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Letters: The Government’s green obsession is alienating the electorate

Boris Johnson leaving Downing Street - ANDY RAIN/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Boris Johnson leaving Downing Street - ANDY RAIN/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

SIR – The Government’s obsession with net zero – at the expense of our standard of living, our ability to properly heat our homes and our ability to travel freely – is sowing the seeds of the next serious split between the establishment and the people.

No one voted to be colder and poorer, or to pay more for travel, but politicians are determined to inflict these things upon the electorate.

This disconnect is what happened with Brexit, and our leaders haven’t learnt the lesson. When people start to notice the cost of net zero, there will be a heavy backlash.

Phil Coutie
Exeter, Devon

SIR – I wonder how many people have cancelled their membership of the Conservative Party as a result of its disastrous, short-sighted energy policy (Letters, October 14).

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Having worked in the energy sector for many years, I’m puzzled why this Government and previous ones, along with the energy industry itself, have failed to see the clear and present risk of demand exceeding supply if net-zero policies continue unchecked.

I cancelled my long-standing membership of the party this year.

Paul Shepley
Market Drayton, Shropshire

SIR – I agree with Allister Heath that there should be a referendum on net zero.

The groupthink is wrong on this matter. Trust the instincts of the majority.

Major Patrick Wallace (retd)
Acharacle, Argyllshire

Watch: Boris Johnson admits to doubts about success of Cop26 climate summit

SIR – Your report (October 19) details the Government’s plans for, among other things, decarbonising electricity generation. This includes nuclear power plants, offshore wind turbines and solar power.

It is widely recognised that turbines at sea are a danger to shipping and kill birds. More solar panels could mean yet more good agricultural land being sacrificed. But Britain has 11,000 miles of coastline, along which the sea rises and falls up to 10 metres as the tide goes in and out. We have rivers whose flow towards the sea never stops. So why are we planning to rely on wind and sunshine – neither of which is constant – for our renewable electricity?

Of all the countries in the world, surely we are in the best position to use water turbines in our rivers and along our shores. I would like to know why the Government continues to ignore this option.

Meriel Thurstan
Taunton, Somerset

SIR – Why does nobody mention the little things we can all do to help ?

It is not necessary to bathe or shower every day. We should wear clothes for an extra day, meaning we wash them less often, and buy fewer of them but keep them longer. When it is cold we should wear an extra layer, rather than turning on the heating.

Susan Kaye
York

Elusive booster jabs

SIR – Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, has said: “We’ve got the jabs, we just need the arms to put them in. If you haven’t been invited within a week of reaching that six-month milestone, then please get on to the National Booking Service and book online or phone 119”.

My second jab was on April 2, so I am one of the people Mr Javid is addressing – and I did as he asked.

However, the online booking service said I could not book, and advised me to try 119 instead. When I did so, I was told that I had to wait until I was contacted by the NHS.

Gabrielle Fletcher
Leicester

SIR – My wife and I are in our late 80s, so when we heard about the booster jab we went online to do our research.

We soon found the Government’s, very clear website, were given a list of venues for the jab and chose one within half a mile of home, with parking.

We were offered a choice of dates and times. This was on Friday last week, and the day we chose was the following Monday at 10.30am.

The clinic itself was very well-organised. In my view the Government and the NHS have come up trumps.

Colin Stokes
New Malden, Surrey

SIR – Covid-19 is responsible for about 1 per cent of all deaths. Why, then, do NHS “leaders” call for a further lockdown? Because they are responsible for the drastic reduction in bed numbers over several decades, leaving the service incapable of dealing with a surge of admissions. This is a direct result of allowing the system to be run by bean counters.

How many unnecessary deaths from the other 99 per cent of causes will occur as a consequence of this mismanagement?

David Nunn
West Malling, Kent

SIR – We have recently been on holiday in France, where everybody must wear a mask in any enclosed space such as a shop, cafe or on public transport.

We had to show our vaccination certificates before eating in restaurants, which makes perfect sense. People were out doing what the French do best – enjoying long, lazy lunches. Covid-19 rates in France are significantly lower than in Britain, no doubt partially due to some of these measures.

Yet while the rates continue to rise here, our weak leaders would rather pander to those selfish individuals who see sensible measures to curb the spread as an assault on their human rights. It’s time to get tough.

Kate Graeme-Cook
Brixham, Devon

`Watch: COVID-19: Millions of booster jab invitations being sent out as government resists more calls for Plan B

Larval remedy

SIR – During the Napoleonic wars, and probably others, wounded British soldiers used to treat themselves with maggots (Letters, October 17).

A trip to the surgeon usually meant the loss of a limb.

