Hate your heat pump? Then buy a better one! Letters in The Week on the pros and cons of heat pumps.

The letters below appeared in the October 23 edition of The Week having first been published in The Daily Telegraph.  It appears to me that air-source heat pumps are a waste of money and effort, and ground-source heat pumps are only viable if you have room on your land for 320 feet of trench – fine if you are fortunate enough to own “fields”!

Hate your heat pump?

To The Daily Telegraph.

I’m no expert, but I have had personal experience of a heat pump during the past seven years.  It was sourced and installed by a German company.  Does the Government know how cumbersome they are, and how they dribble water?  Ours is installed outside in our back yard, as there’s no way we could accommodate such a large appliance inside our home.  We have a thriving moss patch around it.

Do ministers know how they guzzle electricity in colder weather in order to function at all, or how loud they are?  I’ve had to apologise to neighbours many times over the years about the noise, which kicks in at the most unexpected and inopportune times.

Maja Dijkstra, Glasgow.

Then buy a better one.

To The Daily Telegraph.

Maja Dijkstra perpetuates the commonly held belief that all heat pumps are air-source, but this is not the case.  I have an excellent ground-source heat pump, which provides abundant hot water and keeps the house warm, with lower bills.  It has done so for 13 years.  Its disadvantages were its cost and the inconvenience of installation: it required two 160 foot trenches to be dug in our fields.  However, if all new houses had to have ground-source heat pump, the expense would be incorporated into the cost of the home, and the work could be done by the builders.  Air-source heat pumps are indeed noisy and don’t work very well when it is really cold.  People buy them because they are cheaper and convenient to install – but these appear to be their only advantages.

Elizabeth Jones, Chard, Somerset.

So it seems we will have to give up our efficient gas boilers and install new systems using an expensive and complicated technology in order to meet the Government’s “ambitious” net-zero-carbon targets. Yet we live on an island made of coal which also contains an abundance of shale gas.  Unfortunately our so-called Conservative Government led by Boris, and his wife, appear to be fully supportive of Greta Thunberg and in step with the eco loons belonging to Extinction Rebellion.

Afghanistan and the lessons from history. Letters in The Week.

The letters below appeared in The Week published on Sept 4 2021.  Each show an interesting take on the lessons from history which have, or should that be haven’t, been learned from events in the graveyard of Empires.

Afghanistan: Lessons from history.

To The Guardian

One can perhaps forgive Americans for botching the Afghanistan campaign, but the British, who fought the Afghans three times (1839, 1878 and 1919), should have known better.

When, before the first Anglo-Afghan war of 1839, Lord Auckland, the head of the British invading force, asked the Maharajah Ranjit Singh, the Sikh ruler of Punjab, to undertake the responsibility of invading Kabul, the Maharajah refused; he knew only too well that they were easy to conquer, but difficult to rule; that they were a mosaic of competing tribes, which ensured that no strong central authority maintained its power over them for too long.  It is a pity that Western leaders could not foresee in 2001 what Ranjit Singh could in 1839.

Randhir Singh Baines, London.

Obviously the Sikhs knew the Afghans far, far better than the British, or anyone else for that matter.

 

To the Financial Times

The British Army’s retreat from Kabul in 1842 was chaotic and ignominious, resulting in the deaths of 16,000 troops and support staff.

However, Britain still had a plan: imperial expansion.  This plan meant the retreat was a minor sideshow.  Britain’s retreat from Kabul today is existentially significant because Britain has no plan.  Having been abandoned by the US and having rejected the possibility of achieving national fulfilment as leader of the EU, Britain, unlike in 1842, stands in self-inflicted desolation.

Professor John Martin, University College London.

This letter arranges and distorts facts in order to make a very thinly veiled attack on Brexit.

To The Times

You report that the air evacuation from Kabul is the biggest since the Berlin blockade in 1948-49.  It is more appropriate to mention the airlift from Kabul in winter 1928-29, the first mass air evacuation by the RAF, in which 586 British and foreign nationals were flown to Peshawar to escape the take-over of Kabul by Bacha-i-Saqao, also known as Habibullah Klalakani.  The operation was co-ordinated by the British legation in Kabul.  Operating in overladen, underpowered aircraft, then flying through the North-West Frontier was no mean feat.  Politicians ought to do more historical research.

