Craic down
Sir: If Ireland had been investing in infrastructure as Ross Clark writes (‘Bog down’, 21 September), Dublin would have a metro, Galway a ring road, and primary school parents wouldn’t be forced to pay for basic necessities. And when the only local hotel cancels wedding and birthday parties because government has block-booked it for migrants and refugees, no wonder people beyond the Dublin bubble are mutinous. Rural areas often lack broadband or even piped water (just ask Melissa Kite) and where the blue pipe does reach, ‘boil water’ orders are common.
Corporation tax is 27 per cent of government revenue (per head of population, more than four times that in France or Germany) and 90 per cent of it is paid by foreign multinationals. Low tax rates have indeed increased revenues, but this hasn’t ‘stimulated business’, as Clark claims, or created much employment. Big pharma does make pills in Ireland for American consumers, but those are jobs and taxes that the US means to onshore. Where are the trucks on the motorways? There are often more privately operated coaches, public transport being so sketchy.
Like Gaelic football, deflecting blame is a national sport. Just witness the education ministry’s response to this month’s outrage over a racist school textbook: each school must pick its own books, and what publishers put in them is nothing to do with us. Official deflections will be interesting when multinationals call it a day and pay tax in the countries where ethically it is due. But the hole in the budget will be no joke.
Mike Wells
Ickwell, Bedfordshire
Cop out
Sir: Rod Liddle may be right in suggesting that the quality of police and crime commissioners varies (‘The tyranny of lawyers’, 21 September). But the same could be said of chief constables and home secretaries. He is, however, wrong in saying that the introduction of Police and Crime Commissioners contributed to a ‘politicisation’ of policing. The PCC appoints the chief constable, but the chief constable remains operationally independent and the PCC takes an oath to uphold that on taking office.
The nearest the police came to politicisation in my lifetime and in my part of Yorkshire was during the miners’ strike – long before PCCs.
Dr Alan Billings (Police and Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire, 2014-24)
Sheffield
Driving force
Sir: Adrian Pascu-Tulbure is quite right to extol the virtues of older cars (‘Wheels of fortune’, 21 September). My 1969 Morris Minor is indeed a pleasure to drive, has proper wind-down windows and quarter lights and is the epitome of simple engineering. But he omits to mention another advantage of driving these cars; whenever you park, you are invariably approached by people reminiscing about their mum or dad’s car or their first car, after which the conversation widens on to almost anything at all, from gardening to grandchildren. Not a ‘babe-magnet’, thankfully, but a magnet for genuinely interesting people. Want to meet nice people? Get a vintage car.
Jeremy White
Buxton, Derbyshire
Death wish
Sir: As someone who has just turned 93 and has normal fears about possible illness and the manner of death that may lie ahead, I found the article on euthanasia (‘Dial-a-death’, 21 September) a comfort, and one that I hope encourages parliament to pass the necessary legislation. My late husband died 30 years ago of mesothelioma, having stated that he wished that voluntary euthanasia existed.
Primrose Lewis
Harwich, Essex
Stumped again
Sir: Further to Ian Williams’s article on Chinese football (‘Own goal’, 21 September), I recall China’s investment in cricket in the 2000s, with the stated ambition of becoming a test-playing nation by 2020. Earlier this year, China’s T20 team finished behind Bhutan and the Maldives in their attempt to qualify for the Asia Cup. They are currently ranked 78th in the world.
C.J. Corn
Hazeley Heath, Hampshire
Critical mass
Sir: Simon Charles Elliott (Letters, 21 September) rejoices over a well attended Vigil Mass in Peterborough Cathedral. He says it showed ‘what was and what could have been had England stayed on the narrow path’. I am delighted to hear of this event, and pleased at the Church of England’s hospitality to our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters. This is such a change from the narrow sectarianism of my boyhood. But I do hope the Mass was conducted in Latin and according to the uses of the pre-Reformation church in England, so that the beauty and seriousness of the worship matched that of the building. I am pretty sure that the good attendance in many English cathedrals is largely caused by their continuing use of the 1662 Prayer Book, which is enjoying a quiet revival among Anglicans. Mr Elliott might also give such services a try. They are not so far from the narrow path he treads, and might serve as a bridge between his tradition and mine.
Peter Hitchens
London W8
Core strength
Sir: In response to Richard Symington’s letter in your 21 September issue, the libretto in Benjamin Britten’s opera The Turn of the Screw uses the meanings of malus, malo and malum brilliantly in Miles’s plaintive song: ‘Malo I would rather be, Malo in an apple tree, Malo than a naughty boy, Malo in adversity.’
Claire Chandy
Bristol
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