Trust renewables
Sir: Your editorial (‘Green and unpleasant’, 3 May) accused the National Trust of jumping ‘aboard the climate change bandwagon’ and performing a ‘double backflip’ on wind energy and shale gas. Not true. We have long been worried about the impact that climate change is having on our properties. Sixty per cent of the 740 miles of coastline we look after is at risk from erosion as sea levels rise, and rising average temperatures are affecting the species we care for on our land. That’s why we are considering investing £35 million in renewable energy sources, so that by 2020 the Trust will only get 50 per cent of our energy from fossil fuels.
We recently published policy guidelines to ensure the environmental impacts of fracking are minimised. As an organisation looking after some of the country’s most beautiful countryside on behalf of the public, we also have to consider the aesthetic impacts of energy infrastructure. Until we can be sure that these impacts are dealt with, we would not allow fracking on our land. That is also why we will object to large-scale renewable developments — including wind farms — which we believe affect the historic significance or natural beauty of our properties.
It is not for us to tell government what their energy mix should be, but we won’t shy away from the difficult issues involved in protecting the places we look after on behalf of the nation from the unprecedented threat of a warming climate.
Dame Helen Ghosh
Director general, The National TrustLondon SW1
Damage done
Sir: It would appear laudable for Robin Hanbury-Tenison to have mortgaged his future for what he believes is the right thing to do (Letters, 10 May), but nothing can compensate for the substantial damage caused to the environment by the manufacture and installation of his wind turbine, the manufacture and installation of his field array of photovoltaic panels and the manufacture and production of his electric van.
Bruce Kennedy
London W4
Disgruntled youths
Sir: As young journalists embarking on a project about our generation in Europe, we feel inclined to respond to Mr Delingpole’s diatribe on ‘why the young never had it so good’ (10 May) and ask him to rejoin us disgruntled youths over in the realists’ camp. Some very simple points should show why using only selected statistics obscures the big picture. While wages have climbed 62 per cent in just 25 years, they have been falling since 2009, the year many of us ‘millennials’ entered the job market. Throw in underemployment and the cost of living, especially in the capital, and you would see that financially we’re being taken for a ride.
What’s on offer instead, we’re told, is ‘free stuff’ on the internet, such as Spotify and Tinder. Is he really suggesting that the existence of such sites is a substitute for a stable future?
The biggest omission of all: not once in the article does the author mention the word ‘debt’. We know it’s a dirty word, but it’s also one of our generation’s greatest concerns. On leaving uni, we are faced with the prospect of a lifetime spent paying for degrees that amount to very, very little.
So James, please. Admit your errors and return to us, all is forgiven.
Yiannis Baboulias, Jamie Mackay, Niki Seth-Smith for the Precarious Europe project,
Hackney, London
Law vs jaw
Sir: Can I thank Charles Moore for making clear that I am not an extremist (The Spectator’s Notes, 10 May)? Can I also thank him for offering debate as an alternative to litigation, though I hope he understands that given the heightened sensitivities after the brutal murder of Lee Rigby, his original piece in the Telegraph could easily have been read as implying that I was an extremist.
I also want to clarify that I decided to take libel action after careful consideration of his article. This was no knee-jerk reaction. Furthermore, I was not involved in bringing action through the courts in Birmingham. That case involved a far-right Liberty GB activist, who targeted me over 12 months. The case was brought by the Crown Prosecution Service, so Charles is inaccurate to assume I consistently litigate.
I feel proud of this country and all that it stands for. I welcome Charles’s clarification and agree with him that more ‘jaw jaw’ is needed.
Fiyaz Mughal
Founder and director, Faith Matters, London
Against the vote
Sir: Melanie McDonagh gives many good reasons for women forming the majority of the anti-suffrage movement (‘Women against the vote’, 10 May) except for the one given by Margot Asquith in a letter to my grandmother dated 21 November 1923: ‘Alas my sex are nearly all Tory and not very energetic. This was why I opposed the votes for women.’
Rhidian Llewellyn
Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire
Abandoned by Dave
Sir: I am pleased to see that Matthew Parris (3 May) has abandoned the abuse which only a few months ago he heaped on those of us who support Ukip. His measured analysis of what the commentariat call — with varying degrees of distaste — ‘the Ukip phenomenon’ hits the nail smack on the head as far as many ex-Conservatives are concerned. Many of us feel that we have not left the Conservative party, but that it has left us. We believe our laws should be made in Westminster by Parliament and implemented by our courts, not handed down to us by the European Commission to be interpreted by the European Court of Justice or the European Court of Human Rights. If that is extremist, xenophobic and racist, then I for one plead guilty as charged.
Willoughby de Broke
House of Lords, London SW1
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