Geoff Cowling, British vice-consul, Kabul, 1970-73.

I thought the Berlin blockade of 1948-49 was a matter of supplies being flown in rather than people being flown out.  Be that as it may, a remarkable effort by the RAF on both occasions.

General Sir Michael Rose warns of British politicians who believe their own propaganda. A letter in The Week.

I once attended an illuminating and interesting lecture by General Sir Michael Rose at Dillington House, near Ilminster, in South Somerset, and so I took especial note of the letter below.  It was published in The Week on 27th August having first appeared in The Times.

Illusions of Victory

To The Times

To quote Kosovo as an example of a substantial military success, as William Hague does in his article, is to commit the same error as Tony Blair did.  Believing his own propaganda that Nato’s bombing campaign in Kosovo had been successful, Blair led Britain into the disastrous invasion of Iraq.  Yet the reality in Kosovo was very different.  At the end of 11 weeks of the most intensive bombing by Nato since the War, the Serb army in Kosovo emerged undefeated, and peace only came about when Boris Yeltsin withdrew his support for the Milosevic regime.  Furthermore, it was the people of Serbia who removed Slobodan Milosevic from power in a democratic election nearly 14 months later – not Nato as Hague implies.  Surely the true lesson we can draw from the crisis in Afghanistan is that if strategy is not based on reality, then disaster will surely follow.

General Sir Michael Rose, former commander of the UN forces in Bosnia.

 

Building a road tunnel for the A303 at Stonehenge. Would it be cheaper to move Stonehenge?

I was pleased to see my letter to the Western Daily Press regarding the proposed road tunnel at Stonehenge was published on August 5.  I reproduce it below.

Why not just move historic Stonehenge?

It appears the government’s plans for a road tunnel in the vicinity of Stonehenge have been ruled unlawful.

Be that as it may, I am not convinced it is worth spending £1.6 billion, in order to cut 15 or 20 minutes off the journey times of those in London and the South East who feel the need to hurtle through Wiltshire and Somerset on their way to and from their holiday destinations in Devonshire and Cornwall.

Furthermore, it does not seem fair to disappoint those travellers on the A303 who wish to catch a glimpse of England's most historic monument.

However, as such eye-watering sums are involved in the tunnel project, I cannot help wondering if it might be less expensive to dig up Stonehenge and move it instead.

S. W. 

Ilminster, Somerset.

British Military coup? No Chance! A letter in The Week.

The letter below, which was first published in The Times, appeared in The Week on May 8.  It followed much publicity given to a group of French generals who suggested that their nation was heading for civil war and a possible military coup.

Why it couldn’t happen here.

To The Times

To answer David Aaronovitch’s query as to whether a French military coup could happen here, those of us who slaved in the recesses of the Ministry of Defence know that it could never happen here, for the very good reason that UK service and security chiefs would never be able to agree amongst themselves as to who should be Il Duce,

Andrew Brookes, former CEO, The Air League, London

Obviously such a coup is a non-starter here!

HS2's illusory benefits. The Social Democratic Party offer an alternative.

The letter below published in The Week (27 February) echoes my thoughts on HS2.   It also adds some pertinent points on working practices following Covid-19.  The letter first appeared in The Daily Telegraph.

 HS2’s illusory benefits.

To The Daily Telegraph.

The Government demanded that HS2 should be designed to reach a top speed of 250 mph – which many experts said was unnecessary given the relatively short distances concerned.  This restricts its route, as curves cannot be included, forcing the line through homes and sensitive areas, including 33 Sites of Special Scientific Interest and 108 ancient woodlands.

The argument that journey times will be shorter ignores the fact that there are no stations between Birmingham and London, so many of the headline time savings will be eaten up by additional journeys required to reach HS2.  Furthermore, even after the completion of the final phase, HS2 only reaches about half way up England, so the true long distances don’t benefit from the dramatic cuts to journey times seen in other countries.

