Theresa May is ignoring privilege when it comes to racial inequality

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Theresa May has vowed to act on racial discrimination (REUTERS)

Theresa May’s publication of discriminatory data is in line with her insistence that success should depend only on “talent and hard work”. As we all know, though, many children do well only because their wealthy and concerned parents send them to privileged schools, pay for additional tuition and for trips abroad to widen their experiences. Their children do not have to run the gamut of gangs, live in crowded inadequate housing and suffer high levels of pollution and poor medical services. Their children inherit confidence, contacts and wealth; the poor do not. The poor suffer a wide range of disadvantages – from inadequate housing to poor education to fears of gang violence in inner cities.

If – if – Theresa May is truly sincere in her desire for a meritocracy, we must be about to have a social revolution. She must surely be about to prohibit fee-paying schools, private medical care and significant inheritances – and that is just for starters. Watch this space – or maybe not.

Peter Cave
London W1

Lack of productivity is keeping house prices high

Ben Chu argues that “houses in Britain are perfectly affordable” except “to the people who we want to be able to buy them”. To whom, then? Overseas property speculators? A well-heeled granny generation? Get real!

He then goes on to blame high house prices on everything from Conservative Party donors and landlord MPs to the legacy of Thatcherism. While much of this is correct, it ignores the dogged determination of the building industry to keep building homes the way we have always done: by putting brick on top of brick.

This, as much as anything else, is what keeps home prices high. Productivity in the building sector is trailing all other industries, and the reason is lack of investment in new technology – by industry and government alike. If we start taking action to improve productivity we can really start to tackle the serious, and increasing, shortfall in affordable and social housing.

Paul R Draper
Winchester

Mental health first aid training could help so many

A former chair at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Dr. Sridevi Kalidindi, last week in The Independent made some pertinent points on the importance of widespread mental health awareness in supporting early intervention, highlighting the positive impact that accessing the right care at the right time can have on someone’s life.

In light of such calls, it’s encouraging that today the Government has committed to rolling out a national mental health literacy programme that will aim to train one million people in Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) skills. MHFA educates people to be able to spot the signs and symptoms of common mental health issues, provide support on a first aid basis, and guide someone to further support, be that self-help, or professional services. This programme will enable people to better understand and support their own mental health and improve individual help-seeking behaviours, meaning more people are reaching out for help at the earliest possible opportunity.

Widespread public campaigns encouraging action and awareness to support our physical health through diet and exercise have been a feature of public life for many years. In the last decade, however, it’s been encouraging to see that mental health awareness campaigns are significantly increasing their share of voice. My hope is that a programme of this kind involving MHFA can add to the efforts of some of the fantastic campaigns of recent years, such as Time To Change, CALM and Heads Together.

As well as raising awareness of common mental health issues, MHFA seeks to turn that awareness into action. Needless to say, if that action involves not just self-help strategies, but professional services, for this approach to work it is vital that services are available the point of need. As Dr Kalidindi points out, a shortage of trained professionals compromises this – she highlights, for example, that the number of psychiatrists has increased by just 1.7 per cent in the last 5 years, compared to 20 per cent for the number of consultants across the rest of the NHS.

This tells us that there is still a huge amount of work to be done to achieve parity of esteem between mental health and physical health, a pledge again included in the three main parties’ manifestos this year. Awareness campaigns are one part of these efforts, however, as these continue to help break stigma, give more people the confidence to come forward and the knowledge to navigate care pathways, it’s more important than ever before that our mental health services are properly resourced and fit for purpose.

Poppy Jaman, chief executive, Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) England

Let’s hope the Tories have learnt their lesson about racism

It was gratifying to read that Theresa May is taking a strong lead in trying to ensure that opportunities for ethnic minorities are to be given a much higher priority now than in the past.

I hope this shows a genuine advance in Tory attitudes from those that existed in the 1964 general election when the Tory candidate for Smethwick, Peter Griffiths, beat the incumbent Labour candidate, Patrick Gordon Walker using an election slogan “If you want a n***** for a neighbour, vote Labour” (my asterisks). Although it was condemned at the time, Griffiths refused to disown it.

I realise that general attitudes to ethnic minorities have improved greatly over the years and I truly hope May’s statement is both sincere and generally welcomed by her party, showing a sea-change in attitude from the racial dark ages of the 1960s.

Patrick Cleary
Honiton

Brexit border issues

Theresa May informed the House of Commons that the planned legislation for post-Brexit customs arrangements set out what would be required under a “no deal” exit.

“The impact is likely to be greatest where goods are travelling in vehicles (eg HGVs, vans, etc)”, she astutely observed.

Offering more sage advice she continued: “It would not be desirable to hold vehicles for any length of time at ports to present goods to Customs for export. Therefore, presentation would take place inland as much as possible, and at the port there would be a means to confirm that goods have left the UK.”

What a wizard scheme: simply legislate for a “secure” chunk of the UK around each port to ensure nothing is added or removed from the vehicle between “inland check-point” and port, and Bob’s your Uncle. What could possibly go wrong?

Eddie Dougall
Walsham le Willows

Brexit is so much more than a messy divorce

Not unsurprisingly, the Brexiteers are already beginning to prepare their excuses for their failure to deliver any sort of viable Brexit deal. The blame clearly will be laid not on the oh so reasonable British, but on the perfidious Europeans, who have been totally intransigent and unreasonable. As usual, this position is a far distance from reality.

The break from Europe has been likened to a divorce at the end of a marriage. In this notional marriage, partner A has spent the entire relationship bickering over their allowance from the family income. They have blamed their partner for every shortcoming in the marriage and been happy to see their friends (aka the British press) bad-mouth their spouse at every opportunity. In addition, they don’t appear too concerned about the future of one of the family’s vulnerable dependents (aka Northern Ireland) and still want access to one of the partnership’s property (aka the single market). Moreover, it is partner A that has taken the first step in filing for divorce.

In these circumstances it is not really surprising that partner B acts in a particular way. What is not really credible is that the parties who suggested the divorce could be so naive as to believe that such a split could be both amicable and facile. Whatever ever happened to the supposed British attributes of common sense and for that matter, fair play?

MT Harris
Grimsby