Industrial waste
Sir: I endorse your concerns about the closure of Grangemouth and Port Talbot and the statement that ‘if high-quality jobs are to return to the North and the Midlands then re-industrialisation is presumably the answer’ (‘Time for a change’, 12 October). However, your leading article fails to observe that Ed Miliband has already committed £22 billion to the re-industrialisation of Liverpool and Teesside in the form of Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage (CCUS) projects.
One might wonder where Miliband acquired the daft notion that it is a good idea to spend £22 billion on a technology that has only been proven to work in a coal-fired power station (a sort we don’t have any more). Even when it works, it substantially increases the cost of the power generated, while sequestering a small quantity of carbon dioxide – which will probably leak from whichever cavern it is subsequently stored in. Perhaps Miliband had been reading the government’s ‘Industrial Decarbonisation Strategy’, published in 2021 while Boris Johnson was PM. This states that ‘our commitment to support deployment of CCUS could help to create 50,000 jobs alone in the UK by 2030’ – in a chapter entitled ‘Levelling Up’.
Richard North
Hayling Island, Hampshire
Too many bishops
Sir: Marcus Walker’s critique of the selection process of bishops is timely (‘Mitre reading’, 12 October). However, he could have gone further. If questionable managerialism is producing corporate clones, then the same managerial criteria should be used to measure success.
In business, those leaders who fail to grow their market share are soon dispatched. The Church of England in 2024 has 108 bishops, roughly the same as in 1924 – but the numbers of clergy, parishes and membership have declined dramatically. Even so, few voices are raised to question the cost of keeping 108 bishops in the comfortable lifestyle they enjoy.
The Revd Larry Wright
Kings Norton, Birmingham
Suits you, sir
Sir: Charles Moore reports that Jeffrey Archer took John Major to be fitted out at Austin Reed in order to improve his image (Notes, 12 October). Quite so – why go further? What a great place the flagship Regent Street shop was. In the 1970s and 1980s, aspiring men, such as barristers, country gentlemen and youngish teachers like me, literally fought over items to take to the fitting rooms during Thursday late-night shopping.
One of the last managers replied to my complaint that I could no longer find a foulard tie by saying that they were seeking to attract a younger clientele. Shortly afterwards, the chain turned turtle. Today companies like Peter Christian are Austin Reed by mail order, and doing very nicely.
R.H.W. Cooper
Grasmere, Cumbria
Black Russian ops
Sir: The head of MI5’s warning of the threat from the GRU – Russia’s military intelligence – benefits from historical context (Portrait of the Week, 12 October). Aktivnye meropriyatiya (active measures) is the Russian term for subversion, sabotage, assassination and disinformation. Developed in the Soviet era, these techniques are hardwired into the Kremlin’s ruthless approach to security, with stark implications for its adversaries.
Struan Macdonald
Hayes, Kent
RSVP
Sir: Philip Womack laments the disappearance of invitations (Notes on, 5 October). For our 50th wedding anniversary this summer we sent out stiffies with our Christmas cards, the cost of sending them separately being prohibitive. Some guests even replied by letter!
Mary Moore
Croydon
Transport of delight
Sir: Christian Wolmar’s ‘Notes on trams’ (28 September) mourns the rapid post-war closure of tram systems, beloved in their day by passengers across the UK. Hong Kong’s 165 classic electric trams (the world’s largest surviving double-decker system) continue to ply a popular, cheap and well-used 19 miles of track along the original shoreline route of Hong Kong Island, with a welcome branch loop in Happy Valley carrying me practically door to door to my office in Central.
We also continue to enjoy a long tradition of ‘tram parties’ on antique Edwardian-style open-top cars. Guests at my 70th birthday enjoyed assorted refreshments on the lower deck, while those upstairs watched the bustling metropolis seemingly drifting by at a leisurely pace.
Henry Wheare
Happy Valley, Hong Kong
Column inches
Sir: Toby Young notes (No sacred cows, 5 October) that Michael Gove has promised to continue the editorial tradition of giving his columnists ‘a free hand’. So much the better. In defiance of E.B. White’s remark that ‘only a person who is congenitally self-centred has the effrontery and the stamina to write columns’, your weekly columnists are the first place I turn to when the magazine drops through the letterbox. Keep the effrontery flowing, Mr Gove!
Tim Gooding
East Lothian
#Puzzled emoji
Sir: I am as perplexed by the variety of emojis as Melissa Kite (Real life, 12 October). My own bugbear is the flushed, smiling face doing jazz hands. My best guess is: person deep in their cups blandly disclaiming responsibility for a catastrophe.
Neil Sewell-Rutter
Oxford
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