Letters: City pay

Sir: After reading Nick Clark's report "Bankers hit back at Governor's attack on City bonuses" (1 May) I reflected that, like all slippery slopes, recent talk about the regulation of City pay may start off as an attractive idea but will only turn into a disaster if realised.

It is not for politicians or others to decide what pay is appropriate; that must remain the job of the owners of a business. Clearly where the current pay structure has not served shareholders well there will be pressure from them for reform – through changing the existing management and restructuring their remuneration committees. Excessive salaries reduce profitability and earnings, which is bound to upset shareholders. So large salaries are quite properly offered only in exchange for large profits.

While this is clear, it is legitimate to question how much historic profits were sustainable and how much risk was taken to earn them. So far it is mainly the shareholders (who are the risk-takers) who have suffered.

The wider issues around credit, risk, transparency and the speed and scope of global financial interdependence need to be approached with caution, and I fear there are no easy answers.While we have been living through an extended period of unprecedented prosperity in many countries, we are also part-way through a revolution in technology that brings many unforeseen effects. Perhaps only our grandchildren will fully understand how all the parts are fitting together.

One thing is clear today, though: that part of the global marketplace in financial skills which is based in the UK requires a freedom to reward in a way that matches the best in the world. Any attempt to fight the global skills market will result in damage to the City and to the jobs and tax revenues it brings to all of us – and from which the whole of the UK benefits.

David Lewis

Lord Mayor of the City of London Mansion House, London EC4

New Labour gets its comeuppance

Sir: As a lifelong Labour Party supporter I am delighted that this "New Labour" lot have got their comeuppance in these local elections – presaging even greater losses for them in the next general election.

The systematic betrayal of Labour Party values over the past 10 years by this government has lost them not only their core Labour supporters but also the disillusioned Tory voters who voted for them in 1997. Aside from the totally avoidable catastrophes of the Iraq war lies and the cash-for-honours sleaze, the Blair and Brown policies of PFI for hospitals and schools, the creeping privatisation of the NHS, university fees, closure of post offices, the 10p tax fiasco and a host of other stupid policies in the face of public opposition have ensured this government's almost universal unpopularity.

Perhaps five years in opposition will engender a sense of humility and a return to core Labour values for a new generation of Labour MPs.

Tony Cheney

Ipswich, Suffolk

Sir: For the first time in my life I am glad that Labour lost. Blair and Brown have squandered the party's heritage and the citizen's liberties, colluded in illegal acts, and turned a blind eye to torture. Labour MPs have proved themselves to be spineless apologists for an illiberal government in thrall to outdated economic theorists, and now Labour councillors have paid the price.

The general election can't come soon enough.

Bill Robinson

London W2

Sir: Is the Labour Party that is emphasising that it will "listen" following the local election results in any way related to the Labour Party that, to a loud fanfare in 2003, announced the "big conversation" to underline its listening credentials?

Ian Partridge

Bradford, West Yorkshire

Sir: I looked with envy on my London friends who went to the polls to choose a mayor on Thursday. For most of us, the mayoral "election" is a cosy, Buggins' turn arrangement between town councillors, often behind closed doors: no hoi-polloi involvement, thank you very much.

The person chosen is given a chain and sometimes fancy dress and is allowed to go around looking important for a year. There is a tacit understanding that he or she will not be "political" – that is, say anything controversial which might awaken the slumbering masses.

No wonder there's so much apathy about local government here in the sticks.

TOM EATON

STAFFORD

Sir: May 1 was a disastrous night for the Labour Party, and it was proof of how David Cameron's background in the public relations business is paying off, but unless he reveals some policies he will be found out. He cannot keep repeating words like "dithering", "weak" , "incompetent" as a mantra, without attracting to himself the epithets "shallow", "without substance", "vacuous".

Robert Craig

Weston-super-mare, Somerset

Sir: More and more it seems that Gordon Brown deserves the verdict passed by Tacitus on the Roman Emperor Tiberius: "Capax imperii, nisi imperasset"(He looked as though he would be a good ruler though in the event he turned out not to be).

The Rev Andrew McLuskey

Staines, Middlesex

Rugby discipline is robust

Sir: I would like to correct some errors in your article "Rugby's bloody shame" (24 April) and take issue with your headline which stated that there is a "major problem" with violence lower down the rugby pyramid.

Rugby is a physical contact sport but those who commit acts of foul play and cause injury to opponents seldom go unnoticed because the Rugby Football Union has a robust and mature disciplinary system at all levels.

Disciplinary matters at grass roots are handled by committees of the RFU's constituent bodies and players can have confidence that those who serve on local disciplinary committees are diligent and careful. They all attend training courses run by the RFU and have a constant dialogue with the discipline department at Twickenham.

Your report highlighted an unfortunate case in which Scott Leonard was badly injured when an opponent stamped on his face. Scott believed the stamp to be deliberate; the opponent said it was an accident; the referee did not see the incident.

The incident happened in February 2007 – over a year ago – and Scott himself decided to withdraw his citing complaint, albeit on the advice of a member of the Essex Rugby Union Disciplinary Committee. The player who did the stamping was sanctioned for playing while already suspended and then served a total suspension of 24 weeks. He returned to play in January 2008 and it was then that Scott raised the issue direct with your correspondent, who also contacted myself.

I reviewed the case and, although there were some errors by a member of the Essex committee, I decided that I could not reinstitute proceedings because the incident was old and the player would have been able to mount a successful "abuse of process" argument after being told the citing would not go ahead.

