Letters: Jeremy Hunt’s spin doctors have been unspun

These letters appear in the 9th January 2015 edition of The Independent

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt (Getty)

Your front page lead, “Revealed: how Whitehall officials sexed up case against junior doctors” (8 January) was a superb example of investigative journalism in the public interest.

It also spectacularly underscored both the importance of the Freedom of Information Act and the reason why too many politicians, of both right and left, want to water it down.

Your editorial rightly concluded that Sir Bruce Keogh, the “independent” medical director of NHS England, “should never have been dragged into the fight between Jeremy Hunt and the BMA”. That said, the telltale emails also reveal a dangerous willingness by Sir Bruce to acquiesce in the crude “sexing up” by government officials of his position in an attempt to swing public opinion behind Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and against the junior doctors.

The emails also disclose that the Health Secretary was personally aware of the news management “doctoring” operation.

For once the spin doctors have been seriously unspun and the public at large have been treated to a healthy and insightful dose of the unvarnished truth.

Paul Connew

St Albans, Hertfordshire

In my experience as an NHS consultant, the brightest and the most academically capable doctors were often somewhat politically naive. Perhaps it was because only the rest of us mediocrities had to resort to the sort of disingenuous behaviour you report from the Department of Health and Jeremy Hunt.

Sadly, though, once these brilliant doctors had been tainted with the accusation of political bias, it took a long time for their reputations to recover. Mr Hunt may have little understanding of medicine, but I fear he will use his school-playground political skills to drive wedges between the junior doctors and Sir Bruce Keogh.

Angus McPherson

Findon, West Sussex

What is the world coming to? Who would have thought Whitehall and government would be involved in sexing up a document?

Now who can we get to chair an inquiry to tell us nothing of the kind happened?

Tony Taylor

Church Minshull, Cheshire

Let’s be grown-up about drug risks

So “all drinking carries a risk”. We are advised of the dangers, given the facts, and then left to make our own choices about how much alcohol we will drink. Yet many less harmful substances such as cannabis and ecstasy are illegal, and we continue to be punished if we use them.

When are we going to be given honest education about the relative dangers of all drugs? And when are our drug laws going to be based on scientific evidence rather than hysteria and ignorance?

Hope Humphreys

Creech St Michael, Somerset

Is it just a coincidence that we are advised to cut down our alcohol consumption and children are to be warned off sugary soft drinks just as the country has a surplus of water?

Frank Hubert

Stevenage, Hertfordshire

Better futures powered by wood

Several of your correspondents have raised issues related to the Drax power plant’s sourcing and use of wood pellets. However, the growing debate about industrial wood energy should not detract from the enormous potential of wood fuel in developing countries.

Public and political discourse on renewable energy invariably focuses on solar, wind and hydro. But these sources are beyond the means of many of the world’s rural poor, for whom wood is often the only accessible and renewable energy source. Greater investment to support sustainably managed community forests and smallholder wood lots, with secure tenure rights to land and trees, would make a tremendous difference to the lives of millions.

Those of us who are better off take for granted hot water, a choice of cooked rather than raw food, heated and cooled rooms, and electricity for reading and other uses. Sustainable wood fuel production would allow many more of our fellow global citizens to enjoy such basic amenities while also helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by, for example, displacing fossil fuels and encouraging forest restoration.

Progress in this area would also be in line with the Paris agreement on climate change, which acknowledges the need to promote universal access to sustainable energy in developing countries, especially in Africa.

Patricia Tendi

Rome

The new threat of Islamist terror

Mary Dejevsky (31 December) may well be right that the direct military threat from Isis in the Middle East is decreasing. But this is to miss the bigger point, that here for the first time there is a threat of terrorist acts worldwide which could come from any member of the religious community of Islam who happens to have become “radicalised”.

And this can occur in any way you care to think of: via the internet, through tweaking the kind of interpretation of the Qu’ran which has become widespread through, among other things, Saudi-funded schools in many countries, or personal whim. Saudi-type “back-to-the-original” Islamic teaching establishes a mindset in which anyone who is not of that belief, in particular non-Muslims and non-Sunnis, is unfriended by God.

The alternative is the just-war interpretation of the relevant Qu’ranic texts on jihad, which brings it more or less in line with conventional western and UN views.

But, while most Muslims may, if asked, accept this interpretation, the only Muslim group I know of which emphasises it in its public teaching are the Ahmadiyya Muslims; and they are disowned (for other reasons) by other Muslims and savagely persecuted in countries such as Pakistan.

So the picture is less rosy that Ms Dejevsky seems to think.

Antony Black

Dundee

Why Americans love Downton

As a person born in England but having lived in the USA since 1970, I was astounded at the idea that US viewers liked Downton Abbey because of the lack of black characters. Wrong.

We are a very receptive audience to Downton Abbey because we enjoy the factual history and writing by Julian Fellowes. It is so refreshing to view the wonderful historical costuming, the in-depth development of characters, the locations and the authenticity of the changing manners and lifestyle.

I have viewed all of Downton Abbey Season Six and the finale while in the UK over the Christmas vacation, and look forward to seeing it again many times when I return to the States in a few days.

I will enjoy translating some of the English sayings to my American friends, some of whom are African American. We will all drink tea, wear silly hats and pretend Carson will be serving the tea in bone china next December when we will get to view the finale in the USA.

We will mourn the end of Downton Abbey just like we mourned the end of Upstairs, Downstairs, Poldark, and Call the Midwife.

Sue Michiels

Chelmsford, Essex, and Los Angeles

Where a painter of genius came from

You repeat the old claim that Diego Velázquez was “born into a family of minor nobility” (Radar, 2 January). This is indeed a belief the painter himself encouraged, particularly in order to support his ambition to become a knight of the order of Santiago, and a belief accepted by various past writers, including Ortega y Gasset.

However, it seems more likely that the artist wished to camouflage his real origins. It was a time when any hint of Jewish or Moorish blood could not only halt one’s advancement but bring down the sometimes fatal wrath of the Inquisition.

Two living historians, Julian Gallego and Kevin Ingram, believe that Velázquez’s family roots were in trade, specifically the garment business, and that he was more likely of converted Jewish stock. Many of his Sevillian relatives worked in occupations common among conversos.

Velázquez and his lobbyists did a successful job of making out that he was a hidalgo. That he was in fact of less blue blood should surely now bolster rather than hinder his status as a great painter.

Anthony Bailey

Mersea Island, Essex

The unattainable lottery jackpot

Ann Smith’s comment on the lottery odds is apt (letter, 7 January). Am I being naive in wondering why the system cannot be arranged to aim for multiple lower prizes instead of this unattainable and unspendable jackpot?

Most of the players would be over the moon to win half a million, and infinitely more optimistic about the possibility of doing so if the odds were to be shortened by a factor of 100 or so.

Peter Kellett

Kinlochewe, Ross-shire