Of course, the case for HS2 has further collapsed now that many people have discovered, thanks to Covid-19, that they no longer need to travel to work anyway.  I’m sure the vast majority of the population would prefer to have superfast broadband for everyone, rather than an over-fast railway for a few.

Gordon Findlay, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

The Social Democratic Party has an appealing policy which advocates cancelling HS2 and using the funds on creating a new rail network in The North of England.

All well and good, but I would like to see funds spent on reopening, where practicable, lines and stations closed by Beeching. 

Railways should be operated as a public service under state control – something which the SDP also appears to support.  I reproduce below some of their transport policies from their website.  I hope they don’t mind, but they are ones which I could certainly vote for.

• Our railway system will be nationalised. Rail operator franchises will be taken back into public ownership as they fall due via a re-established British Railways.
• British Railways will be a comprehensive, fully integrated system encompassing track and infrastructure, rolling stock and stations.
• A Minister for Rail will be introduced, responsible and accountable for making the system work for the public and passengers.
• We will scrap HS2 and invest some of the freed-up funds to create a Great Northern Railway Network, better linking up the towns and cities of the North of England to unleash their joint potential.
• Funding for regional and rural bus travel will be increased in order to protect the viability of and patronage on essential routes.
• VAT on motor vehicles costing more than £35,000 will be increased to 25%.

 

Green U-Turns by the British Political Establishment.

Having a wood-burner I sympathise with the letter below which appeared in The Week on 27 February, it was first published in The Times.

As for making things last as long as possible, I scrapped my 1998 registered Subaru Impreza last September.  It was 4 years old when I bought it, and it gave me 18 years of enjoyable and reliable service - I think we both did our bit for the environment!

Green U-Turns

To The Times  

In 2001, Labour introduced new vehicle tax rates that encouraged us to buy diesel cars.  We bought one.  About 15 to 20 years ago the advice was to buy a wood-burner because wood, being carbon neutral, was better for the environment than fossil fuels.  We bought one.  This week you reported that we are being urged to ditch wood-burning stoves as data showed they are the worst pollutants.  On top of this, we are told to make the things we buy last as long as possible, as this is better for the environment.  Presumably this includes wood-burners and cars?  What are we supposed to do?  Will the advice change in a few years’ time?

Marianne Beale, Saltash, Cornwall.

"Dislike of England" the SNP's motivating force? Professor Vernon Bogdanor asks in The Times.

I came across an interesting letter from Professor Vernon Bogdanor in the January 9 edition of The Week.  He implies that dislike of England is the SNP’s motivating force – surely not!

The letter was first published in The Times. I reproduce it below as it appeared in The Week.

St. Andrew’s cross

To The Times

In a Commons debate last week, Ian Blackford, parliamentary leader of the SNP, declared that “Scotland is at heart a European nation”, and indeed that she had been well before the Acts of Union in 1707.  The SNP seems to have acquired this insight somewhat recently.  In the 1975 referendum it was the only major party in Scotland to recommend leaving the European Community. 

Voters are entitled to an explanation of why the SNP changed its mind.  Dare one suggest that dislike of England rather than love for Europe has been its motivating force?

Vernon Bogdanor, professor of government, King’s College, London.

National Trust being led away from its core purpose.

Another letter in The Week (November 21) which I totally agree with!

The National Trust’s mission.

To The Times

Those who doubt that Hilary McGrady (“National Trust told to learn from slave row”) is on a mission to lead the National Trust away from its core purpose of looking after the buildings and land placed in its care need only read the autumn edition of the trust’s magazine.  In it, the director of volunteering, participation and inclusion says: “At the National Trust we have a duty to play a part in creating a fairer, more equitable society.”  It is clear that the National Trust Acts from 1907 to 1971 place no such duty on the trust.