Had Scott proceeded with the citing and it been heard and proved, the player might have served a longer suspension than the six months he received for playing while suspended. However, it is neither balanced nor fair for your correspondent to suggest that the system is flawed when it was Scott himself who withdrew the complaint from the process.

Judge Jeff Blackett

Disciplinary Officer, Rugby Football Union, Twickenham, Middlesex

Jewish critics of Israeli policies

Sir: The history of all the great humanitarian causes of the world is littered with a profusion of eminent Jewish names; and it is from the Jews themselves that most effort must be made to solve the disgrace of our age, the heartbreaking problem of Palestine.

It was heartening to see the letter from Dr Sandra Oelbaum (2 May). People like her are in the best position to put pressure on the Israeli government. The politicians of the western world seem incapable of voicing any criticism of Israel.

Eddie Johnson

Long Melford, Suffolk

Sir: While I, like many liberal-minded Jews, believe in a just two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Johann Hari's rewriting of history (Opinion, 28 April) ignores one very important fact which has been overlooked in just about every article which I've read concerning the forthcoming 60th anniversary of the State of Israel. While there were certainly injustices perpetrated against some of the displaced 800,000 Arabs, where is the discussion of the fate of the 600,000 Jews turned out from across the Arab world?

The reason why there is no discussion is simple. Unlike the vastly rich Arab nations which have deliberately maintained the refugee status of the displaced Palestinians for 60 years in order to use them as a political bargaining chip, the struggling nascent Israel welcomed in a similar number of poverty-stricken refugees. The apparatus of the state was turned to ensuring that these refugees became full members of Israeli society, and the descendants these Sephardi Jews today make up about 50 per cent of Israeli society.

A good way to judge the moral fibre of a society is how it treats the least privileged of its own. Perhaps Mr Hari should use this as a starting point. The squalid refugee camps across the Arab world, contrasted with the integrated members of Israeli society.

Joel Plasco

London NW10

Risk to dolphins that befriend humans

Sir: Thomas Sutcliffe ("Flipped out in Folkestone", 22 April) is being satirical, but what has become lost in the sad story of Dave the Kent dolphin is the risks that she was exposed to.

Dave was a solitary dolphin and, like others before her, was becoming increasingly habituated to people because of all those who were seeking to associate with her. The more habituated to human company she became, the greater the risk that she would be harmed. Indeed, just before Dave went missing she received a terrible wound to her tail, and we do not know if she has survived it.

It may be somewhat counter-intuitive that large, seemingly robust marine mammals like Dave are at risk, but studies from all around the world show that they are. Firstly there is the risk of direct harm – inexpertly manhandling a dolphin can harm it; then there is risk of disturbing vital behaviours including feeding and resting (we have evidence that this was the case with Dave); then there is the issue of the fully habituated dolphin being so forceful with her admirers that this elicits a violent response.

Of the four solitary "friendly" dolphins known in UK in the past few years, two are dead, Dave was injured and is now missing and the fourth is also missing. Hopefully the missing dolphins have reunited with their own kind, but we cannot be sure. The decision of the Kent court to fine the men who drunkenly harassed Dave was helpful for future conservation and welfare efforts.

Mark Simmonds

International Director of Science, the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, Chippenham, Wiltshire

Grotesque cult of celebrity grief

Sir: If proof were ever needed that the cult of celebrity in football has attained grotesque proportions, the Frank Lampard saga is surely it ("Lampard summons remarkable courage to fire Chelsea through", 1 May).

Here is a young man of some talent in his chosen game. It would be enough to acknowledge and even celebrate that (on occasion). However we are now asked to stand in awe as he "overcomes his sadness" on the death of his mother to score a key penalty.

I myself have lost a mother, a father and a wife and I did what most normal human beings have to do in such situations – get on with it. Celebrities, however, are to be accorded adulation for managing to cope in an adult manner with the facts of life.

Does your football correspondent have an unconscious pre-pubescent need for a "Roy of the Rovers" hero figure?

Ross Hendry

Bridport, Dorset

Whose views?

Sir: Helen Boaden (letter, 29 April) is being disingenuous when she says that the views expressed on Question Time "are those of the panellists and audience – not those of the BBC", since the BBC selects both the panellists and the audience for that show.

Louise Muston

Hull

Cops and robbers

Sir: It is a disgrace that Gordon Brown stopped the prisoners' princely pay increase of £1.50 per week. It was equally shameful that he prevented the full implementation of the police force's annual pay award. Prisoners cannot vote and the police cannot strike. Yet on the 10p tax band he caves in like a schoolyard bully as soon as those he has picked on fight back in a way that can hurt him.

John E Orton

Bristol

Shakespeare unheard

Sir: Speaking on behalf of the elderly theatregoers who so infuriate the Globe artistic director Dominic Dromgoole ("Shakespeare's rule-breaker", 1 May), I doubt his assertion that most complaints about the muffled verse speaking at his theatre come from us. Confronted by the appalling diction of some of his actors, it's a much less painful option simply to turn off our hearing aids.

Tony Kirwood

London SE8

No game for children

Sir: In The Big Question (29 April), under the "yes" column for the question "So is Grand Theft Auto damaging to society?", the first point was "Some studies show children who play violent video games suffer behavioral problems as a result." Leaving aside the issue that other studies show they don't, as the game is an 18-rated title, it shouldn't be played by children in the first place, and so the effect on children shouldn't be a concern.

Alexander Walker

Preston, Lancashire

Sick of the kids?

Sir: M M Deyes (letter, 1 May) suggests that rather than write about "raising" our children, as if they were crops, we should speak of "bringing them up". Like fur balls, perhaps?

C SLADEN

WOODSTOCK, OXFORDSHIRE

Interesting? Click here to explore further