Why retain a relic?
Simon Jenkins’s point (April) that the monarchy relieves the pressure on more important people. such as the prime minister, by performing state duties is a remarkably feeble case for the retention of a relic.
If we wish to relieve pressure on the prime minister, why does he also perform the duties of a constituency MP? He cannot possibly have the time. If he does, there must be very little to do as an MP, so why are we paying full-time salaries to 650 of them?
Jonathan LucasAmersham, Bucks
The monarchist view
I am a devout monarchist who would like to see monarchy not only retained in Britain but restored in Europe and elsewhere.A monarch represents the nation as a whole and helps keep politicians in their place; I honestly believe that if our monarchs had had more say Britain would have been better governed. Does Bonnie Greer really believe that republics aren’t ruled by an oligarchy?
Mark TahaLondon SE26
The empire strikes back
The arguments put forward by the Editor and Will Self will not hold and they do not make their case.
The Editor writes, for example, that the monarchy is “a prize”. Go ask the Queen! It is not even a privilege. It is a burdensome task which she, and her late father, carried out with a sense of duty and responsibility, and a love for “their” people, which are rare today.
As for “infantilising” the people of Britain, and as for their being “conditioned” to accept the monarchy, I shudder to think what kind of ‘president’ such childish and brainwashed people would either elect or appoint to be head of state.
Incidentally, why didn’t you ask some people in Australia, New Zealand and Canada why they retain the reigning monarch as their Head of State? Is if solely because they cannot come up with a better?
Jack E.G. DixonVictoria, B.C.
We in Australia rather resent your poll question (April 2011): “Should the British monarch stay head of state of Commonwealth countries?” The question assumes that we Australians might not have any say in the matter. It is for us to change our constitution and although Andrew Adonis finds it “surpasses understanding,” we in fact threw out the idea of a republic some 11 years ago in a referendum. Our monarchy works well, particularly in the minds of the young and with citizens from multi-national backgrounds. It is a national unifier and a constitutional break on political powermongering.
F Hugh EveleighCoordinator: Australian Monarchist League (UK/Europe)
Science needs money
Like James Watson (April), I am concerned that public funding for science and research is, at best, standing still in stark contrast to our international peers.
The job of creating world-class scientists and researchers must start at an early age. The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee recently took evidence from a group of young A-level scientists who emphasised the importance of experiencing science firsthand in inspiring them. The availability of work experience and access to scientific facilities, such as the Liverpool telescope, was key to this. One student told us how the Science and Technology Facilities Council had bought in lunar samples to her school. Such outreach is critical to inspiring the next generation of scientists—and safeguarding Britain’s future prosperity.
Andrew Miller MP (Lab)Chair, Science and Technology Select Committee, House of Commons
Iran is not an exception
Many of the reasons for cautious optimism in Tunisia that David Goodhart (April) rightly raises are often ignored when it comes to Iran. Pundits can be so fickle. Iran too has an oppressive government facing down a young tech-savvy population, and a burgeoning middle class. The recent upheavals in the Middle East remind us that political change is unpredictable; that the glacial pace of political life in these fragile states is neither cause for complacency nor guarantee of stability. Iran is no exception.
Ali M Ansari University of St Andrews Try David Foster Wallace
We all know there is no accounting for taste; but how about for an allergy? I don’t quite understand what Geoff Dyer (April) is getting at when he says he likes David Foster Wallace’s writing but the same writing also makes him break out in hives. To me, this is somewhere in the realm of distinctions without differences. But if we assume what Dyer is trying to convey is that he likes Wallace in small draughts but not large, I think I can help the patient. I’d urge him to take up Infinite Jest—the jittery, fragmented and incandescent intertwined stories of a tennis prodigy and a drug deal enforcer—put aside questions about tone and posture that bug him, and just take the ride. Once you’ve made the trip you begin to see that Wallace’s “grunge” syntax and “phat” verbality serve a purpose, one concordant with his shattered time scheme and fragmented plot. And The Pale King, while not a finished book, leads to a similar conclusion: that his was, at the least, a true way to capture millennial America.
DT MaxNew Yorker staff writer
Banking is good for us
I welcome the interim report from the Independent Commission on Banking (chaired by Sir John Vickers). And let us remember it is just that. It is work in progress and we will have to wait until September to see the final report.
