Political best buys
Sir: Fraser Nelson’s excellent article ‘Cameron’s Northern Alliance’ (1 March) made me wonder whether we, as voters, at the next election could benefit from a simple and independent chart (perhaps a Which?-style guide) comparing the policies offered by the parties, and the outcomes of the varying policies adopted across Europe. We all carry out research before purchasing insurance or booking a holiday by checking guides, so why not have something similar when choosing a government?
It must be better than voters making a decision based on the superficial grounds of the party leaders’ secondary education or resemblance to a cartoon character.
Stephen Marsh
London WC2
The cost of Hinkley
Sir: The letter from Paul Spence of EDF Energy in response to my article (‘Nuclear fallout’, 22 February; Letters, 1 March) was a missed opportunity. Mr Spence declined to address the substance of my concerns over the Hinkley Point C contract.
Mr Spence says that my analysis of the contract terms is based upon ‘unvalidated assumptions’. My financial analysis is entirely consistent with the information made public by EDF and the UK government, which I note Mr Spence did not dispute. Unfortunately the full terms of the contract have not been released, but if Mr Spence would care to let me see the contract I would be only too delighted to provide a more comprehensive analysis.
In my view new nuclear can, and perhaps should, play an important role in providing the UK with low-carbon power and contributing to our security of supply. But the biggest risk to a sustainable new nuclear programme is surely for the first new power station to be procured at the wrong price, on the wrong terms, from the wrong supplier. The UK government appears to be buying the most expensive nuclear station in the world, while handing to EDF and its partners the chance to earn excessive returns. This deal risks blighting new nuclear for decades to come in the eyes of the UK public — who at the end of the day will be forced to cough up for it.
Peter Atherton
Head of Utility Sector Research, Liberium, London EC2Y
The Marxist church
Sir: In the article entitled ‘The Labour party at prayer’ (1 March), your correspondent writes a truthful and deeply thoughtful article, which should be of concern to all who hold the Church of England in high regard. Since the 1960s, the church has become a voice for a politically correct, Marxist doctrine, which excludes the majority of people.
The marginalisation of the Book of Common Prayer and the King James Bible is, I am certain, due to the hierarchy’s being embarrassed by their contents. Many people who support a traditional form of worship find that members of the clergy treat them with indifference or hostility.
A return to the church being ‘the Tory party at prayer’ is not necessary, but if it wishes to remain a part of our national life, it must consider other views, rather than trying to ‘“convert” laity to a “proper” understanding of politics, by which was meant socialism’ — as Mr Pinker explains.
Keeley Cavendish
London SE5
Back to the 1950s
Sir: While applauding the establishment of university technical colleges as promoted by Lord Baker (‘Lord Baker’s college days’, 1 March), I cannot help feeling sorry for the lost generations of school children who have suffered in the period between the time when selection at age 11 was curtailed and now. The destruction of secondary modern schools was an example of the law of unintended consequences.
It resulted not in the removal of a stigma against those who did not make it to grammar schools but instead let down all pupils by the dumbing down of standards. Lord Baker’s colleges, despite being a reinvention of the wheel, seem to combine the roles of secondary modern schools and technical colleges and will hopefully produce the same results. These should include the production of trained tradesmen rather than frustrated, uneducated youths and the ability of the few remaining grammar schools augmented by the new free schools and academies to raise their standards back to where they were in the 1950s. It should also reduce the number of frustrated graduates saddled with useless degrees.
G.C. Neden
Diddlebury, Shropshire
Bad Rod
Sir: In his column of 16 February, Rod Liddle states that: ‘Battersea Dogs’ Home reckoned that in 2011 a good 50 per cent of the more than 6,000 dogs they took in were legal or illegal pit bulls, many of which showed signs of having been used for fighting.’
In fact, in 2011 Battersea Dogs & Cats Home took in 5,941 dogs, of which 168 were identified by the police as banned breeds, which includes pit bull types. That made 2.8 per cent of the total dog intake that year — not 50 per cent.
Dee McIntosh,
Director of Communications,
Battersea Dogs & Cats Home
Starting gun
Sir: Charles Moore asked for interesting facts about the first world war. He may like to know that the first shot for the British empire was fired in Australia from the Fort Nepean Battery, Victoria. News of the declaration of war reached the fort at 12.10 p.m., when the German merchant ship Pfalz was moving down Port Phillip Bay to the heads. Ten minutes later the battery fired a shot across its bows, forcing the ship to surrender.
Lily Murray
Glebe, New South Wales
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