Letters: Nuclear power

Sir: It was heartening to read your front-page article ("Not in our name', 15 February) showing the breadth of support that exists in this country for a postponement of the looming Parliamentary vote on replacing Trident submarines. Recent evidence by Richard Garwin, a scientific adviser to the United States government on nuclear technology, demonstrated that there is no technical reason for making this decision now, prior to full consultation.

Internationally, people of global stature have been calling upon the world community to draw back from reliance on nuclear weapons. Even such former US establishment figures as Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, William Perry and Sam Nunn have urged that a vision for a world free of nuclear weapons needs to be reasserted now (Wall Street Journal, 4 January). Mikhail Gorbachev added his support for their call to urgent action and wrote of his experience in drawing down the US-Soviet arms race: "It took political will to transcend the old thinking and attain a new vision."(Wall Street Journal, 31 January)

It is time for members of Parliament to show political will and to at least have the courage to call for a full and frank exploration of the negative global impact that a British decision to replace Trident might have. They also should consider the tremendous impetus a decision to forgo Trident might provide in creating the first movement in this new century toward a more stable, secure, and nuclear-weapons-free world. Which course shows the true leadership and vision that we expect from our elected representatives?

PROFESSOR ROBERT HINDE

CHAIR, BRITISH PUGWASH GROUP, ST JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

Children are being failed, not failing

Sir: The UN report on Britain's children is not unexpected (front page, 14 February). In 30 years as a social worker and teacher I've witnessed the disintegration of a society I took for granted as a teenager.

There was no golden age, but before Margaret Thatcher there was at least the semblance of shared responsibility in government. The destruction of the social and industrial infrastructure that continues today meant that the path chosen was not one of communal and collaborative politics, but the total disdain for the mass of the population that passes for representative democracy in this country. People are things to be counted, scrutinised, patronised and fooled.

So many of the children I teach - up till 19 years old in some cases - know virtually nothing, feel trapped, are sick of tests and exams to the point of exhaustion, and see a future where the only way out is not work, but becoming a celebrity. They are largely very nice people with a huge amount to offer. They get used to being counted, scrutinised, patronised and fooled early in their lives. Now they can live their lives through consumption, not participation or adventure.

There is a need for a new social and democratic politic in the country, but not the tired old New Lab/New Tory joke one. The challenges are moral, social and ecological, and the children of this country are not failing, but being failed.

JOHN GRIFFIN

BURNTWOOD, STAFFORDSHIRE

Sir: Adrian Marlowe (Letters, 16 February) describes a very different Dutch community from the one I remember from bringing up my headstrong toddler in The Hague a few years ago.

While Dutch adults were mercifully tolerant of my son's tantrums, and worse, in the local supermarket, I am eternally grateful for the way they unhesitatingly snatched him from the path of oncoming traffic, brought him back to me toting an ice-cream when he had escaped from the back of my car, and upbraided him for straying into bicycle lanes. Adults always talked to my son as a small person, without sentimentality, but with a proper appreciation of his limitations. In the Dutch community I found a real sense of all adults' collective responsibility for the welfare of any child, which appears to have been shamefully lost in the UK.

Among Dutch children, my son found tolerance of his inability to speak their language, a ready acceptance of anyone who would join in with the street games which were a feature in the city, and for which all traffic stopped, and a practical comradeship.

As for the Dutch evening meal, I always envied my neighbour, whose husband, an international lawyer, was always home by 6.30 to help with the children's bath and bedtime, while my husband, working for an American company, was rarely home before 8.30. What's not to like about such a society?

HELEN McGHEE

CAMBRIDGE

Sir: The startling Unesco verdict on the poor well-being of Britain's children is a challenge for inquiry and holistic action. One tip from Sweden is to protect children from intrusive commercialisation by banning TV advertising aimed at children.

In Britain we allow advertisers to manipulate children through peer pressure, make them dissatisfied so as to buy more, and make family life a misery through activating pester power. The banning of advertising directed at children would be a powerful, simple and effective action the Government could take to increase children's well-being. It would start reclaiming childhood and give families a real break.

MARTIN LARGE

STROUD, GLOUCESTERSHIRE

Sir: Howard Jacobson believes that high culture and high taxation could help provide solutions to the problem of our disaffected youth (17 February). But our nation's history, which includes both these supposed virtues, doesn't support his view. The British generally don't really like children. The remnants of the Victorian assertion that children should be seen but not heard was enshrined until recently in our licensing laws. Children are still excluded from many of the places where British "grown ups" go to have fun. The restraining influence that their presence might have on infantile adult behaviour is often sadly missing.

Until we learn to like children, to involve them and to treat them as individuals rather than as their parents' possessions to do with as they will, we are unlikely to advance much.

BRIAN HUGHES

CHELTENHAM, GLOUCESTERSHIRE

Sir: The Government's response to the damning Unicef report was to question the veracity of the figures. My personal experience of the top four countries on the list leads me to expect that, had they been ranked consistently last, they would not have tried to dodge the accusations but immediately set up a multiparty task force to attempt to change things. I feel deeply ashamed of my nation.

PETER WHITBY

LUCCOMBE, SOMERSET

City bonuses raise moral questions

Sir: Dominic Lawson ("Peter Hain and the politics of envy", 13 February) misrepresents my position on the City and its bonuses. As I have stated, it is essential that the City remains the pre-eminent financial centre of the world. This is why, as Gordon Brown and his City Minister Ed Balls have said, a return to Old Left solutions of punitive taxation is not the answer. Nor is heavy regulation.

