Violent games, bugging and others

Children in the grip of an addiction to horrendous games

Children in the grip of an addiction to horrendous games

Sir: I share Debbie Bryant's regret about the difficulty in finding real toys in real toyshops, and the near-demise of "make-believe" play (letter, 23 February). My 12-year-old son loves Lego, toy soldiers and model building and has always loved to play outside, building dens and fighting imaginary enemies. Recently, visits to friends' houses have involved my son sitting and watching them play their new electronic games - other toys or games are left unexplored; there is little conversation and barely a break for refreshment! Children seem to be in the grip an addiction and I do wonder what sort of a society we are producing.

Many 12-year-olds and their younger siblings seem to have free access to games that are horrendous in content - often with 18 certificates which are, to my surprise, ignored by the parents. On the way home from one visit I was regaled with the plot of a game which involved stealing cars, running down pedestrians to collect points and policemen for extra points. For extra life you pick up prostitutes and have sex (the car shakes, explained my son) and then you also beat up the prostitute. Now it seems there is a new game coming on the market which involves killing scientists involved in research using animals.

Do these parents know what is in these games or is it easier to give in to peer pressure without asking questions? It's very peaceful in the family home when the kids are "plugged in".

JULIET LEWIS
Stanford Bridge, Worcestershire

Shock and shame over UN bugging

Sir: My first reaction to reports of bugging the UN was shock. It was one thing to spy on the Soviet Union or a dictatorship like Saddam's; but another to give similar treatment to fellow members of the Security Council and even the Secretary General.

But your reports now indicate that spying on UN officials has become routine, and many governments attempt it. If that is so, and assuming the accuracy of Clare Short's allegation, why does Tony Blair not admit it - laugh it off, even? He and other heads of government could then consider how far international diplomacy is handicapped when it has to be conducted furtively on pavements or in noisy cafeterias rather than in normal offices.

Or could it be that he is ashamed to own up to bugging the UN? After all, it is supposed to be illegal.

MICHAEL LAIRD
Havant, Hampshire

Sir: Much as I support your stance on most issues, with this story I can only wonder which world you are living in.

Our Government has a responsibility to safeguard our country's welfare and interests. Like any other country that has the capability, of course we collect whatever intelligence we can gather that might help protect ourselves and our allies. In fact I would expect us to be also trying to obtain information about our allies, let alone an organisation which, though it may be of great value, can hardly be considered to be packed with countries that share our values or have our interests at heart. The only concern I have is that we should, for the sake of good international relations, avoid being caught. It is not overly simplistic to say that we, despite our many faults, are the "good guys".

As for Ms Short, whose plain speaking I used to have some admiration for; it seems that she is seeking to damage the Government for her own personal reasons. Where were these scruples when she was in government?

So, enough with the pretend horror; most people will be either bemused at the fuss or envious that their own governments lack the capability to undertake such operations.

M WOODIER
Leicester

Sir: It is interesting how many people are claiming to speak with authority on behalf of our intelligence services in criticising Katharine Gun and Clare Short.

Well, I am a former intelligence officer and I personally support their actions. I fail to see how lives or matters of grave national security have been jeopardised. It strikes me that if one thing has been put in danger by the events of the last few days, then it is Tony Blair's political future.

DAVID BATES
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

Sir: Could Mal Steel (letter, 28 February) have served in the security services? He has certainly signed up for the full "they know best" slate. He seems not able to envisage any circumstances which could justify "simpletons" like Katharine Gun "blabbing".

Chillingly, Mr Steel believes "she betrayed the trust placed in her and the discipline (that she volunteered for) of simply doing her job like the rest of the team and letting those above (and more capable than her) make the decisions". Perhaps she shouldn't have worried her pretty head about it, Mal? Nürnberg taught the world that following orders was no defence against a charge of guilt through acquiescence.

The "grown-ups" would seem to be relaxed about our spooks being sub-contracted by the US to bug officials of six UN member states in attempts to get their votes for war: my country (and the US), right or wrong!

EDDIE DOUGALL
Walsham le Willows, Suffolk

Sir: In an open, free and democratic society, it is inevitable that when people see something seriously wrong being done secretly in their name by the state, someone will eventually speak out.

The argument that people should be grateful for living in freedom and therefore keep their mouths shut is an absurdity. It denies the fact that our freedoms were not handed down to us from on high: they were won in a civil war and by protests and demonstrations over recent centuries by ordinary people demanding their democratic freedoms in the teeth of death and imprisonment.

It is becoming clearer by the day that the war on Iraq had nothing to do with any threat to this country. Any terrorist threat to this country is the direct result of the Blair government allying itself with the Bush administration that had planned long before 2003 to invade and occupy Iraq. It is equally clear that Tony Blair had already committed this country to this illegal act with or without the support of the United Nations.

Katharine Gun and Clare Short belong in the tradition of those who have been prepared to sacrifice their futures in the struggle against the abuse of power for the upholding of our rights and freedoms.

PETER NIELSEN
Worcester

Sir: I do not understand why anyone should be surprised that the Attorney General was "leant on to sanction war". Lawyers are often leant on to sanction courses of action which their clients wish to follow. The lawyer is often required to provide a cloak of legitimacy for an activity which otherwise cannot be carried out, at least without greater risk.

If a lawyer expresses doubts about a course of action it is perfectly legitimate for the client to test the strength of the view and to seek to change it with additional facts or arguments. Nor will all lawyers always agree on a particular question. Some questions may be so finely balanced that very little is needed to change the opinion.

