Letters: Politicians' pasts

Time will tell whether Barack Obama is a great leader or simply a great orator, but his election campaign made McCain's look like something the Women's Institute had cobbled together on a wet Wednesday. Admitting to using drugs in his younger days was a masterstroke – voters respected his honesty and it strengthened his image of the black kid who made good.

David Cameron may be leading in our opinion polls but, unlike Obama, he refuses to face the skeleton in his own closet. Those photos of him and George Osborne in their Bullingdon Club days are not going to go away. Pictured in ridiculous Lord Snooty outfits, their smug, born-to-rule expressions are slowly eating into the electorate's consciousness like a cancer. I'm not quite sure if he can now turn having belonged to an elitist club for spoilt and arrogant yobs into an asset, but he ignores the issue at his peril.

But then, the Obama template for successful campaigning is of little use to most of the leading players in our three main political parties – they're trained to keep shtum, until the evidence is splashed across a Sunday tabloid. However, for rising stars to be able to clear the decks for past failings or vices has got to be a good thing for them and for politics in general. Mind you, after that, they're fair game.

Alan Aitchison

Wakefield, West Yorkshire

Why I don't wear a poppy

The real thing to remember on Remembrance Day is the pointless death toll of millions on the Western Front of the First World War who loyally followed the orders of their commanders on both sides. These infantrymen men regularly went over the top of the trenches to be cut down in a hail of waiting machine-gun fire.

There's a current rebranding of this remembrance to extend to all our fallen soldiers, and in particular to remind the public of our soldiers' sacrifice in current wars of Iraq and Afghanistan.

I think there's a contradiction afoot – and that's why I don't wear a poppy. This government (all poppy-wearers) has sent our brave soldiers into an illegal war in Iraq and a war of questionable merit in Afghanistan. A million (mostly innocent civilians) have died – depending on which casualty reports you believe – and yet I am asked to wear a symbol celebrating the sacrifice of those who gave up their lives for my country (about 300). I find myself torn, even though I know what a difficult and dangerous job our soldiers are doing. I want to give to the poppy appeal to help soldiers' families, but not wear the symbol itself, which I feel is becoming meaningless.

In the 11th hour of the 11th day of 1918, when the guns on the poppy fields went silent, I suspect everybody was remembering the brutality and futility of millions of unnecessary deaths. To protect the symbol of the poppy, we need to attach more importance to all lives – the lives of our enemies who may engage in tit-for-tat killings and the lives of civilians who get caught in the crossfire. War must really be a last resort and conducted according to tight and moral rules of engagement or we defame the memory of our dead soldiers – past, present and future.

STEFAN WICKHAM

Limpsfield Chart, Surrey

Isn't it about time The Independent initiated a campaign to withdraw British troops from Afghanistan? What on earth are we doing there?

It's an alien, feudal culture. Society is completely un-European. It's flagrantly mysogynistic. The social and political elite are corrupt. Democracy amounts to creating a power base for warlords and crooks. Its principal national product is an illicit drug. Its principal national sport comprises chasing an animal carcass on horseback.

We are not sacrificing soldiers' lives to fight an enemy; we are doing it to fight a culture, or lack thereof. It's an impossible scenario. There is no moral justification for squandering precious lives and resources on this vain campaign.

Bring them home, please, and let the Afghans sort out their own future.

Ian Bartlett

East Molesey, Surrey

Judge is right to apply privacy law

Paul Dacre's attack on Mr Justice Eady is absolutely wrong ("Judge is bringing in privacy law by the back door, editor claims", 10 November). His decision in the Max Mosley case was absolutely correct.

Like other English judges, he does not create new law, but interprets and applies existing law. In this case, the right to private and family life under the Human Rights Act 1998 and the European Convention on Human Rights 1950, which applies directly in English law. Also, it is established law that what interests the public is not necessarily in the public interest. This is the balance to be made in such cases.

Furthermore, Dacre's criticism of Mr Justice Eady's failure to condemn Mosley's behaviour, but merely describe it as being "unconventional", is also misplaced. It is not the role of any judge to pass moral judgements on personal behaviour, because, as one former Lord Chief Justice, put it: "This is not a court of morals but of law."

Ian Blackshaw

Professor and Fellow

The International Sports Law Centre, The Hague

National energy plan needed – now

Various writers highlight the shortcomings of our national energy policy (Letters, 5 November). But it was disappointing that The Independent relegated a related article of immense importance to a few column inches on an inside page ("UK companies urge steps to head off global 'oil crunch' ", 30 October).

We learned that, in response to the looming peak-oil problem, a cross-industry taskforce is calling for a national energy plan, urgently focusing upon energy conservation and renewable sources. Let's hope that this is a case of better extremely late than never. These measures are exactly what the green lobby has been damanding for the past two decades.

The early focus was rightly upon tackling climate change but, in recent years, it has become apparent that the progressive run-down of oil production could also present us with considerable economic and social challenges.

