The scenes in Catalonia aren't what we should expect from a modern democracy

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Police carry away an elderly woman after she tried to vote at a polling station in Catalonia (David Ramos/Getty)

One cannot fail to have been moved by the scenes of violence in Catalonia.

Whatever the view on Catalonia’s right to hold such a vote or not, the response by the Spanish police was brutal and excessive.

The sight of people being dragged from polling stations by baton-wielding police has no place in a modern democracy. One cannot praise highly enough the calmness, humanity and bravery of the Catalan people when faced with such acts of violence.

What is deeply disappointing is the muted response from the international community, which, bar a few exceptions such as Angela Merkel, the Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel and Nicola Sturgeon, has been largely silent.

While the European Union may argue that this is a domestic situation, in the past it has been willing to act in such matters. In 2000, for example, it imposed diplomatic sanctions on Austria when Joerg Haider’s extreme right-wing Austrian Freedom Party entered the government.

The Tory Government is so morally bankrupt that little more was to be expected than the pathetic response from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office when it referred to Spain as a “close ally and a good friend, whose strength and unity matters to us”. There was no condemnation of the violence, but the UK Government is so weakened due to Brexit that it requires every scrap of support it can gather, even if it means turning a blind eye to such obvious brutality.

One suspects that if there was any doubt previously over Catalonia’s desire for independence, the actions of the Spanish state have pushed it well and truly down this road.

Alex Orr

Edinburgh

The violence committed by police in Catalonia reminds me of the miners’ strike, Wapping, and many other UK disputes. There was no need for such gratuitous violence. There could well be long-lasting repercussions from this. The government based in Madrid should face EU fury, and Theresa May should condemn this.

Gary Martin

London E17

Another view on Scottish independence

Martin Redfern is naive to say, in his letter yesterday, that moving jobs north (it’s insecure up north) would have any relevance for Scotland. Remember this is the Government that planned to rejuvenate “the North” by a railway line between Liverpool and Hull.

Joanna Pallister

Durham

Interesting that in the letters Martin Redfern refers to independence for Scotland as a “threat”.

Many in Scotland would see independence as “freedom” for our nation and a blessed relief from Westminster shackles and the abhorrent, punishing social legislation of a shambolic Tory administration.

CA Milne

West Linton

Banning the veil isn’t freedom

I was greatly grieved to hear of the full-face veil ban being criminalised in Austria. It is estimated that of the nearly 9 million people of Austria, this will actually apply to a mere 150 women. Certainly forcefully removing the garment from these 150 women will not solve Austria’s problems. If this cannot be called a publicity stunt, what can?

Everyone has a right to freedom of expression. When it comes to the printing of derogatory caricatures of holy religious figures and deeply hurting the sentiments of millions of people, the flag of freedom is flown high and projected aloud. However, when the table is turned and it comes to protecting the freedom of these women, suddenly freedom is quietly brushed under the carpet.

We live in difficult times with increasing divisions and hostility between communities, races and religions. It is a time when governments should be seeking to enact such policies that bring the world together, to unite us. As the Head of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad has repeatedly advised: “People should not object unnecessarily to religious differences that may exist between people because that will foster division and needlessly provoke the sentiments of people.”

Maleeha Mansur

London SW20

Keep our public services properly public

After reading David Wrigley’s frightening piece about “private patients jumping queues”, I’m compelled to ask: would someone please reassure me that our freely given blood donations are not given to anyone who has taken the place of my fellow citizens because of their happy financial situation?

And if our donations are used for private procedures, would someone again explain how bean-counters manage to price a donation?

Mike Flisher

Blyth

I am a psychiatric nurse retired early on health grounds with two children diagnosed with a mild learning difficulty called dyspraxia. This does inevitably mean making use of the NHS and local schools.

I am working toward starting up my own business but this is often put on hold by the need to manage the services myself and my children receive, and managing these often irrational, micromanaged, target-driven services has become for myself a full-time, high-pressure damage-limitation exercise, even when for the most part my first reaction is to opt out or carefully chose my battles. I have my boundaries and only challenge the system when issues reach a point where I feel my children are at risk and I cannot meet their needs by providing a service myself.

So I home-school my youngest, and treat my own thyroid and pernicious anaemia issues just to avoid the fight involved in getting needs met through services I have for most of my life paid for and have currently no say in how they are provided.

My elder child – who never experienced any disciplinary action in school or even a warning, a child who is not able to keep up with his peers in so many skill areas but has worked hard consistently and quietly, trying to meet school targets inappropriate for his needs in so many ways – has just received the biggest slap in the face of his life when on his third day at senior school he is given a detention for being two minutes late (clarity about according to which clock or whose watch I have yet to ascertain).

Apparently the school and others like it have a zero-tolerance policy which seems to mean zero tolerance of mistakes, lack of perfection, humanity, kindness, being unwell and young people generally. I shudder to think what sort of workplace they’re preparing them for.

I have given these issues a thought and I have come up with a solution that will cut out a huge number of complaints, hours of email ping pong, endless needless debates, conversations, petition signing and contacting hardworking MPs.

Let’s make these services accountable to the people they serve and the people who have worked hard to pay for them! This can be implemented effectively by asking for feedback and satisfaction ratings that can then be used to reward or otherwise with increased funding.

Joy Etheridge

Address supplied

The Government finds money when it wants to

The Government often claims, albeit falsely, that there is no more money for essential services.

Despite this shameful lie, if the completely avoidable tensions with the West and North Korea – or any other self-inflicted crisis – escalated into a major war, we can be sure that untold billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money would instantly appear to finance Britain’s inevitable part in it.

If it became a nuclear conflict, of which Britain somehow “survived”, billions more would suddenly materialise to pay for, among other things, international aid needed for the millions of sick and dying, the accommodating of thousands of refugees arriving in the UK, a costly widespread decontamination operation over many years and the cynical replacement of the military hardware and bombs used in the genocide.

Why not spend these “hidden” billions now, on vital public services, so that when the time comes for this country’s next mindless conflict, the Government’s refreshingly truthful announcement of “no more money left for war” will be warmly received by all?

James Hayes-Carter

Cardiff

A step toward solving the housing crisis

Surely the most important thing that can happen in the housing debate is to stop the sale of council housing stock immediately. While there is a crisis in the private renting market and lists upon lists of people waiting for council house accommodation, it seems incredible that politicians haven’t thought that the sale of council property has made the situation much worse for people who need to rent decent affordable housing.

Lynne Lord

Lancashire

The importance of letters

Patrick Cosgrove (who wrote in his 100th letter yesterday) questions the value of writing letters to The Independent.

I can assure him that he performs a very useful function in writing as he does. He saves me, and presumably many others, the trouble of writing ourselves, because he invariably writes the letter that I would have written had I had the time.

Thank you, Patrick.

Elizabeth Wilkins

Clun