However, the actions of the director-general and her staff suggest they have this ambition at the centre of their strategy.  The trust must not become a vehicle for those endeavouring to use for social and political purposes.  The trustees have a responsibility to ensure that the director-general and her staff focus on the trust’s charitable objects.  If they fail to do that, the Charity Commission should step in and do the job for them.

Dr Alan Hearne, Woodstock, Oxfordshire

The Law Commission following in the footsteps of the Soviet Union's Stalinist authorities? A cautionary tale!

I came across this letter in The Week (November 14) which illustrates what may happen if the Law Commission’s proposals on hate speech come to pass.  And they say an Englishman’s home is his castle!

Lethal home truths.

To The Times

The Law Commission’s proposal to extend the jurisdiction of hate speech to private homes has unhappy parallels.  In 1932 Soviet, propaganda had it that a 13-year-old dedicated Young Pioneer, Pavlik Morozov, did the “right thing” by denouncing his father, Trofim, to the Stalinist authorities.  Trofim was said to have been executed as a result.  Members of Pavlik’s family, somewhat unhappy with this, then murdered the youth.  In turn they themselves were executed.  Pavlik was lauded in the USSR as a martyred hero, an example for Soviet youth to follow.

Michael Olizar, London.

David Miliband, former Labour foreign secretary, has a salary four times higher than the Secretary-General of the UN.

These days I am very reluctant to give money to charities as it seems many of their CEOs are reported to earn six figure salaries.  So I was not surprised to read this story in a recent issue (November 7) of The Week magazine.  It certainly reinforces my disinclination to contribute to such institutions.

"Good week for David Miliband, the former foreign secretary, whose salary has soared to over $1m a year.  When Miliband became head of the New York-based aid charity the International Rescue Committee in 2013, he was paid $332,778. His new salary is four times higher than that of the Secretary-General of the UN."

Nice work if you can get it!

Professor Vernon Bogdanor appears to support the balkanisation of England to save the Union. A letter in The Week.

In a letter which first appeared in The Times Professor Vernon Bogdanor  appears to support the balkanisation of England as a way of saving The Union.  It seems he is among those who believe in suppressing any political entity which exclusively represents English nationhood.

I reproduce below his letter to The Times which I came across in The Week (24 October).  I find it a disappointing read from someone so distinguished.  He gives powerful ammunition to those who argue against the establishment of an English parliament in order to discourage Scottish separatism and preserve the 1707 Union.

To The Times.

John Kampfner is right to call for further decentralisation “to the localities”, but an English parliament would not achieve this.  Whether situated in Manchester, Liverpool or York, it would appear just as remote to most as Westminster which would be reduced to a debating chamber for the discussion of foreign and defence policy and macro-economic management, while the quasi-federal UK which resulted would be so dominated by England as to be unbalanced, and an encouragement to Scottish separatism.  There is no democratic federation in the world in which one of the units represents more than 80% of the population. 

The right course is to build on the combined authorities with directly elected mayors by strengthening their powers, and by devolving on a similar basis to those areas of England outside the city regions.  That entails a unitary system of local government in those areas, as recommended more than 50 years ago by the Royal Commission on Local Government, in place of the present two-tier system.  That is the path that I hope the Government will follow in its forthcoming white paper.

 

Vernon Bogdanor, professor of government, KCL

The British Army's Main Battle Tank. To ditch or not to ditch.

My late grandfather was a regular in the Somerset Light Infantry, but during the First World War he was transferred to the Royal Tank Corps and took part in the Battle of Cambrai where tanks were first used successfully, and en masse.

Therefore I was interested to see in the press that there are those in our Conservative government who advocate abandoning the use of tanks in the British Army.  I came across an article and a letter in The Week (5 September) which argued for and against the retention of the tank.

The case against was made by Jack Allen, a former Cold War tank commander, in an article originally published in Reaction. Life.  I reproduce the points I found of interest below:

Tanks for the memory, not for war today.