No one doubts that the banking system has to be made safer after the financial sector debacle in 2007-2008. The sight of taxpayers money bailing out banks that had behaved unbelievably rashly, and allowed to “get away with it” by the regulator, should not be repeated if at all possible. The Commission’s combined approach of increasing the banks’ ability to bear losses by raising their capital requirements and a moderate form of structural reform by “ring-fencing” their retail activities has much to commend it. Of course, raising capital requirements will increase costs to customers, but trade-offs have to be made. There is no such thing as a free lunch. And the moderate approach to structural reform is far preferable to threatening to break up the universal banks and seeing an exodus from the City. You may like or loathe the City - but it is a major generator of tax revenues and export earnings. It is far better that it thrives than dies.
Ruth Lea, Economic Adviser and Non-Executive Director, Arbuthnot Banking Group
Vickers: the uncomfortable path
The Independent Commission on Banking (“Vickers’ Commission”) treads the uncomfortable path of previous financial reviews, such as banking competition (2000) or pensions (2005), and arrives at the same three-forked end point, recommendations. Recommendations too frequently fail to match the excellence of the analysis. Should a report conclude with the acceptable answers, the right answers, or a starting position for negotiation? If recommendations are acceptable, they fade through further compromise to evanescence. If recommendations are right, they flare ephemerally with righteousness then crumple to ash. Is there a Goldilocks solution, not too hot, not too cold, but just right? Or are all solutions that cave in to the ‘art of the possible’ doomed to insignificance?
Vickers’ interim recommendations are neither just the acceptable ones nor just the right ones. For the financial services industry, the analysis should be disturbing, “The crisis represented a spectacular failure by financial institutions and the market to manage risk efficiently”. For critics, the conclusions do not go far enough towards genuine structural reform. Lower leverage ratios and more competition are a good start, but not enough. Three years after the 2007/2008 financial crises, most parties would conclude that there have yet been no changes of substance. Some would assert that contributing factors have even worsened.
I would like to believe that the production of such a detailed interim report, with sufficient time for consultation before the final September report, shows that this Commission shrewdly provides the opportunity to negotiate the start of reforms. For those of us who believe these recommended reforms insufficient for long-term sustainability, we have more time to make our case and, moreover, an opportunity to build momentum for future commissions that will help us all move to having a working financial system for the long-term.
Bailout reversal
In opposition, the Conservatives opposed Labour’s fiscal stimulus and the nationalisation of Northern Rock. In government, they have lent£7bn to Ireland to bail out their banks. At the time, George Osborne stressed Britain would not be part of any upcoming eurozone bailout. Now he is set to lend Portugal £3bn. Can any Conservative explain why bailing out British banks to secure the savings of British depositors was wrong, but lending £10bn to other countries is now right?
Councillor James AlexanderLeader of City of York Council’s Labour Opposition Group
An abuse of power
The Health and Social Care Bill offers an important opportunity to change the rules on community treatment orders. The government must seize it.
Community treatment orders—the power to force medication on people with a mental disorder after they have left hospital—were introduced in 2007 for so-called “revolving door” patients (those whose condition improved in hospital but who relapse after discharge because they repeatedly stop taking their medication). There have been unintended consequences. The number of patients being placed on CTOs is ten times what was predicted. Over 50 per cent have full insight into their condition (fully recognising its seriousness and the need for treatment). Over 30 per cent have no history of non-compliance with their doctor’s instructions. The criteria for being placed on a CTO are so broad that it’s almost impossible for a patient not to meet them. There is no requirement that they present a danger to other people or even to themselves. This is an unacceptable abuse of people with a mental health problems.
Dr Tony ZigmondRoyal College of Psychiatrists
Is Japan a democracy?
Oliver Kamm (April) claims Japan has “an essential strength born of the democratic culture it developed after 1945.” What about the strength it showed before 1945? Japan’s rise began in the 1860s, with the Meiji Restoration. They copied everything from the west—sadly, the west set a horrible example by the slaughter of the first world war, and refusing to endorse racial equality when the Japanese requested it at Versailles. After 1945 they copied a newer set of western models, once again with great success. But I’d question whether the system was (or is) a democracy—or more like an oligarchy made up of the permanent civil service.
Gwydion M WilliamsPeterborough
Artistic licence
Ben Lewis’s defence (April) of the Royal Academy’s Modern British Sculpture exhibition did it few favours, and missed its real failings.