Britain is in a particularly vulnerable position, having relied for decades upon supplies of North Sea oil and gas. These are now running down and are due to disappear completely by 2020. Unless we act quickly, we will be left in a precarious situation as world supplies dwindle and prices rocket.

Our society is far too reliant upon cheap and abundant energy. The implications of serious shortfalls, should we not plan ahead, do not bear thinking about.

Keith O'Neill

Shrewsbury

It is disappointing to see private investment for gas storage projects faltering (report, 6 November). Government investment on incentives for gas storage would be widely welcomed by the industry. This could be designed either to help the private sector over their investment hurdle or build a national "strategic reserve" that the Government could release to utilities in the event of supply shortages or price hikes.

The article rightly notes our exposure to price fluctuations in the global market and our consequent inability to insulate consumers. While France and Germany can store more than 20 per cent of their annual gas demand, with the ability to replenish this stockholding during periods of weak demand and pricing, the UK can store just 4 per cent.

As the North Sea supplies decline, consumers, businesses and power generators are increasingly exposed to variations in global gas spot prices. Any more delays to gas storage projects will only lead to higher prices for everyone.

Paul Muscat

business director, oil and gas

Logica UK, London NW1

How Government runs its banks

Your newspaper has frequently led the way in highlighting the threats to our civil liberties. The Government is now adding to these by using the economic crisis to aggregate more power to itself over business and commerce and push us towards a command economy.

In recent weeks, Gordon Brown has ordered the courts to reduce the number of repossession orders granted and lenders to cut their interest rates, irrespective of economic and commercial realities. We are only a short step away from businesses being ordered to meet quotas and individuals being required to work so many hours a week in designated jobs.

Roger Earp

Sheffield

Your front-page headline (7 November) speaks of the banks being "ordered" to pass on the interest-rate cut to borrowers. But what does this really mean? Can a government that is avowedly running the banks that it now owns or part-owns on our behalf on a commercial and "arm's-length" basis "order" them to do anything?

The Government's policy on the banks is incoherent. It is desperately trying to avoid calling what has happened by its true name: nationalisation. The Green Party believes that the banks that are owned or part-owned by the public ought to be controlled accordingly – "No taxation without representation". Our tax money has bailed out these institutions; the least that we should ask in return is for our needs and values directly to guide their lending policies.

It is time that the Government started to take a serious role in controlling the banks it owns. It is absurd, and a grave danger to the prospects of stabilising our economy and avoiding a depression, to have banks hoarding money and refusing to lend. The banks ought not to be lending money lightly to bad credit risks – that, after all, is what got us into this trouble. But when they do lend, they ought to lend at low interest, to facilitate economic activity.

It is way past time now for the Government to insist that the banks that it funds should do this.

Cllr Rupert Read

Green Party, Norwich

Reducing interest rates to encourage people to save rather than borrow seems a funny way of going about it. As a person living on modest means, but unbeholden to anyone, I realise I'm outside their "curve". Best thing I can do now is to splurge the lot and then fall back on the Government for help. Is this what they want?

Jenny Craven

Over Stowey, Somerset

Skinny models

I find it in poor taste that The Independent still publishes pictures of models who look seriously underweight. The front page of Life (10 November) and the ensuing article on the "bright future" of fashion brought to us by Dazed and Confused featured two models who to all appearances looked sub-00.

Martin Sandaver

Hay-on-Wye, Herefordshire

Thriving democracy

Tony Crofts (Letters, 6 November) asks whether we shall ever have an 80 per cent election turn-out. We have already. In 1950 the figure was 84 per cent and in 1951, 83 per cent. There have only been two general elections since the Second World War when the percentage poll was less than this year's US share of 64 per cent, namely 2001 and 2005. These may have been lower because of demographic changes. The average of the years 1955 to 1997 was 75 per cent for 12 elections.

Peter Metcalfe

Stevenage, Hertfordshire

Labour heartland

Before people get too excited about the apparent New Labour resurgence in the Glenrothes by-election, we should take a closer look at the makeup of the constituency. We find that 30 per cent of the constituency is "economically inactive" and 30 per cent of the constituency work in the public sector. Given that, to expect any other result than a Labour victory would be akin to expecting turkeys to vote for Christmas.

Jeremy Poynton

Frome, Somerset

Gay vote lost

Robin Meltzer (letter, 7 November) is wrong to blame Obama voters for denying "the civil rights of a minority group" regarding the Gay Marriage Proposition. The Mormon and Catholic Churches ran a very well organised "Yes" campaign, while the proponents of "No" took too much for granted and ran a weak campaign. Also, according to one gay marriage campaigner in California, the Obama campaign "focused like a laser beam on using California money and labour to win [the Presidency] in other states. They had California in the bag."

Bob Schweizer

London SE5

Kill the elephant

I agree with the banning of certain expressions (Philip Hensher, 10 November), in particular "the elephant in the room". The problem is, I've only ever heard or read this phrase in the media. Over to you.

Stuart Goodacre

LINCOLN