A charted course
Sir: Charles Moore has lost his bearings and entered ‘terra incognita’ in his recent exploration of the Royal Geographical Society’s remit and work in the 21st century (The Spectator’s Notes, 9 May). To be clear, the society stays true, today as over its 170-year history, to its founding charter to ‘advance geographical science’. The suggestion that the society is not fulfilling its charter is a misinterpretation and makes a travesty of the society’s work with schools and universities, with the public and policy-makers — and not least to the hundreds of professional researchers that the society currently supports to advance new understanding of all aspects of our world. Since 2005 we have supported 150 projects led by established researchers in 65 countries — from the Amazon to Greenland and from China to New Zealand — addressing issues ranging from climate change to migration. Turning to our forthcoming SGM; from the start of this process the society — in consultation with those calling for the SGM — has placed the running of the vote in the hands of the Electoral Reform Services to ensure due process is followed.
Decisions over policy and strategy rest with the society’s elected council, and not with any individual, be it the president or director. The society’s council and all its living past presidents endorse our current strategy. We are rightly proud of our past and also our work that continues to meet the vital need of understanding our world in the 21st century.
We once lent a compass to David Livingstone to keep him on the right track in Africa — perhaps an RGS sat nav might allow Charles Moore to get back onto a truer bearing?
Sir Gordon Conway, President; Heather Viles, Andrew Linnell, David Livingstone, Vice-Presidents
Royal Geographical Society, London SW7
A suicidal manifesto
Sir: David Miliband says that rejection of the Lisbon Treaty would be ‘suicidal’ (‘Hague’s EU policy would be suicidal’, 9 May). The Treaty is almost identical to its ancestor, the ill-fated EU constitution. If rejection of the watered-down Treaty would be so calamitous, why was his party offering a referendum on the constitution at the last election? Surely the consequences would have been even more disastrous had we rejected the latter?
The truth is that Miliband knows Britain would reject the Treaty in a referendum, just as we will reject Labour in a general election. Labour is afraid of public opinion, so it denies the British people a say in how they are governed. Gordon Brown calls this stubbornly ignorant approach ‘getting on with the serious business of government’. I call it ‘cowardice’.
Andy Wasley
London SE13
On MPs’ expenses
Sir: I believe the only fair and equitable way to tackle the question of MPs’ expenses is to treat them in the same way as individuals in society are treated by the Inland Revenue.
An allowable expense must be wholly, necessarily and exclusively for them to do their job, otherwise any expenses they do receive from the position of employment will be taxed as a benefit in kind, which in most MPs’ cases would be at a rate of 40 per cent. Such treatment would go far towards saving the face of politicians, but expecting politicians to be fair and equitable would be the triumph of hope over experience.
Mark Jackson
Hull
Sir: I am not sure which is worse: MPs abusing their position or MPs whinging that it ‘was in the rules’. Whose rules? One thing is certain. Anyone who trusts this shower with DNA or ID cards has rocks in their head.
Barry Tighe
London E11
The scandal of EU finances
Sir: There is widespread concern about the scandal of parliamentary expenses. But perhaps we should heighten our awareness of a bigger scandal. We are told that £3,500 million pounds go unaccounted for annually in the working of the European Union; that’s approximately £9.5 million of public money a day. When the auditor refused to sign the yearly accounts off recently, she was dismissed.
Julian Sofaer
London NW8
Charity should stay at home
Sir: Fraser Nelson writes (Politics, 9 May) that the Conservatives are committed to retaining or expanding the level of overseas aid. This reminded me of Professor Bauer’s definition of it: ‘Overseas aid is money taken from poor people in rich countries to give to rich people in poor countries.’ This point is made in greater detail by Dambiso Moyo in her book Dead Aid, which was reviewed in The Spectator on 14 February.
Conservatives could help people in both rich and poor countries by reducing overseas aid. Misplaced charity is not charity.
James Strachan
Via email
Glassed over
Sir: Rod Liddle (Liddle Britain, 2 May) neatly explains gender pay differentials, but not Harriet Harman’s ‘glass ceiling’. Her thinking takes it as read that we’re all born the same and life fills in the differences, despite the ‘blank slate’ concept being a philosophical and neuroscientific lame duck. Perhaps the most important requirement of corporate management is meticulously calculated risk-taking — a characteristic found in relatively few of us, but more likely to be so in testosterone-driven men than women. Of course politicians can choose to ignore objective criteria in order to prefer favoured groups, so long as they accept responsibility for selecting on the basis of gender, race or religion rather than ability. Positive discrimination in all its forms is a euphemism for anti-meritocracy: good for its beneficiaries, bad for society at large.
John Bunyard
Ashford, Kent
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