Ireland, Friends of the Earth and others

The joy of travelling in a modern, smoke-free Ireland

Sir: I have just returned from a superb trip around Ireland, and would like to say what a wonderful place it is. I thoroughly enjoyed being able to spend an evening in a pub, having a meal and a few drinks, without coming home reeking of cigarettes. In Northern Ireland it was depressing to be back in smoky pubs again.

Ireland has successfully adopted the euro, and not once did I hear anyone say "What's that in the old money?", as they no doubt would here for many years. As I was travelling the coast of the whole of Ireland, starting and finishing in Dublin, the UK's failure to join the euro meant having to switch from sterling to euro upon entering Ireland, from euro to sterling in Northern Ireland, back to euro in the Republic, and finally back to sterling when returning to Wales and England.

Apart from a handful of the hated speed cameras near Dublin, I did not see a single one anywhere else in Ireland. There was virtually no police presence on the roads either. But did that mean everyone was taking the opportunity of using amazingly empty roads as a race track? No, it did not - motorists are far more law- abiding and considerate than in Britain.

I hardly saw any graffiti, and no intimidating groups of youths hanging around on street corners and bus shelters. The majority of main streets in towns and villages are brightly painted in many colours - not many depressing grey pebbledash or concrete houses and shops there, as in Britain.

All distances are in kilometres, but of course in Northern Ireland it's back to antiquated miles, as in the rest of the UK. Ireland will shortly be changing its speed limits from miles per hour (mph) to kilometres an hour (km/h). And guess what? Ireland won't feel any less Irish for that.

Ireland used to be the butt of jokes about backward simple people: well the Irish have the last laugh now, as it is now a modern, forward-looking country with the impression of knowing how to do things properly. By comparison, it is Britain that looks stuck in the past.

PHIL J DURDEN
Steyning, West Sussex

Bishop departs from Friends of the Earth

Sir: British environmentalists have never come close enough to real power for the battles between idealists and realists to materialise in the way they have with, for example, the German Green party. Bishop Hugh Montefiore's public endorsement of nuclear power ("Global warming row goes nuclear as bishop quits Friends of the Earth", 22 October) puts him firmly in the realists' camp, with Friends of the Earth exposed as a group that is incapable of coming to terms with some fundamental truths.

If one is serious about reducing CO2 emissions by 60 per cent, the stark fact is that renewables will not enable the UK to achieve this target in the next 30 years, perhaps never. This applies even if there was a government brave or foolish enough to treble energy production costs and a public willing to accept the massive financial and social consequences of substantially higher transport and heating bills.

Nuclear is more expensive than gas-fired power stations but it is considerably cheaper than any of the renewable options. The public will not pay for wind power even if the technology and the acreage were there to make it anything more than a marginal generation source. The green lobby will have to decide which they want most - less CO2 or less nuclear power. Having less of both is not an option.

Dr JUSTIN SEABROOK
Brighton

Sir: Bishop Montefiore gallantly misses the point when he snuggles up to nuclear power as the answer to fossil fuel emissions reduction. It is neither safe, nor affordable, nor the answer to our predicament. Why, also, did he carefully omit reference to sideways nuclear proliferation and terrorist threats, which will rise when nuclear fuels and wastes at many times present levels are transported across the globe? It is futile to hark back to large scale solutions of this nature when real workable answers are readily available now.

It is true that only the will is lacking. Governments could begin to solve greenhouse gas emissions problems now. We know how we could get from here to there by adopting technologies that already exist; nor would it necessitate the "scarring" of the countryside as many people fear. We must say goodbye to old style massive-scale generation and massive wastage. New technologies go hand in hand with energy conservation, providing energy enough for our requirements alongside sympathetic design in an integrated energy management solution suitable for the future.

It is no surprise that Hugh Montefiore "can see no practical way" without nuclear; he hasn't looked properly.

TOM BARKER
Upton, Chester

Sir: Advocating nuclear energy as the solution to climate change is like advocating universal lung transplants for smoking-related lung cancer instead of encouraging people to quit smoking.

Even the International Atomic Energy Authority, whose task it is to promote the peaceful use of the atom, admits that nuclear energy cannot make a substantial contribution to combating climate change. Under its best-case scenario, where nuclear energy provides 70 per cent of energy use by 2100, CO2 emissions would fall by only 16 per cent - largely because extracting uranium from its ore is extremely CO2 intensive, and can only become more so as we use more marginal ores.

This alone should nail the fantasy that nuclear can come riding to the rescue - let alone the safety issues of building over 100 nuclear plants a year for the next hundred years, or the fact that there are vastly cheaper alternatives. Nuclear energy even now - when $100 billion has been spent over five decades developing it - is largely commercially unviable.

ROBIN de la MOTTE
London SE13

Sir: Tony Juniper rightly refers in his first paragraph to "the former Bishop of Birmingham" (Comment, 23 October). However, by the third paragraph Bishop Montefiore has become "the former bishop". No. Once a priest is consecrated bishop he remains a bishop, unless he is defrocked or resigns Holy Orders. Despite what Friends of the Earth may see as Bishop Montefiore's apostasy on the subject of nuclear energy the organisation has not, as yet, the power to defrock him.

GERALD BINDING
London N11

Greens on the wind

Sir: One would have thought that the Green Party would be, above all else, a scientific party. In arguing that turbines should not be located "on natural beauty spots" (report, 23 October) it would seem to be taking its science from William Wordsworth. Surely the best sites for turbines are where there is most likely to be some wind?

