Letters: The West can look to Ukraine to see why appeasement of Iran won’t work
SIR – Those calling for Israel to respond with restraint to the latest attack on its territory should reflect on the fact that many non-democratic regimes, like playground bullies, interpret restraint as both weakness and an opportunity for further aggression.
The democratic West forced Ukraine to restrain its response in 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea, and continues to restrain it today. Do we really think fundamentalist Iran is more enlightened than Russia?
Deborah Tompkinson
Maidenhead, Berkshire
SIR – Charles Moore (Comment, April 16) writes that the West’s advice to Israel is not to retaliate because that leads to escalation, and so “Tehran will notice, and be emboldened”, which in turn means that Iran will naturally escalate.
Israel cannot stand back and allow this to happen.
Murray Surtees
Southern River, Western Australia
SIR – It is vital that Iran is prevented from getting nuclear weapons because its leaders are irrational enough to use them.
Israel now has the perfect excuse to go after Iran’s nuclear facilities in retaliation. It must be extremely tempting.
Bob Shacklock
Onchan, Isle of Man
SIR – In defiance of what is common sense to most of us, Foreign Office mandarins will have placed before the Government a list of superficially plausible reasons, no doubt beautifully articulated, why the nefarious and vicious Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) should not be proscribed by the UK as a terrorist organisation.
Common sense has been an infrequent visitor to King Charles Street in recent years. It seems the same might now be said of Downing Street.
Terry Smith
London NW11
SIR – I listened carefully to the Iran and Israel statement and questions in the House of Commons on Monday. Twice the Prime Minister claimed that the IRGC has been sanctioned “in its entirety”.
Yet David Jones, the Conservative MP for Clwyd West, asserted that members of the IRGC can be seen “dining out in restaurants in west London quite regularly”.
Surely they cannot both be correct.
Keith Phair
Felixstowe, Suffolk
SIR – Recent events have again demonstrated the vital importance of air power.
Israel and Western security were protected by the judicious use of an integrated air-defence system to repel Iranian attacks.
We are living through a very dangerous time. We need to invest and prepare now.
Gp Capt Bob Evans (retd)
Cardiff
Ulez errors
SIR – I have an almost antique silver Mazda with an unusual number plate that has been identified by the Ulez system.
It turns out that a black Audi is being mistaken for my vehicle. I wonder if others are having this problem, resulting in their cars being charged even though they are still in the garage.
Hugh Blanchard
Bromley, Kent
SIR – Charles Cooper’s letter (“Orwellian Ulez threats”, April 16) illustrates how inept the system is.
My son received a penalty charge. The details and registration number of his vehicle, a 2003 Ford Mondeo, were correct. However, the vehicle in the accompanying photograph – the “proof” – was clearly different, possibly a Nissan SUV and certainly not my son’s car (which had never been within 100 miles of London).
As in Mr Cooper’s case, Transport for London would not accept this. He had to photograph his vehicle and send copies to the Ulez agents before they accepted they were wrong and withdrew the penalty. Who controls such an obviously flawed operation?
Arthur Bayley
Tyldesley, Lancashire
SIR – I am reminded of the action TfL took against me over Congestion Charge fines – which I had in fact paid – involving Northampton court threats, bailiff visits and so on.
I counter-claimed compensation for the distress caused and won thousands of pounds. I did this on my own, with no solicitor. My advice is to go for it.
John Wallace
London SW18
The ban wagon
SIR – I have just listened to Professor Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, justifying the smoking ban because “people can get addicted from an early age”. The same applies to alcohol, so will the Government seek to ban that next?
Jonathan Yardley
Wolverhampton
SIR – Eliminating cigarette smoke in Britain will only see its replacement by the pungent smell of cannabis, which seems to pervade every high street.
I do wish those who want tobacco banned in this country would do the same to clear our streets of the illegal use of drugs.
Brian Thorne
Shillingstone, Dorset
Safely received
SIR – After leaving the Wrens in 1948, my aunt became an announcer for the British Overseas Airways Corporation at London Airport.
She had to go through six weeks of training to learn how to announce clearly. This involved eradicating her typical upper-class accent (Letters, April 16) and adopting a certain pitch. Every six months she was sent on a refresher course.
The “BBC voice” was invented to allow everyone to hear and understand what was being said. The enunciation of vowels was important for the hard-of-hearing, for example. The newsreaders were also originally trained to keep their voices deadpan, not inflecting emotion, so as to avoid any suggestion of bias.