The show’s major strength lay in its determination to juxtapose British work with that of ancient civilisations, or with international work. The curators rightly argued that Britain “must be understood in relation to its neighbours.” Yet the show conspicuously ignored its nearest neighbour, Ireland. With few exceptions, “British,” in this exhibition, really meant English.
The inclusion of many artists deemed minor was applaudable, but no argument was presented for any of the obvious omissions. What about the dialogue with Japan in relation to so many Scottish, Irish and Welsh sculptors? The show did not deserve such a hostile critical reaction, but perhaps one reason for it was that the reasoning behind the selection was so subtle that it was virtually invisible.
Brian McAveraDownpatrick, Northern Ireland
Drains do make heroes
Elizabeth Pisani’s conclusion (April) that “drains don’t make heroes” is surely wrong. The engineer Joseph Bazalgette is famed for the London sewerage system, and the physician John Snow is so renowned for proving that cholera spreads through polluted water that they named after him a pub near the site of an offending pump in Soho.
Robert KibblewhiteWitney, Oxfordshire
In defence of Brian Cox I am sick of the type of digs that Bronwen Maddox and cartoonist Stephen Collins (April) directed at Brian Cox. As an arts professional with a real interest in scientific subjects, I find Cox’s programmes informative and entertaining, as does my seven-year-old son. Cox explains complex concepts well, and communicates his passion for the subject with disarming directness. There is no narcissism or vanity in his delivery: it is entirely possible to be highly intelligent and scrub up alright as well.
Ruth GardeVia the Prospect website The future of libraries
Too many libraries are in places which reflect a style of life from 50 years ago. Why aren’t they located in shopping malls and supermarkets where children especially could be left for an hour to read and browse instead of being trailed screaming round with the trolley. Also, popping into the library would become part of the “routine” and wouldn’t demand a special trip. Even if we go to e-books, there is still a place for the library, but as an organisation it has to start thinking outside of the box.
Joannah YacoubVia the Prospect website
Leo Benedictus (April) is smugly complacent in his dismissal of the threat to libraries and book culture. The strength of popular feeling in defending libraries shows that ordinary people see them as a vital part of their communities. Partly because they are more than simply book distributing facilities, which is what Benedictus seems to see them as. Up here is Staffordshire the council is committed to keeping the libraries open “to provide a welcoming, non threatening environment in which babies can take part in activities which support early language and speech development: children can develop a love of reading: individuals and families can learn: job seekers can find support: people who are digitally excluded can find access to the internet: older people can maintain their independence and volunteers have the opportunity to make a positive contribution to their community”. Not a lot of chance of the internet substituting for that range of actrvities.
However the conventional view is that libraries might survive, but the book - ie printed text - will not. The printed book cannot be replaced by electronic media without severe damage. Once printed, books need no further input. They are self sufficient. E books need an electronic device, easily open to censorship. They also need a constant input of electricity. That is a drain on resources and is a cost. Even in the best case scenario, where paper copies are not made, Ebooks are not a no cost substitute for the real thing.
In the worst case scenario, with Google and Project Gutenberg acquiring all the out of copyright material and making is available, so book copies are wiped out, the road to a new totalitarianism is opened up. It is not fanciful to see political and other interests leaning on the providers to eliminate troublesome texts. Google relies on adverts. What price advertising pressure to remove critical comment?
Benedictus sees World Book Night as overstating the case for books. This is wrong. WBN had its problems and it is still not clear whether it is reliant on the book industry, but it is on the side of the angels. It got one thing absolutely right. Once the million books were released they have a life of their own, passed on hand to hand in samizdat fashion. Ebook could never do this. I volunteered on WBN and support the aims of the project. Both libraries and books themselves are under attack, and no one who values an open society should imagine we are not playing for very high stakes.
Trevor FisherStafford
Wigmore Hall
Two glosses on Martin Kettle’s (April) assessment. “In the Wigmore, the problem can be how to scale down the sound of your voice or instrument...” Yes, and the huge piano with the lid open makes that hard, and also seems to force string players to play more loudly just to be heard.
And: “Gilhooley is targeting what he calls the ‘Time Out’ crowd, whose ticket-buying habits are more impulsive...” I’m not so sure that’s working. It’s still best to buy far in advance, and/or be a Friend or on the mailing-list, to be fairly sure of getting a ticket. The ‘Prospect’ crowd are, accordingly, still very much in evidence.
