Zero ambition
Sir: How extraordinary that Ross Clark (‘Carbon fixation’, 20 May) can look at the cut-throat competition to capture the economic gains of the future and conclude that Britain’s problem is an excess of ambition.
The USA stands alone as the only G7 nation not to have a net-zero target in law, but is nonetheless spending billions to achieve it. The country’s Inflation Reduction Act has proved so popular with the market that it is leveraging trillions more of private investment than previously expected, the majority in Republican-led states. Likewise China may lack a legally binding target, but enjoys a comfortable lead in core technologies following decades of investment. Meanwhile the EU, whose net-zero target covers its 27 member states, is racing to catch up, while UK business urges the government to get into the game.
Surely the opportunity of a post-Brexit Britain is to rise to the challenge of building the industries of the future, not to shrink from it?
Professor Thomas Hale
Blavatnik School of Government
University of Oxford
Lessons from Taiwan
Sir: Kate Andrews notes in her ‘Letter from Taiwan’ (20 May) that the government runs a surplus, and returns cash to residents. It is not alone. Hong Kong did that in 2011 (more than £1,000 each) and continues similar schemes to the present day. It does this with no VAT, a salary tax at 16 per cent and no taxation on investment income or gains. The state provides the same services as the UK, only better. Its health system, for example, delivers superior outcomes at a lower cost. Trying to understand how, the only thing I can conclude is that it shows what can be done with a well-functioning civil service.
Michael Bracken
Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire
Exorcise the British way
Sir: I thoroughly enjoyed Andrew Watts’s piece on Anglican exorcists (‘Who you gonna call?’, 13 May), which probably answers a question I have been researching (with a friend, Matthew Hartley) for some time: why, in Protestant-majority America, have Catholics cornered the Hollywood exorcism market? Only Catholicism’s muscular form of Christianity seems up to the job of facing down demons. Over here, the Anglican lack of certainty, and concern for mental health and human rights, would probably bore Pazuzu into returning whence he came. Based on Watts’s amusing piece, and with Fr Jason in mind, may I appeal for a new niche of British cinema to counter Hollywood – the Anglican exorcism movie, including rain, anoraks, custard creams and things Not Quite Right, and perhaps directed by Edgar Wright, Ben Wheatley or the Inside No. 9 team? It may lack the head-spinning, but it would be grounded, humane, curious and funny: the way we tend to do things round here.
Andrew Mitchell
Bourne, Lincolnshire
Church services
Sir: In his review of Peter Ross’s marvellous new book, ‘Steeple Chasing’ (Books, 13 May), Matthew Lyons says that Britain’s churches need to survive. Indeed they must. But for that to happen, there needs to be a co-ordinated plan and consistent funding from government and national heritage bodies. The Heritage Stimulus Fund provided much needed post-Covid funding for some buildings, but it was a one-off. Heritage Lottery funding for churches has fallen nearly 80 per cent over five years. The lottery now wants to do more, but the task is immense: there around 900 churches on Historic England’s Heritage at Risk register and the backlog of major repairs is growing at perhaps £75 million a year. We calculate that church buildings contribute more than £55 billion annually to the UK’s economic and social good. The value of their history and heritage is priceless.
Sir Philip Rutnam
Chairman, The National Churches Trust
London SW1
Making tracks
Sir: I’m sure that all my former colleagues in the industry I worked in for 18 years would want me to point out that we have a third ‘big industry’ in ‘Derbytania’, to go with Toyota and Rolls-Royce: namely the railways, including the train manufacturer Alstom (formerly Bombardier), together with numerous specialist consultancy firms and many other supporting businesses (Matthew Parris: ‘Could Derbyshire survive on its own?’, 20 May). The significance of the rail sector here was underlined by Derby being selected for the headquarters of the new Great British Railways by the government in March.
James Rollin
Belper, Derbyshire
King of America
Sir: Taki postulates that had George Washington accepted the crown of newly independent America, he’d have become George I (‘High Life’, 20 May). Actually, America had already had three monarchs called George. So America would have had a George IV before us – just not the same George IV.
Jeremy Stocker
Willoughby, Warwickshire
Armed forces
Sir: I was in the army serving in Croatia and Bosnia in 1993. The ownership of automatic weapons by the ordinary population (‘Bullet points’, 20 May) just seemed to be wholly normal. Weddings were celebrated by a cavalcade of cars with young male guests firing Kalashnikovs into the air. Once we became used to this novel social weapon usage, we were able to relax into our role as peacekeepers.
Michael Wingert
High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire
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