during one of the campaigns. The Kaiser was his brother’s godfather.
Earl Alexander of Tunis
London SW6
SIR – My great-uncle Jim, who was in the Royal Munster Fusiliers, was killed in 1915 on the first day of the Battle of Loos in France, trying to save his company commander.
My wife’s great-uncle Thomas, of the Gordon Highlanders, was killed in the same battle, on the same day.
Jim is buried there at Dud Corner Cemetery, a very bleak place. Thomas was never found, but is remembered on the wall there.
David Ellis
Ellon, Aberdeenshire
SIR – I had a dear neighbour who, on approaching his 100th birthday, waited excitedly for the customary telegram from the Queen. His birthday came and went, however, with no sign of one. On checking his records, it was discovered that he had lied about his age in order to sign up to fight, so was actually a year younger than he thought. He failed to make it to his 100th birthday, so sadly never received his telegram.
David Pearson
Bottisham, Cambridgeshire
Named in a letter
SIR – Combining both the First World War and retro names (Letters, March 3), in 1918 my grandmother sent a telegram to my grandfather at the front. It read: “We have a son. I am calling him Gervaise Aleric Alvis.”
He sent a reply: “You are not. We are calling him John Clive Malcolm.”
These were the names of his platoon commanders. My father was always grateful to the efficient postal service.
Anthony Stoker
Shilbottle, Northumberland
SIR – Like Paul Rutherford (Letters, March 3), I am grateful that my parents disallowed my brothers’ choice of name for me. I thus avoided having to go through life called Noddy.
Jan Bardey
Kineton, Warwickshire
SIR – My father used to tell us about a large family who lived in the same village as him when he was a child. All the boys were named after boxers and the girls after flowers. On the birth of the latest addition, a girl, her siblings were asked to suggest names. One of her brothers, impatient to get out to play, said: “Just call the bugger Rhubarb.”
Wendy Rainford
Brayton, North Yorkshire
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