Received Pronunciation, it is thought, started around 1800, with the advent of the public schools and then the railways, and is supposedly the Mayfair dialect. Before that all classes spoke with regional dialects, and even those would vary from village to village.
Timothy Morgan-Owen
Melbourne, Derbyshire
Insurance hikes
SIR – The recent surge in home and motor insurance (Letters, April 16) comes soon after providers were forced to stop offering lower premiums to new customers. Clearly, when the opportunity to shop around existed, it focused the companies’ minds on renewal costs.
Now they effectively have a captive market, so can charge what they want. So much for market controls by government.
Alan Phillips
Brighton, East Sussex
SIR – Readers wondering why so little is being done about spiralling UK car insurance prices should not forget that the Government has a stake in the process via the Insurance Premium Tax, which is added to all premiums. It started at 2.5 per cent in 1994 but is now 12 per cent and raises more than £7 billion a year – about the same as is raised by inheritance tax.
Bernard Kerrison
Boca Grande, Florida, United States
SIR – The company I was with quoted me £1,027 to renew my car insurance, up from £487. When I looked online, I managed to get two quotes for just over £500. Naturally, I went for the lower of the two, which seems to give me exactly the same cover as my previous policy.
Mary King
Farnham, Surrey
Ruinous weddings
SIR – I was married in 1961, when I was 22, and when hen nights did not really exist. I was very privileged, however: we had a beautiful service in the lovely old village church, followed by a champagne and canapé reception in a marquee on the family lawn. My new husband and I then set off on our honeymoon. It was perfect and the memories sustain me still, now that I have been alone for eight months after 62 happy years with him.
Meanwhile, my granddaughter has gone to a European capital city for a hen weekend, the cost of which she can ill afford. Her partner is also in a European capital city for the stag do, and the wedding is to be held in yet another European capital. None of these cities has any particular meaning for the couple getting married.
I simply cannot understand a prospective bridal couple expecting friends to spend this sort of money. If they are determined to have this experience, they should pay for their guests as well. I just hope they are not also expecting a present.
Patricia Canneva
Epping, Essex
To debate, or not to debate, that is the question
SIR – Oliver Kamm’s attack on the London Library for hosting a discussion about a book he seemingly hasn’t read or understood (“Much ado about library event suggesting Shakespeare was female”, report, April 14) can only help stir up some of the “anti-intellectual” sentiment he says he is so concerned about.
This book, already a set text on a Harvard history course called “historical controversies”, is a well-researched exploration of the history of Shakespeare doubt and its suppression.
In his complaint to the library, Mr Kamm scoffs at the idea that this subject is taboo, while demonstrating the taboo in action by arguing that the debate is “wildly inappropriate”. If established ideas can be so dangerously threatened by a book, might I suggest there is something here worth further exploration? Perhaps in a panel event with the author?
Dr Ros Barber
Goldsmiths, University of London
London SE14
SIR – There are many fine actors with disabilities who should have been considered for the role of Richard III (“Theatre boss gets the hump over role of Richard III going to able-bodied actors”, report, April 16). A non-disabled person will never be able to portray a disability adequately because they cannot know what being disabled feels like.
Shame on the Globe for not making the effort to have Richard III properly portrayed.
Sarah Leggat
Hollingbourne, Kent
The barriers that stood in the path to university
SIR – Pamela Taor (Letters, April 12) observes that she was able to receive a local authority grant to study medicine, to which there was an income-based parental contribution, unless one was a mature student who had paid tax and National Insurance for three years or more.
But in 1958, about 4 per cent of school-leavers went to university: by 1980 it was 8 per cent, and by 1990 15 per cent.
At that time many more people had O-levels than degrees. Grades have been inflated so much that today one would have to know a lot more about a graduate to determine calibre.
Previous generations either left school through choice at the minimum leaving age and trained on the job or, especially in the case of girls, were made to leave. Once one gets beyond the privately educated, a girl stood a better chance of getting to Oxford if her father was a teacher, or the parents feared she may not find a husband as a result of being “too intelligent”. And a much higher proportion of girls who did get to university dropped out to get married before taking their degree.
Jacqueline Castles
London W2
Letters to the Editor
We accept letters by email and post. Please include name, address, work and home telephone numbers.
ADDRESS: 111 Buckingham Palace Road, London, SW1W 0DT
EMAIL: dtletters@telegraph.co.uk
FOLLOW: Telegraph Letters on Twitter @LettersDesk
NEWSLETTER: sign up to receive Letters to the Editor here