MBTs were already proving ineffective when I was a tank commander at the end of the Cold War: they’re even more so today.  For a start, being huge (some weigh 70 tons) they’re hard to move around the battlefield, hard to hide from drones and attack helicopters, and notoriously bad at fighting in cities.  On the modern battlefield – think Iraq or Syria – they’re easy prey to the lone operator on a moped with an anti-tank gun.  Or to roadside IEDs.  Even if the attacks only damage a tank, it all adds to the vast amount of support needed to keep the tanks on the road.  It’s not as if NATO general staff believe the next conflict will be fought on the open North European Plain, where MBTs come into their own.  No, Moscow prefers to work by destabilising governments and infiltrating militias.  By all means let’s invest in light armoured vehicles.  But let’s ditch the tank.    

The case for retaining tanks was originally made in The Times. I reproduce it below as published in The Week.

Why tanks are vital.

To The Times.

In all the articles (about the rationale for scrapping tanks), we could find no mention of deterrence.  Is there anyone left in Whitehall who understands deterrence strategy, which we are all signed up to in NATO?  Simply put, it requires an ability to outdo an enemy at all levels of conflict up to and including nuclear; if you can’t do this at each level, with a reasonable level of assurance, the strategy loses credibility.  The test for disposing of a capability that an enemy might retain is whether whatever is deemed to be a replacement will deter that enemy.  If not, then escalation or capitulation are the only responses.

When our conventional forces are as limited in number compared with those of our potential enemies as they now are, escalation could quickly rise towards a nuclear conflict.  Under these circumstances, our nuclear capability might well become a cuckoo in the nest.

Air Chief Marshall Sir Michael Graydon; Vice Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham.

 

Without a big increase in attack helicopters to replace the tanks, I lean towards agreeing with Sir Michael and Sir Jeremy.

The Church of England and "The hastening death of the parish".

As readers of this blog may have noticed I enjoy photographing churches and wandering around churchyards.  I am obviously stating the obvious, but there is history inside the church as well as outside where the locals are laid to rest.  Churches with their nineteenth century and earlier architecture make wonderfully picturesque photos, and when exploring a churchyard I always find something of interest whether it be a grave of a notable local or an interesting epitaph on a headstone.

An English town or village would not be the same without its church so it is sad to see that many churches are now unused.  Thankfully, many have been taken over by various church conservation trusts, and they do a fine job in preserving them. 

The Church of St. Thomas in the Somerset village of Thurlbear.  It is in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust.

Therefore I was disappointed to read an article in the 8^th of August edition of The Week.  It suggests that the Church of England will become more remote from its parishioners resulting in fewer active churches – no doubt more will regrettably close.  I reproduce the article, first published in The Daily Telegraph, below.

The C of E is killing off the parish church.

Giles Fraser

The Daily Telegraph

The parish church – “for centuries the bedrock of the Church of England’s engagement with communities throughout the land” – is dying, says Giles Fraser.  It’s not just secularisation that’s killing it, but the controlling nature of Church leaders.  As a recent piece by Revd Stephen Trott in The Church Times pointed out, the rot set in back in the 1970s, when the assets of individual parishes were effectively nationalised by the General Synod.  This enabled money to be redistributed from wealthy parishes to smaller ones, but it also spawned a burgeoning central administration that has since employed ever more accountants, administrators and archdeacons.  Ever fewer communities, meanwhile, have their own vicar.  Covid has accelerated this trend, with talk of digital aids such as zoom reducing the need for “analogue priests”, and the Archbishop of Canterbury ordering parish clergy not to enter their own churches over Easter to pray.  Such centralisation is a “recipe for institutional collapse”.  “The hastening death of the parish will tear the beating heart from many a small place that is reliant upon church to help organise its common life.” 

Global warming and climate change or just changing opinions and changeable weather?

In August 1976 Britain was undergoing the driest summer in over 200 years.  The then Labour Prime Minister, James Callaghan, appointed Denis Howell Minister for Drought.  Days later heavy rain brought widespread flooding and Howell was made Minister for Floods. 

In 2005 the BBC reported that “experts” and “scientists” predicted Britain would have a Mediterranean climate with “warmer drier summers” and “rainfall cut by a third”.*

In February 2020 two scientists had the following very interesting opinions published in letters to The Daily Telegraph.  I came across them in the 22 February edition of The Week.  I reproduce them below:

Water, water, everwhere.