Callum JohnstonLondon SW17
Multiculturalism
Philip Collins is right to stress the complexity of the Liberal/Conservative relationship but, if anything, underplays his hand. Small state Conservatives have a natural affinity with liberal mistrust of Government and the libertarian right is willing to endorse a liberal social agenda. However, as Collins suggests none of this chimes well with the authoritarian aspects of traditional tory ‘right communitarianism’ or with the twitching curtains of the ‘Big Society.’ Meanwhile liberals are divided between ‘orange book’ classicists and the social-democrats and ‘progressives’ who thought they ran the party. All are liberals of some stripe but if the party suffers the kind of electoral losses that seem likely it will be within the big parties that they’ll have their continued influence. Classical liberals can fight the battles for tolerance inside the tory party while progressives will, hopefully, detoxify labour of its own ‘left-Communitarian’ authoritarianism and help it find a new and compelling rational for a more equal society.
Philip BadgerBarnsley
Reviewing defence
While the defence ministry is busy with Operation Ellamy, dealing with Libya, as well as Operation Herrick, in Afghanistan, and the country is rightly behind its armed forces thus engaged, it is nevertheless unwise to ignore some of the flawed decisions this government took last October in the defence review.
The Public Accounts Committee, in early March, established that the real cost of each one of the 160 Typhoon aircraft ordered by the RAF, the prototype of which flew in 1994, is £126m. Some 65 have been delivered, and 95 are still to come, but no one knows why we need 160 of these aircraft that cost £1bn for eight.
The utility of an aircraft carrier, for operations off Libya, let alone for a range of other tasks, is obvious. So obvious that even the RAF, and retired air marshals, acknowledge that a no-fly zone off north Africa is best policed by carrier-borne aircraft. The US, French and Italians have aircraft carriers in the area. Even Britain has quietly arranged for one to be in the Mediterranean since April Fool’s Day - HMS Invincible has now passed the Rock as she is towed to Turkey and the scrapyard, but she is an empty vessel and characterises this government’s vacuous approach to maritime affairs and defence.
Yet the RAF advised the government, last autumn, that its land-based aircraft could carry out all future tasks were there no aircraft carrier. Why the government listened to such nonsense is hard to understand. When one learns that HMS Ark Royal and the Harriers could be run on for four years, at a total cost of £402m - less than the cost of four Typhoon jets - it is clear that the government was well and truly duped by the Brylcreem boys in Whitehall.
The cost of the operations off Libya would be significantly less were HMS Ark Royal and her Harriers off the coast now. No 3,000-mile round trips by some seven aircraft, for the first strike, at a cost approaching £1m. No comparable failure to fly, as the Harrier is newer than the Tornado and a much more reliable aircraft; of the nine Tornado aircraft intended for use in the first strike from RAF Marham, only three were serviceable. No 160 RAF personnel in hotels in southern Italy at a coast of some £10,000 a day - bunks are cost-free in a carrier. That £1m first strike contributed three missiles to some 112 others fired, the same day, from submarines and ships off the coast. These are the tactics of despair, comparable to the useless Vulcan bomber strike on Port Stanley in 1982.
The daft decisions of the SDSR are manifold. The Royal Fleet Auxiliary landing ship dock Largs Bay, commissioned four years ago, is now for sale. She provided great utility for the UK and was in the news when delivering aid to earthquake-stricken Haiti. How quickly the bean counters in Whitehall forget. A parliamentary answer shows that RFA Largs Bay cost £9.5m to run in a year. The RAF display team, the Red Arrows, costs £9.35m to run, yet it has no front-line military purpose and is quite useless when it comes to delivering humanitarian aid. But we keep the Red Arrows and RFA Largs Bay will be sold to some lucky foreign navy.
With decisions like these made last October, the government would be guilty of dissembling were it not to respond to the increasing clamour for a review of the defence review. I don’t blame ministers entire, but they do need to be very careful as to the advice they heed from partisan advisers. Fortunately, though partisan I am insofar as maritime Britain is concerned, the figures here just speak for themselves. Mr Cameron must review the defence review now.
