http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/?service=Rss http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-treating-dementia-1824960.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-treating-dementia-1824960.html <p>I applaud Jeremy Laurance for his article (17 November) drawing attention to the perils of withdrawing anti-psychotic drugs from dementia patients.</p> Letters Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-voting-reform-1823868.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-voting-reform-1823868.html <p>Michael Brown (19 November) suggests how the Queen's Speech might have looked forward to "when my Government will at least have a mandate to introduce a programme for a full parliament, backed up by the authority of my people." </p> Letters Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-climate-change-1823099.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-climate-change-1823099.html <p>Global temperatures set to rise by an average of 6C by the end of the century (report, 18 November). The UN climate talks in Copenhagen likely to fail. World leaders and politicians who only care about big business, today's economy and holding on to power. An electorate captivated by the big parties. The Greens just a blip in the opinion polls. </p> Letters Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-why-having-it-all-is-a-myth-1822431.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-why-having-it-all-is-a-myth-1822431.html <p>Contrary to Arabella Weir ("Have it all? If only men would let us", 17 November), I welcomed Jill Berry's truthful comment that women can't "have it all", and would add, "not at the same time, anyway".</p> Letters Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-world-bank-and-climate-change-1821762.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-world-bank-and-climate-change-1821762.html <p>The Chancellor is right to point to the need to invest in green technology, such as forestry and clean energy ("There are substantial barriers to a climate deal", 6 November). He also says that the IMF and World Bank will play a major role in climate finance, though they are not purpose-built for the task.</p> Letters Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-electoral-reform-1821277.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-electoral-reform-1821277.html <p>There are 62,500 voters in Glasgow North East, of which one in three, 20,595 people, turned out to vote (report, 14 November). Almost 42,000 were not interested in seeking any of the representation on offer and stayed away. Only 12,230 actually have the representation they voted for; about one in five. Four in every five voters have no direct representation. </p> Letters Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/iiosi-letters-emails--online-postings-15-november-2009-1820857.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/iiosi-letters-emails--online-postings-15-november-2009-1820857.html <p>While it is disappointing that an effective deal on global warming is unlikely to materialise in Copenhagen in December, it is hardly a surprising outcome, as has been suggested by some green groups. </p> Letters Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-people-with-disabilities-1820374.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-people-with-disabilities-1820374.html <p>Ian Birrell's hard-hitting article on the abuse of people with disabilities (6 November) is right to argue that although social progress has been made in tackling prejudice, the progress has been uneven. People with disabilities, particularly learning disabilities, are still regularly demeaned, mocked or harassed in public. Given this, it would be easy to lapse into pessimism, but there are things that can be done to tackle bigotry by treating young people as part of the solution, not the problem.</p> Letters Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-immigration-1819747.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-immigration-1819747.html <p>You report (9 November) that the Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, is to launch a campaign stating that immigration is a "good thing" for Britain.</p> Letters Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-afghanistan-1818874.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-afghanistan-1818874.html <p>Listening to a minister justifying the presence and suffering of our army in Afghanistan, I heard him use the words "Afghan National Army" and "Afghan police". </p> Letters Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-care-of-disabled-children-1818172.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-care-of-disabled-children-1818172.html <p>Your heartbreaking article by Tussie Myerson (10 November) exposes so many of the inadequacies in our social and health services, and also in our general attitude to the care of the severely disabled.</p> Letters Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-immigration-and-asylum-1817744.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-immigration-and-asylum-1817744.html <p>It has been my privilege both to travel the world and act as community liaison here in UK for refugees and asylum seekers ("Johnson: we need debate on migration", 9 November).</p> Letters Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-organ-donation-1817282.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-organ-donation-1817282.html <p>The Royal College of Physicians is right to propose a three-way mandated choice for organ donation. The growing shortfall of organs for transplant imposes on us a moral obligation to consider new ways to increase the number of donors.</p> Letters Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/iiosi-letters-emails--online-postings-8-november-2009-1816842.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/iiosi-letters-emails--online-postings-8-november-2009-1816842.html <p>While many of us may find the factory farming of animals in rich countries objectionable, farm animals maintained on pasture grass by herders or raised on crop by-products on family farms in poor countries help more than a billion people living on a little more than a dollar a day ("Meat creates half of all greenhouse gases", 1 November). The biggest concern of many experts regarding livestock in developing countries is the prospect of hotter and more extreme tropical environments, threatening livelihoods based on livestock, and supplies of milk, meat and eggs among hungry communities that need these nourishing foods most. For people living in absolute poverty and chronic hunger, the solution is not to rid the world of livestock, but rather to find ways to farm animals more profitably, as well as sustainably.</p> Letters Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-homophobia-in-schools-1816589.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-homophobia-in-schools-1816589.html <p>After reading Johann Hari's article "Violence against gay people can and must be stopped" (4 November), I recalled my school days, not too long ago (15 years) when our humanities teacher raised the subject of homosexuality. </p> Letters Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-european-law-1815646.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-european-law-1815646.html <p>David Cameron's pledges to pass laws to make further loss of sovereignty to the EU impossible without a referendum and to enshrine in British law the superiority of British law are naive at best and dishonest at worst.</p> Letters Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-why-i-wont-wear-a-poppy-1814810.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-why-i-wont-wear-a-poppy-1814810.html <p>I lost two uncles to German bullets. But if they died for anything at all, it was to live in a society where you were not browbeaten into wearing a badge or flower or insignia at certain times of the year ("Why should I be pressured into wearing a poppy?", 4 November). Such societies are for the likes of Hitler. He for sure would have had us all wearing a swastika when we popped out to the supermarket.