As a geophysicist, I find it fairly obvious that global warming means the Atlantic will be putting far more water into the atmosphere from now on.  As our weather in Britain is mainly driven by Atlantic weather fronts, flooding in these islands is going to become far more common.

The flood defences being built now by the Environment Agency only shift the problem downstream – and were anyway only designed for the lesser floods of the last century.

If Brunel were alive today, we’d probably see a far more long-term vision, such as diverting excess water from upstream choke points through large underground tunnels connected to the nearest estuary such as the Ribble or Humber.

After all, our tunnelling expertise is second to none after the Chunnel and Crossrail projects.  Why not capitalise on this and then export the engineering skills to other countries in a similar position?

John Howard, Birmingham.

Forty years ago I was employed as a geologist by an aggregate company to develop gravel pits around the UK.

Under no circumstances would planning permission be granted for any permanent structure on a river’s flood plain, where sand and gravel are generally deposited.  Any structure that might restrict the flow of water across the flood plain was prohibited; not even a Portakabin would be tolerated.

Nowadays, entire housing estates are built on flood plains.  And people wonder why they are regularly flooded out of house and home.

Jeremy Spencer-Cooper, Easebourne, West Sussex

Oh well, I wonder if the last 45 years has seen climate change, changing opinions or just changeable weather!

*http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk/4091068.stm

Royal potatoes and mumbling actors. Humour from The Week.

In recent years it seems to me as if many TV drama series are filmed in the dark or half-light while the actors mumble their way through the dialogue, or speak in whispers, to such a degree that they are practically incomprehensible.

For Example, I found SSGB a perfect example of this type of production.  Only the actors playing bombastic German characters, speaking perfectly clear English, were audible, but I found the whispered English of the British characters so difficult to follow I gave up watching after the first episode!

The Week (Jan 25) reported Martin Deacon writing in The Daily Telegraph.

Mumbling actors.

“Perhaps it was bound to happen to us eventually.  The other evening my wife and I watched Martin Scorsese’s film The Irishman.  Right from the start, we found ourselves straining to make out the dialogue.  After five minutes we gave up and switched on the subtitles.  Much of the dialogue was strangely indistinct as, as if the cast had arrived on set after a painful encounter with a dentist.  ‘Whur hur a hur hur,’ one gangster would sternly say to another.  ‘Hur whur a whur HAR!’ the other would indignantly reply.  If I ever meet Mr Scorsese, I’ll make a polite suggestion about his mumbling actors.  ‘Mur bur a hur mur?’ I’ll ask.  ‘Hur mur bur a whur mur?’  I’m sure he’ll understand”

I sympathise entirely with Mr Deacon’s sentiments!

Meanwhile, in the same edition of The Week this brief letter, originally published in The Times, made me smile.

The royal spud.

“Sussex Royals” sounds like a variety of potato.  Fits in nicely with Jersey Royal, British Queen, Duke of York and King Edward.”

Andrew Harrington, Brompton, North Yorkshire.

Now I wonder who Mr Harrington could be thinking of!?

English is an “imperialist internationalist culture”? Not according to former Labour MP John Denham.

The favourite tactic of those who don’t like English nationhood or culture is to call into question the very existence of English identity and culture.  Professor John Denham gives his answer to an article in the New Statesman.  I came across his letter, reproduced below, in the edition of The Week published December 7.



Feeling English

To the New Statesman

Alex Niven tells Jason Crowley that the English “don’t exist as a national culture because we were an imperialist internationalist culture”.  Why is it such claims are made by people who don’t feel English, but not by those who do?

The Empire – which engaged the Scots and the Welsh as much as the English – was British.  Boris Johnson and his allies are Anglo-centric British nationalists who rarely talk about England.  Those who emphasise their English identity, by contrast, tend to be sceptical about the Union and want the interests of England itself protected.