Lester MayLondon NW1 Have your say: Email letters@prospect-magazine.co.uk
Simon Jenkins’s point (April) that the monarchy relieves the pressure on more important people. such as the prime minister, by performing state duties is a remarkably feeble case for the retention of a relic.
If we wish to relieve pressure on the prime minister, why does he also perform the duties of a constituency MP? He cannot possibly have the time. If he does, there must be very little to do as an MP, so why are we paying full-time salaries to 650 of them?
Jonathan LucasAmersham, Bucks
The monarchist view
I am a devout monarchist who would like to see monarchy not only retained in Britain but restored in Europe and elsewhere.A monarch represents the nation as a whole and helps keep politicians in their place; I honestly believe that if our monarchs had had more say Britain would have been better governed. Does Bonnie Greer really believe that republics aren’t ruled by an oligarchy?
Mark TahaLondon SE26
The empire strikes back
The arguments put forward by the Editor and Will Self will not hold and they do not make their case.
The Editor writes, for example, that the monarchy is “a prize”. Go ask the Queen! It is not even a privilege. It is a burdensome task which she, and her late father, carried out with a sense of duty and responsibility, and a love for “their” people, which are rare today.
As for “infantilising” the people of Britain, and as for their being “conditioned” to accept the monarchy, I shudder to think what kind of ‘president’ such childish and brainwashed people would either elect or appoint to be head of state.
Incidentally, why didn’t you ask some people in Australia, New Zealand and Canada why they retain the reigning monarch as their Head of State? Is if solely because they cannot come up with a better?
Jack E.G. DixonVictoria, B.C.
We in Australia rather resent your poll question (April 2011): “Should the British monarch stay head of state of Commonwealth countries?” The question assumes that we Australians might not have any say in the matter. It is for us to change our constitution and although Andrew Adonis finds it “surpasses understanding,” we in fact threw out the idea of a republic some 11 years ago in a referendum. Our monarchy works well, particularly in the minds of the young and with citizens from multi-national backgrounds. It is a national unifier and a constitutional break on political powermongering.
F Hugh EveleighCoordinator: Australian Monarchist League (UK/Europe)
Science needs money
Like James Watson (April), I am concerned that public funding for science and research is, at best, standing still in stark contrast to our international peers.
The job of creating world-class scientists and researchers must start at an early age. The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee recently took evidence from a group of young A-level scientists who emphasised the importance of experiencing science firsthand in inspiring them. The availability of work experience and access to scientific facilities, such as the Liverpool telescope, was key to this. One student told us how the Science and Technology Facilities Council had bought in lunar samples to her school. Such outreach is critical to inspiring the next generation of scientists—and safeguarding Britain’s future prosperity.
Andrew Miller MP (Lab)Chair, Science and Technology Select Committee, House of Commons
Iran is not an exception
Many of the reasons for cautious optimism in Tunisia that David Goodhart (April) rightly raises are often ignored when it comes to Iran. Pundits can be so fickle. Iran too has an oppressive government facing down a young tech-savvy population, and a burgeoning middle class. The recent upheavals in the Middle East remind us that political change is unpredictable; that the glacial pace of political life in these fragile states is neither cause for complacency nor guarantee of stability. Iran is no exception.
Ali M Ansari University of St Andrews Try David Foster Wallace
We all know there is no accounting for taste; but how about for an allergy? I don’t quite understand what Geoff Dyer (April) is getting at when he says he likes David Foster Wallace’s writing but the same writing also makes him break out in hives. To me, this is somewhere in the realm of distinctions without differences. But if we assume what Dyer is trying to convey is that he likes Wallace in small draughts but not large, I think I can help the patient. I’d urge him to take up Infinite Jest—the jittery, fragmented and incandescent intertwined stories of a tennis prodigy and a drug deal enforcer—put aside questions about tone and posture that bug him, and just take the ride. Once you’ve made the trip you begin to see that Wallace’s “grunge” syntax and “phat” verbality serve a purpose, one concordant with his shattered time scheme and fragmented plot. And The Pale King, while not a finished book, leads to a similar conclusion: that his was, at the least, a true way to capture millennial America.
DT MaxNew Yorker staff writer
Banking is good for us
I welcome the interim report from the Independent Commission on Banking (chaired by Sir John Vickers). And let us remember it is just that. It is work in progress and we will have to wait until September to see the final report.
