Economy pack
Sir: Of your ten suggested remedies for the UK economy (‘Get it right, George!’, 19 November), not one mentions the obvious answer: recognise that communications technology is transforming every business and social model on the planet and accelerate Britain’s dozy and halfhearted commitment to invest in its communications infrastructure — broadband and mobile. Give the people the tools and they will generate the growth.
Peter Krijgsman
Somerset
Sir: The big ideas in your last issue will have a limited immediate impact on the one million youngsters out of work; something more radical is required. I suggest that the government spends money created by quantitative easing directly on infrastructure projects, matched to the available labour. ‘Inflation!’ you cry, but this will not be a problem if the creation of money by the banks is stopped (fractional reserve lending). This solution does not increase anyone’s debt.
John Schofield
By email
Sir: Your contributors offering solutions to kick-start the economy should be wary in case their wishes come true.
Typically, Terry Smith wants cuts in taxes and state spending. Imagine a country with even fewer libraries, more youth clubs and sports facilities closed down, public parks overgrown and piled with rubbish, an increase in accidents because there is no funding for factory inspectors, and widespread food poisoning because restaurants are not checked. Currently, if we buy a television or fridge we can be reasonably certain that it will not burst into flames because there is safety legislation and enforcement, and we can drive down the streets fairly sure that other vehicles will have brakes and tyres that have been made to decent standards.
All this would vanish if the government were to cut taxes, relinquish its powers and rescind legislation.
Laurence Kelvin
London W9
The caught and the dropped
Sir: Michael Henderson (‘Deadly game’, 19 November) rightly notes that a remarkable number of distinguished cricketers have committed suicide. But then no other sport offers such rewards for intense, solitary concentration, while also providing the support and pleasures of being part of a team. Cricket has almost certainly saved more loners than it has lost.
Benjamin Rock
London SE15
Sir: I felt I must pick Michael Henderson up on his tenuous link between suicide and cricket. After a very quick search of the literature I found no evidence for this, and on the contrary, there is some scientific evidence to suggest that sport and exercise can have positive effects on both physical and mental wellbeing.
Dr Kerrie Margrove
Chelmsford
Poles apart
Sir: I hesitate before taking issue with Tom Benyon’s views on the suggested abolition of inheritance tax (Letters, 19 November) for we are shortly to spend three weeks walking together to the South Pole. However, he is ‘missing something’ in this instance, as those who inherit money are unlikely to put it in the bank to fester but rather to put it back into the economy where it will generate jobs, pay wages, and generally contribute to the economic engine. In contrast, the government is much more likely to spend it on a whole host of useless activities and non-jobs, as eloquently described in these pages over the years. I speak with experience, for I inherited money in my twenties which was soon gone and I have spent the past 20 years attempting to build a business so that I may give to my children the same choices I had. The thought that the government will take 40 per cent of my hard labour, taxing me for the second time, fills me with depression.
Angus Cater
Surrey
The fearless French
Sir: Rod Liddle (12 November) thinks the French press are ‘a strangely deferential lot’. He obviously doesn’t read Le Canard Enchaîné, whose shafts at Sarko and other Gallic politicos and meticulously documented exposures of scandals make Private Eye look like the Beano.
Barry Baldwin
Canada
My grandfather’s war
Sir: In your 12 November issue, Harry Mount and Matthew Parris offered different accounts of the memorability of the Great War. I am a 40-year-old whose grandfather served at the Gallipoli landing and elsewhere during that terrible conflict.
People to whom I tell that fact assume that I am miscounting; but in our family children are often had in middle age. We have my grandfather’s uniform, medals, weapons, diaries and other records. His daughter, my aunt, is alive and many members of my family — including me — remember my grandfather with the greatest affection.
So I favour Mr Parris’s account: the Great War is not an increasingly distant memory, but a mystery that has led to it becoming the symbolic war. We remember it because its elusive causes and awful realities stand for all wars before and since and to come. And because in its extensive record, exhibited throughout the world, we can feel those sufferings for ourselves as we never could with the Battle of Hastings.
Mary-Anne Borrowdale
Wellington, New Zealand
A Thrifty Christmas
No sign of an end to the world’s financial troubles, so do readers have any tips on how to economise this Christmas? Please send helpful hints to letters@spectator.co.uk and we’ll print the best in our Christmas issue.
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