TOM MacFARLANE
Thornton Cleveleys, Lancashire

Regional referendum

Sir: Charles Kennedy and Tony Blair have made a desperate appeal to North East voters to vote Yes in the assembly referendum on the basis that England is an over-centralised state. That is certainly true.

However, the reality is that this devolution sham does not change the fundamentals at all. The health service, policing, education and all areas of legislation and financial controls will remain in the hands of Westminster.

It is not honest that the ballot asks people to vote for a North East assembly on the grounds of devolution, when there is no significant area of economic or political power being devolved. The only change will be the back door abolition of many local councils and powers being centralised upwards.

We urge all voters to cast a No vote against this plan.

Cllr STEVE RADFORD
President of The Liberal Party
Tuebrook, Liverpool

Pain of late abortion

Sir: I do not know if Ellie Levenson ("The misogyny of the anti-abortion lobby", 18 October) has ever been present at late abortions - terminations after 20 weeks' pregnancy - as I have been been. But how the procedure could be described as "pro-woman" is beyond my comprehension. To watch a young mother having her fully-formed child torn limb from limb is a most distressing experience for everyone concerned, including, incidentally, the nurses, who are invariably women, and sometimes low-paid overseas women.

In many cases, the young woman seeking a late abortion is panic-stricken by changed circumstances - an abandoning boyfriend, even the grief of a bereavement - and needs help, support and a bit of practical hand-holding, not the cold subjection to what is a beastly operation which the poor woman will remember for the rest of her days, and be physically reminded of whenever she is subsequently pregnant.

Professor Peter Huntingford - now dead - once said he would perform an abortion on a woman at any stage requested, but he subsequently told me: "There comes a point when it is just too late to terminate a pregnancy. I know it can be too late, because I have done it too late." What is "misogynistic" - according to Ms Levenson's thinking - in that simple, biological fact, learned at some personal cost?

MARY KENNY
Deal, Kent

Suffering in Darfur

Sir: I welcome Lord Alton's assertion ("If this isn't genocide, then what on earth is?", 18 October) that the tragedy unfolding in Darfur demands to be described as genocide.

I was part of a European Parliament delegation which went to Darfur and to Chad last month. The breaches of the ceasefire continue. According to the WHO, 70,000 people made homeless by the crisis have died as a direct result of the conditions they are living in. The livelihoods of up to a million people have been destroyed and the Red Cross says that there is an "unprecedented food crisis". There are daily reports of armed banditry and continuing brutal attacks on civilians. People are still fleeing from their villages and, as attention moves elsewhere, their misery is neither seen nor understood for what it is.

The people of Darfur need urgent action and a serious effort to find a political solution. Recently the European Commissioner Poul Nielson announced that a formal request for €6m had been submitted by the African Union and I welcome the fact that this money will shortly be provided in order to support the efforts of the African Union ceasefire monitors. In addition, further action needs to be taken in the form of sanctions - including targeted sanctions against Sudan's oil industry.

The relentless suffering of the people of Sudan after decades of turmoil and conflict must end, and the government of Sudan must be held to account. If calling what is going on a genocide prompts an appropriate response, then so be it.

GLENYS KINNOCK MEP
(Labour, Wales)
European Parliament
Brussels

MPs' expenses

Sir: What precisely is "astronomical" about £209m, the total of MPs' expenses (report, 22 October)? The main questions your reporters pose about housing and some other specific expenses would have carried more weight if you had also made it clear that most of these are legitimate expenses necessary to MPs' democratic functions - offices, secretarial staff, emailing capabilities, postage, etc.

Putting the news into context is what is meant to distinguish serious tabloids from the rest. Now can we have details of the difference between claimed and actual expenses of journalists and others who are criticising the MPs.

MALCOLM PELTU
London W4

Sir: Every business I have ever been associated with, including public sector jobs, has a system to justify postage costs. It would be intriguing to know exactly how certain MPs managed to spend nearly £20,000 in just a year on postage. It approaches 200 first class letters every day of the calendar year. The newly-revealed costs of MPs clearly represent the expense of doing the job, but there are implications of deficient practice or even abuse that now need expunging.

MERVYN BENFORD
Shutford, Banbury,
Oxfordshire

Boris says sorry

Sir: The most unsavoury aspect of the Spectator affair has been the attempt by Michael Howard to take on the role of press censor. Here we have a senior politician bidding to become Prime Minister who orders one of his party members to disown an article which was freely and legally published in a publication which no one is obliged to buy.

I hold no brief for Boris Johnson, but I will defend to the utmost his right to publish what he likes within legal limits.

SAM BOOTE
Keyworth,
Nottingham

Silent night

Sir: The Prime Minister has assured us that the troops from the Black Watch regiment in Iraq will be home for Christmas (report and leading article, October 22). I am sure readers will remember that exactly the same promise was made in 1914 at the start of the First World War.

CHRIS and DINAH STAPLES
Hove,
East Sussex

Sir: Of course the troops will be home by Christmas. The American election is over by then.

VAL SMALLEY
Leicester

English in Wales

Sir: Would Chris Webster (letter, 20 October) care to pontificate on the narrow-mindedness of Welsh people (a majority) who do not speak Welsh?

MATTHEW COLLEDGE
Isle Brewers, Somerset

Healthy living

Sir: Now that Boots plans to set aside space in its stores to sell sex toys, perhaps the Mars bars can be moved nearby, where they will feel more comfortable. I've always felt they looked a little furtive amongst the health foods.

Dr D W THOMAS
Haverhill, Suffolk