No one doubts that the banking system has to be made safer after the financial sector debacle in 2007-2008. The sight of taxpayers money bailing out banks that had behaved unbelievably rashly, and allowed to “get away with it” by the regulator, should not be repeated if at all possible. The Commission’s combined approach of increasing the banks’ ability to bear losses by raising their capital requirements and a moderate form of structural reform by “ring-fencing” their retail activities has much to commend it. Of course, raising capital requirements will increase costs to customers, but trade-offs have to be made. There is no such thing as a free lunch. And the moderate approach to structural reform is far preferable to threatening to break up the universal banks and seeing an exodus from the City. You may like or loathe the City - but it is a major generator of tax revenues and export earnings. It is far better that it thrives than dies.
Ruth Lea, Economic Adviser and Non-Executive Director, Arbuthnot Banking Group
Vickers: the uncomfortable path
The Independent Commission on Banking (“Vickers’ Commission”) treads the uncomfortable path of previous financial reviews, such as banking competition (2000) or pensions (2005), and arrives at the same three-forked end point, recommendations. Recommendations too frequently fail to match the excellence of the analysis. Should a report conclude with the acceptable answers, the right answers, or a starting position for negotiation? If recommendations are acceptable, they fade through further compromise to evanescence. If recommendations are right, they flare ephemerally with righteousness then crumple to ash. Is there a Goldilocks solution, not too hot, not too cold, but just right? Or are all solutions that cave in to the ‘art of the possible’ doomed to insignificance?
Vickers’ interim recommendations are neither just the acceptable ones nor just the right ones. For the financial services industry, the analysis should be disturbing, “The crisis represented a spectacular failure by financial institutions and the market to manage risk efficiently”. For critics, the conclusions do not go far enough towards genuine structural reform. Lower leverage ratios and more competition are a good start, but not enough. Three years after the 2007/2008 financial crises, most parties would conclude that there have yet been no changes of substance. Some would assert that contributing factors have even worsened.
I would like to believe that the production of such a detailed interim report, with sufficient time for consultation before the final September report, shows that this Commission shrewdly provides the opportunity to negotiate the start of reforms. For those of us who believe these recommended reforms insufficient for long-term sustainability, we have more time to make our case and, moreover, an opportunity to build momentum for future commissions that will help us all move to having a working financial system for the long-term.
Bailout reversal
In opposition, the Conservatives opposed Labour’s fiscal stimulus and the nationalisation of Northern Rock. In government, they have lent£7bn to Ireland to bail out their banks. At the time, George Osborne stressed Britain would not be part of any upcoming eurozone bailout. Now he is set to lend Portugal £3bn. Can any Conservative explain why bailing out British banks to secure the savings of British depositors was wrong, but lending £10bn to other countries is now right?
Councillor James AlexanderLeader of City of York Council’s Labour Opposition Group
An abuse of power
The Health and Social Care Bill offers an important opportunity to change the rules on community treatment orders. The government must seize it.
Community treatment orders—the power to force medication on people with a mental disorder after they have left hospital—were introduced in 2007 for so-called “revolving door” patients (those whose condition improved in hospital but who relapse after discharge because they repeatedly stop taking their medication). There have been unintended consequences. The number of patients being placed on CTOs is ten times what was predicted. Over 50 per cent have full insight into their condition (fully recognising its seriousness and the need for treatment). Over 30 per cent have no history of non-compliance with their doctor’s instructions. The criteria for being placed on a CTO are so broad that it’s almost impossible for a patient not to meet them. There is no requirement that they present a danger to other people or even to themselves. This is an unacceptable abuse of people with a mental health problems.
Dr Tony ZigmondRoyal College of Psychiatrists
Is Japan a democracy?
Oliver Kamm (April) claims Japan has “an essential strength born of the democratic culture it developed after 1945.” What about the strength it showed before 1945? Japan’s rise began in the 1860s, with the Meiji Restoration. They copied everything from the west—sadly, the west set a horrible example by the slaughter of the first world war, and refusing to endorse racial equality when the Japanese requested it at Versailles. After 1945 they copied a newer set of western models, once again with great success. But I’d question whether the system was (or is) a democracy—or more like an oligarchy made up of the permanent civil service.
Gwydion M WilliamsPeterborough
Artistic licence
Ben Lewis’s defence (April) of the Royal Academy’s Modern British Sculpture exhibition did it few favours, and missed its real failings.
