Hard reset
Sir: Once again we must debate Brexit (‘Starmer vs the workers’, 24 May). The ‘reset’ agreement does give more control over UK domestic policy to the EU, if the points outlined in it are followed through. I assume they will be, as that’s what Labour’s front bench wants. (The prospect of us rushing through EU passport control, as Michael Gove and others suggest, is still unlikely, though – the document states only that there will be the ‘potential use of e-gates where appropriate’.)
Britain must pay for many of the extra ‘benefits’. Apparently the boost to the UK amounts to £9 billion by 2040, but I’m unable to identify any government research that supports this – only an assertion in a press release. According to the release, in the absence of agreement on the EU’s carbon trading system, UK exporters will contribute £800 million to the EU from 2026. My own simplistic calculation is that if this is repeated for 15 years, it would cost us £12 billion. If this is treated as a benefit by our government, then there are no other benefits – but only costs – to reach a total of £9 billion.
And Richard Johnson (‘Left alone’, 24 May) wants government loans with union and workers’ conditions attached to the fishing industry. Socialism never dies! Simply giving tax credits for such investment would be 100 per cent better.
Trevor Pitman
Beckenham, Kent
Hook, line and sinker
Sir: Matthew Parris is right: the French have always looked after their coastal communities better than we have (‘Flogging a dead fish’, 24 May). In contrast, Britain missed a clear opportunity. Had we been tougher on fishing rights – linking them to the return of Channel migrants – we might have curtailed a widely disliked trade from the start. Yes, fishing is only 0.03 per cent of GDP, but that statistic ignores the real story: it was the EU that paid British fishermen to decommission, dismantle and ultimately destroy their ability to fish. We didn’t lose the industry by accident – we were paid to scrap it.
Alan Pedder
Bury, Greater Manchester
Pipe dreams
Sir: Lord Moore’s Notes (24 May) are as entertaining as ever. One imagines that riding through remote Kyrgyzstan countryside is not for the fainthearted, but presumably his hunting experience came in handy. The rendezvous with a bagpipe-equipped student from St Andrews seemed almost surreal, until I recalled a parallel encounter in the Sahara desert several years ago. During a geological survey in the south of Algeria, we had bivouacked for the night around a warming fire (cold nights in February) when one of our camp guardians, a Tuareg tribesman with a Kalashnikov over his shoulder, produced a set of bagpipes and skirled for a while. Apparently, the pipes are not unknown in those desert areas, although whether there is a Scottish connection, I never found out. As a postscript I would like to report that we heard cuckoos in Biddenden and Sissinghurst this spring, so maybe they will return to Sussex next year.
Peter Cutts
Biddenden, Kent
Falling short
Sir: On first reading Alice Loxton’s paean to the plethora of ‘short histories’, I thought her intentions were satirical (‘Short and sweet’, 24 May). However, her omission of the one truly worthwhile short history, 1066 and All That by W. C. Sellar and R.J. Yeatman – which is a parody of the type of defective knowledge and understanding encouraged by short history – leads to the thought that she is serious. If so, she hasn’t been paying attention: the study of history and the democratic culture that depends on it are menaced by crude and simplistic versions of the past that short histories serve up. She might reflect that Clio, the muse of history, like any self-respecting goddess, needs to be wooed slowly and respectfully; or that cricket, so closely associated with respect for the English past, is being destroyed by the ‘short form’ of the game. To paraphrase Kingsley Amis, more short histories will mean worse history.
Professor Lawrence Goldman
History Reclaimed
St Peter’s College, Oxford
Holy disorder
Sir: Christopher Howse’s reference to the 1631 edition of the Authorised Version of the Bible commanding ‘Thou shalt commit adultery (‘Notes on typos’, 24 May) reminded me both of the so-called ‘Unrighteous Bible’, published in 1655 by the Cambridge Press, where Corinthians 6:9 read ‘Know ye not that the unrighteous shall inherit the Kingdom of God?’, and a Bible printed in Ireland in 1716 which, in John 8:11, commanded ‘Go and sin on more’. Bibles do seem particularly prone to typos, but I’d like to think it was a mischievous typesetter who once had David in Psalm 119 complain not that ‘princes have persecuted me without a cause’ but ‘printers have persecuted me…’.
Peter Saunders
Salisbury, Wiltshire
You name it
Sir: John Power’s article on the vulnerability of the UK’s electrical grid (‘Volt farce’, 10 May) was very timely and extremely thought-provoking. Mr Power demonstrates a natural grasp of electricity infrastructure, as well he might. Looking through the ranks of Spectator contributors, it is impossible not to consider who else might have an affinity for subjects closer to home: does Tanya Gold have a view on the vertiginous rise in the price of precious metals, for example? The outstanding Yorkshire Sculpture Park might easily appeal to Mary Wakefield, and as we drift into the mayfly season I can already see a fishing column co-authored by Francis Pike and Rod Liddle.
Tom Nelson
Oban, Argyll
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