Clive Williams
Wrexham, Denbighshire

SIR – My late stepmother often related the story of how her father was left for dead for three days on the battlefield during the Dardanelles campaign in 1915.

When he was found, his wounds were full of maggots, which evidently saved his life because they prevented the spread of infection.

Her father had bits of shrapnel in his body for the rest of his life, but he lived until he was 90 – thanks to those maggots.

Professor Bryan Woodward
Loughborough, Leicestershire

Face-to-face degrees

SIR – I agree with Jane Lyons (Letters, October 10) about the neglect of young people during the pandemic. She is particularly concerned about future engineers and medics who are currently at university.

However, I can reassure her with two cases where the higher-education sector is not failing young people. One of my sons, in his second year studying engineering at Bath University, has in-person teaching four days a week, and I teach third-year medical students from the University of East Anglia, who attend my general practice in Ipswich to see patients in person each week. I hope all other disciplines follow suit.

Dr Mark Woolterton
Ipswich, Suffolk

Far-away banks

SIR – As part of their no doubt ongoing service improvement, Lloyds Bank is closing my local branch and switching my accounts to a town 10 miles away.

Given that we will still have a branch of Halifax, part of the Lloyds Banking Group, I asked if I could use it for paying in cheques and cash. The answer was no. Do banks really care so little about customers’ convenience?

Michael Staples
Seaford, East Sussex

Hedgehogs v slugs

SIR – June Bennett (Letters, October 17) recommends putting food out to attract hedgehogs into the garden, in the hope that they will also eat slugs.

I have two hedgehogs in my garden that I film on a night-vision camera. I see them walk over slugs, walk around slugs, even nudge slugs out if the way – but in 10 months of filming I have yet to see either of them eat a single slug.

I live three miles inland from the aforementioned correspondent; perhaps slugs taste better by the sea.

Edwina Maskell
Wrea Green, Lancashire

SIR – Before buying hedgehog food, it is important to check whether there are badgers in your area. If there are, there will be no hedgehogs to attract, as they will have been eaten.

Karin Proudfoot
Fawkham, Kent

SIR – We have been feeding and watering some spiky visitors for several months. However, while the slugs are eating the hedgehogs’ food pellets, the hedgehogs do not appear to fancy the slugs.

Paul Taylor
Norwich

Happy memories of bringing in the harvest

A harvest scene in The Four Seasons, Autumn in the Cotswolds by Adrian Allinson (1890-1959) - bridgeman images
A harvest scene in The Four Seasons, Autumn in the Cotswolds by Adrian Allinson (1890-1959) - bridgeman images

SIR – British people can’t be persuaded to pick fruit and vegetables.

I last did this 20 years ago in Suffolk. I harvested apples and pears at Felton Orchards, and grapes at Wyken Vineyards. The pickers were nearly all local, and a mixture pensioners, students and women with school-age children.

The last group decided our working hours – 9am to 3pm. This was very different from my time at Gaskains, Kent, in 1956, when we worked from 7am to 7pm.

In Kent we were doing piece work, and made good money. In Suffolk we were on a low hourly rate, but were given a bottle of wine at Wyken and a bonus per box, as well as a harvest lunch, at the orchard. We enjoyed the open air and the sociability.

Roger Austin
Moray

The Church neglects those who keep it going

SIR – We continue to be frustrated by the Anglican Church’s inability to recognise the effect on the clergy and laity of the reorganisation being rolled out in rural parishes.

In our benefice of seven parish churches we had a hard-working, full-time vicar (aided by his wife, who dealt with the bureaucracy). He retired recently and has not been replaced, we are told, because of the cost of replacement.

Who now has to take up his workload? Our two remaining part-time clergy – who never did, and certainly do not now, work part-time in practice – in conjunction with our church wardens, parochial church council secretaries and others. The Church is taking advantage of our clergy, and of the volunteers who keep rural churches open and accessible.

Churchwardens and other members of the laity are having to conduct more lay-led services, and there are fewer communion services. Pastoral work is inevitably spread more thinly, weddings and funerals are more difficult to resource, and it is harder to stage events which involve the village and encourage people into our church.

The Anglican Church’s current strategy is hastening the demise of the parish church, which is already struggling to survive in the context of a changed population in rural communities (fewer children and young people) and the fact that, sadly, we live in a more secular society.

Those of us who are keeping our churches going, and trying to increase our congregations and buck the downward trend, are being burdened with additional work in order to solve our diocese’s financial problems, many of which are of their own making. We are very willing volunteers and our clergy are very committed but we feel we are being taken for granted.

Sue Lansdale
Alton, Hampshire