The show’s major strength lay in its determination to juxtapose British work with that of ancient civilisations, or with international work. The curators rightly argued that Britain “must be understood in relation to its neighbours.” Yet the show conspicuously ignored its nearest neighbour, Ireland. With few exceptions, “British,” in this exhibition, really meant English.
The inclusion of many artists deemed minor was applaudable, but no argument was presented for any of the obvious omissions. What about the dialogue with Japan in relation to so many Scottish, Irish and Welsh sculptors? The show did not deserve such a hostile critical reaction, but perhaps one reason for it was that the reasoning behind the selection was so subtle that it was virtually invisible.
Brian McAveraDownpatrick, Northern Ireland
Drains do make heroes
Elizabeth Pisani’s conclusion (April) that “drains don’t make heroes” is surely wrong. The engineer Joseph Bazalgette is famed for the London sewerage system, and the physician John Snow is so renowned for proving that cholera spreads through polluted water that they named after him a pub near the site of an offending pump in Soho.
Robert KibblewhiteWitney, Oxfordshire
In defence of Brian Cox I am sick of the type of digs that Bronwen Maddox and cartoonist Stephen Collins (April) directed at Brian Cox. As an arts professional with a real interest in scientific subjects, I find Cox’s programmes informative and entertaining, as does my seven-year-old son. Cox explains complex concepts well, and communicates his passion for the subject with disarming directness. There is no narcissism or vanity in his delivery: it is entirely possible to be highly intelligent and scrub up alright as well.
Ruth GardeVia the Prospect website The future of libraries
Too many libraries are in places which reflect a style of life from 50 years ago. Why aren’t they located in shopping malls and supermarkets where children especially could be left for an hour to read and browse instead of being trailed screaming round with the trolley. Also, popping into the library would become part of the “routine” and wouldn’t demand a special trip. Even if we go to e-books, there is still a place for the library, but as an organisation it has to start thinking outside of the box.
Joannah YacoubVia the Prospect website
Leo Benedictus (April) is smugly complacent in his dismissal of the threat to libraries and book culture. The strength of popular feeling in defending libraries shows that ordinary people see them as a vital part of their communities. Partly because they are more than simply book distributing facilities, which is what Benedictus seems to see them as. Up here is Staffordshire the council is committed to keeping the libraries open “to provide a welcoming, non threatening environment in which babies can take part in activities which support early language and speech development: children can develop a love of reading: individuals and families can learn: job seekers can find support: people who are digitally excluded can find access to the internet: older people can maintain their independence and volunteers have the opportunity to make a positive contribution to their community”. Not a lot of chance of the internet substituting for that range of actrvities.
However the conventional view is that libraries might survive, but the book - ie printed text - will not. The printed book cannot be replaced by electronic media without severe damage. Once printed, books need no further input. They are self sufficient. E books need an electronic device, easily open to censorship. They also need a constant input of electricity. That is a drain on resources and is a cost. Even in the best case scenario, where paper copies are not made, Ebooks are not a no cost substitute for the real thing.
In the worst case scenario, with Google and Project Gutenberg acquiring all the out of copyright material and making is available, so book copies are wiped out, the road to a new totalitarianism is opened up. It is not fanciful to see political and other interests leaning on the providers to eliminate troublesome texts. Google relies on adverts. What price advertising pressure to remove critical comment?
Benedictus sees World Book Night as overstating the case for books. This is wrong. WBN had its problems and it is still not clear whether it is reliant on the book industry, but it is on the side of the angels. It got one thing absolutely right. Once the million books were released they have a life of their own, passed on hand to hand in samizdat fashion. Ebook could never do this. I volunteered on WBN and support the aims of the project. Both libraries and books themselves are under attack, and no one who values an open society should imagine we are not playing for very high stakes.
Trevor FisherStafford
Wigmore Hall
Two glosses on Martin Kettle’s (April) assessment. “In the Wigmore, the problem can be how to scale down the sound of your voice or instrument...” Yes, and the huge piano with the lid open makes that hard, and also seems to force string players to play more loudly just to be heard.
And: “Gilhooley is targeting what he calls the ‘Time Out’ crowd, whose ticket-buying habits are more impulsive...” I’m not so sure that’s working. It’s still best to buy far in advance, and/or be a Friend or on the mailing-list, to be fairly sure of getting a ticket. The ‘Prospect’ crowd are, accordingly, still very much in evidence.