What is important is that the lawyer does not compromise his position by giving the advice which the client wants to hear, unless the lawyer honestly believes it to be the right advice. That is a matter for the lawyer's conscience, because we cannot know for certain what any man believes. It is also a matter for the client's conscience if he knows, or suspects, that his lawyer's view is not honestly held. This also we cannot know.

However, a client and a lawyer who are confident of their positions will allow the legal advice to be examined and questioned by those who share responsibility for the resultant action - which may be a board of directors or, in the present case, a Cabinet.

DICK RUSSELL
Beenham, Berkshire

Sir: If it is right that that the military sought clarification as to the legality of the war before committing troops they were acting out of a sense of legal duty rather than self interest, in that the International Criminal Court (ICC) does not yet have jurisdiction to try matters involving the act of going to war. This means they would only have faced the unlikely possibility of a prosecution in this country.

However the way the war was conducted (upon which the Attorney General has not published an opinion), involving such matters as the targets and type of munitions deployed, is a matter for the ICC, but again this is initially a matter for the domestic courts and would only become a matter for the ICC if our courts declined to consider the charges, if any, which were made.

HUGO CHARLTON
Gray's Inn, London WC1

Sir: Last year I had a bad fall out with my boss, which resulted in me resigning and left me feeling very aggrieved. I wonder whether you might offer me your front page one day next week to pursue my vendetta against him?

CHRIS PAYNE
London NW1

History of hatred

Sir: The picture of SS concentration guards ("My mother was a guard in a Nazi death camp", 24 February) followed closely the nightmare that frequently wakes me up in a lather of sweat.

In 1945 I was a teenage soldier detailed to stand watch over Irma Grese, the head female SS guard from Belsen, who with other sadists at that hell hole was awaiting execution in Hanover prison. Her delight was having lampshades made from human skin and more than half a century later the evil face that stared at us from her cell haunts me.

The effects of war never diminish for those who fought and then dealt with the consequences.

TONY HEATH
Brecon, Powys

Sir: The "genuine" anti-Semitism in 1943 described by Michael Bor (letter, 26 February) was accompanied by the industrial and merciless killing of 6 million Jews. Do we really have to wait for the current attacks on rabbis, burning of synagogues and Jewish schools, defacing of cemeteries, verbal and physical insults and vicious cartoons to become "genuine" before being recognised as anti-Semitism?

ERIC MARK
Brussels

Sir: Karen Rogers (letter, 28 February) may well be correct that "during the re-enactment of the Passion of Good Friday all over the world, the faithful are called upon to read the part of the mob baying for Christ's blood" and condemn "those who seek to use the Gibson film for their own xenophobic purposes".

However it belongs to the tradition of Passion plays which has in the past been responsible for inciting mob attacks on Jews during Holy Week. It is this that has made many people upset over its circulation in present circumstances when the state of Israel and, by association Jews generally, is being blamed for the plight of the Palestinian people.

MARTIN D STERN
Salford\, Greater Manchester

Global language

Sir: Given that there are currently an estimated 200 million English language learners in China (which is still an emerging market for English language teaching) and that, despite a recent spike in interest, the numbers of students learning Arabic as a foreign language are tiny in comparison to other major languages, it would appear that reports of the demise of English as the global choice of second language in favour of Chinese or Arabic are to be taken with a pinch of salt ("English set to decline as a world language", 27 February).

Although the percentage of native English speakers in the world population will fall over the next decades, the language is flexible enough to survive in local forms (for example, "Spanglish" in the USA and "Singlish" in Singapore) and robust enough to maintain its position as the world's lingua franca for many years to come.

BEN WARD
Editor-in-Chief
Language Magazine
Los Angeles

Internal migrants

Sir: Christopher Shillinglaw need not "scratch the genealogical surface" to find economic migrants (letter, 27 February). How many of us still live or work in the place where we were born? And why did we change either or both? Economic migrants born in the UK vastly outnumber the rest.

R MARKLAND
Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire

Instant success

Sir: Scientists have not just "come up with a word" for a short period of time (leading article, 26 February). "Atto" has been part of the International System of Units (SI) since at least 1960 and the Eleventh General Conference on Weights and Measures. The approved prefixes go, decreasing by a factor of one thousand each step : milli, micro, nano, pico (which you omit in your article), femto and atto. Still in hand but less familiar we have zepto and yocto.

JOHN HARRADINE
Isle of Skye

Drive out crime

Sir: Your report that "Blair wants asylum-seeker camp in Africa" (26 February) is the germ of an idea. Why stop there? Bring back penal colonies like those we had in Australia. With Britain's prisons bursting at the seams, why not send serious offenders to Africa's poorer nations. This government could pay for the building of these penal settlements, and their upkeep would provide employment for locals, and give badly needed foreign revenue too. It would serve as a severe warning to miscreants, and save British taxpayers a fortune in prison costs in this country.

MICHAEL FISHBERG
Bushey, Hertfordshire

Oaths with meaning

Sir: "Meaningless waffle"? (letter, 28 February). If the cub (not boy) scout motto is properly spelled as "dyb, dyb, dyb", then it is the acronym for Do Your Best. Similarly, "dob" stands for Do Our Best. It's not all nonsense, then, is it? Argue if you must about oaths of allegiance and whether they are ludicrous but please, leave out the ridicule and debasement of the Scout Movement.

W HARTLEY
Hayes, Kent