England’s future story must reflect the nation as we are today, building on English and British identities as we now know them.  Condemning Englishness with inaccurate caricatures simply makes that harder.

Professor John Denham, Centre for English Identity and Politics, University of Southampton.


Incidentally, Professor Denham mentions the Scots and the Welsh as having a role in British empire-building.  He could also have mentioned the Irish who literally fought for it.  Some of the most famous regiments in the British Army were Irish.  One only has look at the battle honours awarded to Irish regiments to realise the vital role they played in establishing and maintaining the British Empire.

Remainers undermining the principle of democratic consent? A letter in The Week.

The letter below, published in The Week (October 19), suggests the Remain-backing establishment risks undermining the principle of democratic consent.  In my opinion they have already very seriously damaged the principle of democratic consent, and if the vote to leave the European Union is set aside they will have destroyed it.

Referendum Confusion

To The Daily Telegraph

I am yet to hear a single advocate of another EU referendum explain why anyone would trust Parliament to implement the result.  If the first referendum was advisory and the electorate did not understand the question, why would a second referendum be binding and clear?

Moreover, since the Remain side has already been defeated by the massive margin of 1.3 million votes, the only democratic choice available on a hypothetical ballot paper would be between the Withdrawal Agreement and leaving with without a deal. 

Britain’s Remain-backing establishment risks undermining the principle of democratic consent with its determination to overturn the result of the “once in a lifetime” referendum.

Philip Duly, Haslemere, Surrey

Frederick Forsyth and the true meaning of "no-deal" Brexit. A letter in The Week.

I came across this interesting letter from best-selling author Frederick Forsyth which focuses on the meaning of words, and not what people would like or think them to mean. The letter, reproduced below, was first published in The Daily Telegraph then published in the 12th October edition of The Week.

Another Brexit casualty

To The Daily Telegraph

Among the many casualties of the litany of incompetence befalling our country, we now count our national language and the meaning of words.  We are told that “no-deal” must be swept off the table.  But “no-deal” is not a presence, it is an absence and by definition you cannot abolish an absence.

The only deals realistically before us are “no-deal” or Michel Barnier’s deal, which he has told us many times is not for variation by so much as a comma.  And that deal requires the UK to live on its knees forever.

I never cease to be surprised at the number of mediocrities in high office who seek my vote (when I am allowed to have one) to support them in this grovel.

So please let us have our general election as soon as possible so that we may, with silent votes rather than placards, usher the appeasers back to that oblivion for which nature so amply equipped them.

Frederick Forsyth, Buckinghamshire.

The British Political Establishment - not delivering what you voted for!

I came across an interesting article from Vernon Bogdanor in The Guardian this week.  He makes the interesting point that MPs could connive to block Brexit indefinitely.  This is what he had to say:

 “. . . were Parliament to pass legislation preventing Britain leaving the EU without a deal, Brexit could be delayed forever, since the Commons would then be free to reject every deal presented to it”.

He also writes:

“ Looking at the sorry performance of the House of Commons elected in 2017, it is difficult to avoid remembering Winston Churchill’s condemnation of the parliaments of the 1930s as being “ decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent”.  Parliament has shown itself not to be the solution to Brexit but the problem.”

Here is a link to the article:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/29/parliament-brexit-prorogue-mps-alternative-no-deal

Meanwhile, on a similar theme, this was my favourite letter of the month taken from the August 24 edition of The Week.  It was originally published in The Sunday Times.

Getting what you voted for.

To The Sunday Times

Michael Heseltine and Betty Boothroyd get into an awful lather about the “subversion” of Parliament as they attempt to stop us leaving the EU.

They overlook the facts that MPs voted in favour of holding a referendum; that the majority of MPs were elected on manifestos that pledged to honour the result of that referendum; that MPs voted to trigger Article 50 in the knowledge that it committed us to leaving; and that it was MPs who voted down the deal that was negotiated with the EU – on three occasions. 

If the result of all this is the UK leaving on 31 October with no deal, that is the result of decisions made by Parliament.  Where is the subversion?

Eileen Haxby, Harrogate.