Callum JohnstonLondon SW17
Multiculturalism
Philip Collins is right to stress the complexity of the Liberal/Conservative relationship but, if anything, underplays his hand. Small state Conservatives have a natural affinity with liberal mistrust of Government and the libertarian right is willing to endorse a liberal social agenda. However, as Collins suggests none of this chimes well with the authoritarian aspects of traditional tory ‘right communitarianism’ or with the twitching curtains of the ‘Big Society.’ Meanwhile liberals are divided between ‘orange book’ classicists and the social-democrats and ‘progressives’ who thought they ran the party. All are liberals of some stripe but if the party suffers the kind of electoral losses that seem likely it will be within the big parties that they’ll have their continued influence. Classical liberals can fight the battles for tolerance inside the tory party while progressives will, hopefully, detoxify labour of its own ‘left-Communitarian’ authoritarianism and help it find a new and compelling rational for a more equal society.
Philip BadgerBarnsley
Reviewing defence
While the defence ministry is busy with Operation Ellamy, dealing with Libya, as well as Operation Herrick, in Afghanistan, and the country is rightly behind its armed forces thus engaged, it is nevertheless unwise to ignore some of the flawed decisions this government took last October in the defence review.
The Public Accounts Committee, in early March, established that the real cost of each one of the 160 Typhoon aircraft ordered by the RAF, the prototype of which flew in 1994, is £126m. Some 65 have been delivered, and 95 are still to come, but no one knows why we need 160 of these aircraft that cost £1bn for eight.
The utility of an aircraft carrier, for operations off Libya, let alone for a range of other tasks, is obvious. So obvious that even the RAF, and retired air marshals, acknowledge that a no-fly zone off north Africa is best policed by carrier-borne aircraft. The US, French and Italians have aircraft carriers in the area. Even Britain has quietly arranged for one to be in the Mediterranean since April Fool’s Day - HMS Invincible has now passed the Rock as she is towed to Turkey and the scrapyard, but she is an empty vessel and characterises this government’s vacuous approach to maritime affairs and defence.
Yet the RAF advised the government, last autumn, that its land-based aircraft could carry out all future tasks were there no aircraft carrier. Why the government listened to such nonsense is hard to understand. When one learns that HMS Ark Royal and the Harriers could be run on for four years, at a total cost of £402m - less than the cost of four Typhoon jets - it is clear that the government was well and truly duped by the Brylcreem boys in Whitehall.
The cost of the operations off Libya would be significantly less were HMS Ark Royal and her Harriers off the coast now. No 3,000-mile round trips by some seven aircraft, for the first strike, at a cost approaching £1m. No comparable failure to fly, as the Harrier is newer than the Tornado and a much more reliable aircraft; of the nine Tornado aircraft intended for use in the first strike from RAF Marham, only three were serviceable. No 160 RAF personnel in hotels in southern Italy at a coast of some £10,000 a day - bunks are cost-free in a carrier. That £1m first strike contributed three missiles to some 112 others fired, the same day, from submarines and ships off the coast. These are the tactics of despair, comparable to the useless Vulcan bomber strike on Port Stanley in 1982.
The daft decisions of the SDSR are manifold. The Royal Fleet Auxiliary landing ship dock Largs Bay, commissioned four years ago, is now for sale. She provided great utility for the UK and was in the news when delivering aid to earthquake-stricken Haiti. How quickly the bean counters in Whitehall forget. A parliamentary answer shows that RFA Largs Bay cost £9.5m to run in a year. The RAF display team, the Red Arrows, costs £9.35m to run, yet it has no front-line military purpose and is quite useless when it comes to delivering humanitarian aid. But we keep the Red Arrows and RFA Largs Bay will be sold to some lucky foreign navy.
With decisions like these made last October, the government would be guilty of dissembling were it not to respond to the increasing clamour for a review of the defence review. I don’t blame ministers entire, but they do need to be very careful as to the advice they heed from partisan advisers. Fortunately, though partisan I am insofar as maritime Britain is concerned, the figures here just speak for themselves. Mr Cameron must review the defence review now.
Lester MayLondon NW1 Have your say: Email letters@prospect-magazine.co.uk
