Common ground
Sir: Katy Balls asks ‘Lawyer or leader?’ (Politics, 25 January), but it became fairly clear which Keir Starmer is when he appointed as his Attorney General Lord Hermer, a human rights lawyer. As was mentioned, Lord Hermer has often represented those rejecting British values rather than standing up for them.
Sir Keir and Lord Hermer show a clear preference for international law over Britain’s common law. They ignore the reality that common law has served the nation brilliantly over the centuries. It relies on the precise written word and precedent, being non-political, transparent, predictable and fair. British laws are enacted by our democratically elected parliament which can amend or repeal them. In contrast, international law is created by cabals of unelected, like-minded lawyers with particular outcomes in mind. It cannot be democratically repealed or amended, is often politically driven and has outcomes that often conflict with natural justice.
As the world becomes more dangerous, the government seems to inhabit a fantasy bubble in which international law sorts it all out. Dream on. Meanwhile, the most dangerous nations in the real world give international law no thought at all.
Gregory Shenkman
London SW7
The army we need
Sir: Harry Halem draws a false lesson from the current war between Russia and Ukraine (‘Losing battle’, 1 February). It is certainly true that countries like Poland and Finland need large citizen/soldier armies, ready to fight in defence of their own territory. That’s the current Ukrainian experience. But Britain is an offshore island on the other side of Europe. We fight our wars at sea and overseas. Unless you think we’re going to fight the Russians in Flanders or Normandy, a part-trained mass army deployed at distance is neither required nor feasible.
What we do need are technologically advanced and highly trained professional armed forces that don’t rely on long periods of mobilisation. To be effective, and in time, we fight (or preferably deter) with what we’ve got. Quantity is not our strength. Quality is, or at least should be.
What we can be confident of, however, is that raising defence spending from 2.3 per cent of a stagnant GDP to 2.5 per cent at some undefined point in the future won’t cut it. Nor will our current sclerotic defence procurement system.
Jeremy Stocker
Willoughby, Warwickshire
Bad developments
Sir: I read with some incredulity Rory Sutherland’s claim (The Wiki Man, 25 January) that nothing would get planning permission under the exacting ‘aesthetic, auditory, environmental, ideological, heritage, safety, health’ constraints currently in force. He even references Crawley, for whose borders a whole new town of thousands of houses is scheduled. In fact there is not a town or village in Sussex that is not under existential threat from totally inappropriate development. Greedy developers are acquiring vast acreages of agricultural land and getting permission to construct hundreds of identikit homes, usually with no adequate infrastructure – water, sewerage, schools, doctors, let alone access roads – in place. It is unclear who can afford these new-builds, or why they have to be built on farmland, or how these depressing schemes get through the system. But go to any hitherto unspoilt location in Sussex and you will see the hoardings, the cranes, the ripped-up woods and hedges, the trucks churning up once-quiet lanes.
Graham Chainey
Brighton, East Sussex
Lending power
Sir: I agree with Susan Hill that ‘libraries are not what they were’ (Long life, 25 January). Thank goodness! The library of my youth, in a small Essex town, was gloomy, not much bigger than my parents’ lounge, had no seating and was presided over by a trio of harpies whom one approached with trepidation. One had to steel oneself to take out a book.
I personally do not need a library to offer internet access, laptops or coffee, but what I do need is to be able to borrow the books I want to read. My current library does exactly that. Over the past two or three years I have asked for some 300 books, including much translated fiction, and its excellent, knowledgeable staff have been able to obtain all but a handful. I can ask for nothing more from them. As Albert Einstein said: ‘The only thing that you absolutely have to know is the location of the library.’
Tim Fry
West Sussex
Beaver theft
Sir: Please inform Mr Hanbury-Tenison that the solution to his beaver problem is very simple (‘Dam cheek’, 25 January). His neighbour, knowing that the beavers belong to Mr Hanbury-Tenison, is committing the criminal offence of ‘Theft by finding’. Bringing the police into the mix will not make for a good relationship – but with such a neighbour, who cares?
Wyn Rees
Bath, Somerset
Tolstoy’s despair
Sir: Agnes Callard says to Angus Colwell that Tolstoy was ‘in some ways, the most successful human being who has ever lived’ (‘The worst echo chamber is your own mind’, 1 February). I wonder if Mrs Tolstoy would have agreed with that statement? Or indeed the station master at Astapova, where Tolstoy died fleeing in despair from what his life had become?
Tolstoy indeed wrote amazing books, but is his life and philosophy one that we should try to emulate? He seemed to me to have had a miserable life, tormented by his failure to live up to his unrealistic ideals. His failure to take into account man’s innate propensity for evil led to misery in his life and chaos in those individuals and societies that tried to put his ideas into practice.
James Finlayson
Portree, Isle of Skye
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