One of the reasons a decade of Labour government has produced such a strong economy is precisely because we have ensured that Britain remains very open to global business, with low taxes and light regulation. Indeed, because of this, in Northern Ireland and in Wales I have successfully encouraged global financial companies to invest in the UK's financial sector, creating thousands of high-quality jobs.

My comments about how the City might encourage some of those who receive such astronomical bonuses - £8.8bn paid out last year - to give back something more to those who do not share in their good fortune was simply designed to encourage a greater sense of morality and corporate responsibility. If we want to build, not just an even more competitive economy, but also a more cohesive and equal society, from which everyone (including City high fliers) will benefit, this is an issue that I believe the City ought to consider.

PETER HAIN MP

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR NORTHERN IRELAND AND WALES, HOUSE OF COMMONS

Sir: It may not be fashionable to say so but the excesses of a virtually unregulated financial centre have a clear negative impact on the quality of life of the general population.

One example is that of house prices. City bonuses have an immediate effect on the property market which impacts throughout the South-east and probably beyond. While average house prices in London have soared by 139 per cent since 1997, wages have risen only 34 per cent. Last year first-time buyers paid an average of £251,000 and an average deposit of £28,130; more than twice as much as five years ago. The median full-time wage in London last year was just £29,744.

A London home now costs on average over 11 times the annual pay of ambulance staff and 9.5 times the pay of a nurse. I hardly think City workers are the people we should be worrying about.

TOM MILLS

NEW MALDEN, SURREY

The meaning of Manet's mirror

Sir: As an art history lecturer who has studied Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergère extensively, I endorse Tom Lubbock's interpretation of it as a mirror (letter, 15 February). There is an extant oil study by the artist that shows a straightforward reflection of the foreground image. Also, the layout of the bar conforms to the contemporary images of the actual Folies-Bergère. Therefore, the question is not so much "is it a mirror?", but "why in the final painting did Manet choose to present us with a logically impossible reflection?".

One explanation is that, as Lubbock implied, he was making a comment on the ambiguous identity of a barmaid in the context of the social milieu of 1880s Paris. However, Manet could also have been subverting the traditions of art, as he had done in the 1860s with the three other paintings that were featured in the wallchart. In freeing painting from the constraints of having to provide a logical representation of reality (something that photography was now able to do) Manet was able to produce a social commentary in purely visual terms.

However, there are numerous interpretations of this enigmatic picture and there are no absolute rights and wrongs in looking at a work of art, because ultimately a reading must be subjective. To my mind, the reason A Bar at the Folies-Bergère is such an iconic masterpiece is that it always invokes passionate debate.

JACKIE MARKS

LONDON N12

The EU is not a tiddly-winks club

Sir: The EU Constitution is a serious issue which merits serious debate, and that should preclude false analogies with the set of rules agreed by a "club" - be that a local golf club, as preferred by Jack Straw, or a tiddly-winks club as suggested by a recent correspondent (Letters, 17 February). The EU is nothing like any such club. It is an international organisation, set up by binding treaties between its sovereign member states to serve some of their common purposes.

A small but determined minority across Europe would prefer to see this international organisation transformed into a sovereign state in its own right, with its Constitution as the supreme source of legal authority for nearly half a billion people, taking precedence over their national laws and constitutions. A state can put its citizens in prison, and compel them to serve in its military. Show me the tiddly-winks club which lays claim to such powers over its members.

MURIEL PARSONS

BERKSHIRE CHAIRMAN, CAMPAIGN FOR AN INDEPENDENT BRITAIN, READING, BERKSHIRE

Anne Frank's betrayal

Sir: Your report on the discovery of new letters relating to the family of Anne Frank (15 February) states that the building in which the family was hiding was "stormed by German police". As the Anne Frank museum website indicates, the house was raided by "an SS officer and three Dutch policemen". The role of Dutch citizens and officials in the betrayal, capture and deportation of the Frank family and others should not be downplayed.

JEREMY SMITH

AMSTERDAM

Say no to strawberries

Sir: I write in support of Linda Weeks ("We demand local strawberries", 17 February). We do not demand strawberries, but they are given to us in restaurants as totally needless decoration to a lot of dishes and are frequently not eaten. I now ask for the plate to be sent back - with mixed results.

ANN CURRY

WIMBORNE, DORSET

Live Earth dilemma

Sir: I have no doubt the organisers of and participants in the Live Earth concerts planned for later this year have only the best intentions (report, 17 February). Just two things bother me though. How do they intend getting to the venues, and how do they intend powering their instruments once there?

T J HONEYBONE

DONCASTER, YORKSHIRE

Sir: A concert in Antarctica would be incredibly bad for the pristine and fragile environment of the region and seems gimmicky and hypocritical. More could be achieved by all the celebrities involved in Live Earth publicly pledging to stop using private modes of transport and reducing their personal flights by 50 per cent in a year. They should lead by example.

APRIL-TUI BUCKLEY

LONDON SW6

Uses for a farthing

Sir: On reading Robert Fisk's delightful article about the legacy of his grandfather's farthings (17 February), I was reminded of my great-uncle, a painfully shy bachelor. Whenever he was aware that I needed occupying, he would dip into his pocket and toss out a handful of very small change, which I was invited to polish. He always expected it back however - he was a Yorkshireman.

SARA R WILSON

BRISTOL

A Sassenach error

Sir: My sympathy is with Mr Hilary Kilborn's doctor, in mistakenly inviting him for a smear test (letter, 17 February). I have similar reason to remember an academic correspondence some years ago with (I supposed) the lady secretary of the Royal Scottish Academy. We had exchanged a couple of letters before that distinguished and kindly personage, the late Esme Gordon, gently improved my Sassenach education by telling me his first name was a traditional one for men of his clan.

PIETER VAN DER MERWE

LONDON SE10