</p> Letters Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-halloween-killjoys-1814148.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-halloween-killjoys-1814148.html <p>My three-year-old granddaughter sat in a pink and black witch's dress on Saturday waiting excitedly for her Halloween "guests" to arrive to receive the sweets that she had ready. A few eventually rang the doorbell when Daddy placed the prepared pumpkin head by the front door. </p> Letters Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-drugs-policy-1813650.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-drugs-policy-1813650.html <p>I agree with Bruce Anderson (Comment, 2 November). On every conceivable front, the legalisation of drugs presents itself as the most sensible, compassionate and logical conclusion. Most of our policy-makers choose to remain out of touch with the reality of the drug culture in modern Britain, although one in three British adults has taken some form of illegal drug in his or her lifetime. </p> Letters Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-prostitution-and-the-law-1813268.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-prostitution-and-the-law-1813268.html <p>The question is not whether trafficking exists, but how it is being used to raid and arrest sex workers ("Make no mistake: sex trafficking is real", Comment, 29 October). Even the police do not dispute the findings reported as "Inquiry fails to find single trafficker who forced anybody into prostitution".</p> Letters Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/iiosi-letters-emails--online-postings-1-november-2009-1812765.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/iiosi-letters-emails--online-postings-1-november-2009-1812765.html <p>Peter Stanford says that for 470 years the Church of England has "... been walking a careful middle line, halfway between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism..." ("Has the Pope outfoxed the Archbishop", 25 October). The position on the Protestant-Catholic continuum varied in accordance with the views of the reigning monarch. So, Henry VIII was more "Catholic" than his son Edward, who was more "Protestant" than Elizabeth I. The debate about the nature of the Church of England became a feature of the English Civil War, not as a result of the need to tread a middle line, but because of the growth of the Protestant Puritan faction. The Church of England's Anglo-Catholics may want to trace their line back 470 years, but it is doubtful that it can be traced further than the 19th century, to Newman and the Oxford Movement. </p> Letters Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-the-nimrod-crash-1812294.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-the-nimrod-crash-1812294.html <p>The Nimrod crash was shocking and it is right that the investigation and report were thorough and hard-hitting; but that one Nimrod was unsafe should not mean this applies to the whole fleet.</p> Letters Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-postal-strike-1811602.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-postal-strike-1811602.html <p>A clever twist has been added to the effort to get the unemployed back to work by this "New Labour" government. After 13 weeks of receiving unemployment benefit, if you are still unemployed and wish not to have any benefit docked, then you have to accept a job interview with whoever your Job Centre liaison person recommends. </p> Letters Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-antenatal-testing-1810940.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-antenatal-testing-1810940.html <p>Professor Joan Morris (report, 27 October) believes more research is needed into why women refuse screening for Down's and other birth defects. One consequence of the increase in maternal age is a higher incidence of such problems, but another must surely be that the number of older women becoming pregnant after medical intervention is also increasing. </p> Letters Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-secret-inquests-1810452.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-secret-inquests-1810452.html <p>You report on plans to hold inquests into controversial deaths in private (22 October). How is this compatible with democracy and government for the people as well as of them?</p> Letters Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-bnp-and-nick-griffin-1809959.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-bnp-and-nick-griffin-1809959.html <p>I have every sympathy for the appalling experiences of racist intimidation and violence at the hands of the BNP and its sympathisers described by Paul Rees (letters, 26 October). But can I, as one of the "middle-class white liberals" he castigates – albeit one married to a non-white, conservative, immigrant, and who also works in the field of equality and human rights – please clear up his misinterpretation of why people like me supported the BNP's inclusion on Question Time.</p> Letters Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-palestine-and-the-west-1809445.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-palestine-and-the-west-1809445.html <p>In "The Nowhere People" (22 October), Judith Miller and David Samuels tell us that the disinheritance and periodic mass expulsions of Palestinians meted out by Arab states "recalls the treatment of Jews in medieval Europe". No; it immediately recalls the treatment of Palestinians by Israel much more recently. </p> Letters Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/iiosi-letters-emails--online-postings-25-october-2009-1808968.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/iiosi-letters-emails--online-postings-25-october-2009-1808968.html <p>Your leading article "We won't get fooled again" (18 October) outlined the reasons why Tony Blair should not be president of the European Council. You also outlined the criteria needed for the post both within the "very constrained powers" of co-ordination within Europe or as a spokesperson for Europe. You have called for the president to come from one of the smaller countries to act as a unifying signal for the countries within Europe. Not only does Mary Robinson fulfil these criteria; she comes from a smaller country within the eurozone, she has great experience of chairing meetings between nations and she has no specific party-political baggage. However, it is as her work with the UN Commission on Human Rights and her work in global development and democracy, as well as a member of The Elders that would enable her to place Europe within the dynamics of the wider global arena and of the challenges to global pressures for change. Britain supporting Mary Robinson would also help heal some of the pain of the past history between England and Ireland.</p> Letters Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-the-bnp-on-question-time-1808426.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-the-bnp-on-question-time-1808426.html <p>There has been much speculation in recent years about exactly what it means to be British. I feel that if a demonstration were needed, it was amply provided by Question Time on Thursday night.</p> Letters Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-social-mobility-1807568.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-social-mobility-1807568.html <p>It is refreshing to see figures that reflect the progress that has been made around social mobility in UK universities ("Universities finally open their doors to the poor", 15 October). However, Andrew Grant, the chairman of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference, describes some of the measures that have helped achieve this as a "leg up" which is inaccurate and unfair.</p> Letters Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100