Letters: Police cut because Osborne won’t tax the rich

Theresa May is not to blame (“Police forces threaten May with the law”, 3 November), she is only doing as she is told. George Osborne is the culprit.

Inexperienced and lazy, it is easier for him to attempt to reduce the deficit (caused by irresponsible, and unpunished, bankers) by slashing budgets. So the burden of austerity is unfairly placed on the poor and disadvantaged, and the public have to suffer by having the budgets of the police, local government and social services, the NHS and other services reduced.

Osborne can thus avoid taking action to get the wealthy to contribute their share of reducing his deficit. He could tax their mansions, their lands, and their excessive incomes. We have been too passive – and gullible – as Osborne has chosen instead to cut our public services. Best of luck to the police and crime commissioners’ protest.

Tony Cheney
Ipswich

While it is self-evident that the country cannot generate budgetary deficits indefinitely, it is equally self-evident that there is no necessity for the current deficit to be eliminated within the arbitrary period of the next four years.

Nor is it true that the only way of achieving a balanced budget is by cutting expenditures rather than also seeking greater revenue contributions from those who can well afford it. The Government has adopted a narrow strategy that makes debt reduction a more important objective than maintaining the essential role which only public sector activity can perform.

It cannot be the case that a high-income, developed society such as ours cannot afford to provide public toilets, decent library services, a police force that meets community needs, roads that are at least in reasonable condition, public parks, quality education opportunities, a health service that meets the needs of those who fall ill, adequate support for the disadvantaged and vulnerable in society, and numerous other basic public goods whose availability is being curtailed.

Of course we can afford them; it is simply a political choice not to provide them.

It is a shameful way of exercising responsibility to others and of running a society, and I want no part of it.

John McInerney
Templeton, Devon

As a historian of Islamic art, I regularly do online searching under terms that include “Islam”, “Arabic” etc. There must be hundreds of thousands of journalists, scholars and others like me, including many university academics and students, whose searches will be regularly “trapped” under the new surveillance laws, which will not only be violations of privacy, but result in a tsunami of useless information.

And we are not told how this information is to be assessed: presumably it can be done by computer programs at a primary stage, but soon human analysis will have to be employed, and the cost of this useless and invasive trawling will run into millions.

Most of us who study Islam have copies of the Koran and related texts on our shelves. Taken selectively, passages from the Koran may be interpreted as incendiary attacks on non-believers, but they must be understood in their historic context of rallying-cries for followers of a fledgling religion struggling to find its place in the world. Yet it is quite possible that it could now be interpreted as an offence even to quote them over the internet. No wonder British Muslims may feel embattled.

Meanwhile our Prime Minister ignores matters right under his nose. Why, ponders Mr Cameron in seeming bewilderment, should young UK Muslims want to join Isis? He should consider what alternatives they are offered. Much British youth “culture” seems to focus on little beyond tacky TV programmes and “getting wasted” in nightclubs. On the other hand, traditional Islamic values may often demand opposite extremes such as tight parental control and arranged marriages.

Is it surprising that Isis can project futures more appealing than either of these possibilities? If politicians would look more honestly at what lies in plain sight in our society, there would be no need for this immensely ignorant exercise in “information-gathering” and anxiety about jihadist recruitment.

Jane Jakeman
Oxford

While there should be great concern for the Higher Education Funding Council for England’s error in “transposing” calculations that should have shown state school-educated students doing less well at degree level than counterparts from the private sector (“University funding body admits schoolboy error”, 3 November), we should also ask why it is that over 70 per cent of students now get 1st and 2:1 degrees.

Back before the 1990s, roughly half of students were awarded a 2:2 or 3rd class degree and the intake was highly selective, much less than 10 per cent of pupils against much more than 30 per cent today.

While some will argue that better teaching methods have given rise to improved performance, such a dramatic shift can also be attributed to either the notion that today’s students are much brighter than their parents and grandparents, or, of course, the argument that expectations have plummeted. Such a dumbing down is inevitable where universities are anxious not to lose “market share” because their performance indicators (in this case, degree results) are poorer than those of rival institutions.

Professor Ian Reid
Kilnwick, East Riding of Yorkshire

The Scottish Labour Party is the latest group to debate the nuclear weapons issue, but once again everyone misses the most important question about what sort of person would, or would not, “push the button”.

Late in the Cold War a number of studies examined the implications of a “nuclear winter” caused by the immense quantities of soot and dust thrown into the atmosphere by a major nuclear exchange. Using the greater understanding gained in modern climate research, more recent studies in 2007 and 2008 confirmed the worst.

A major nuclear exchange would cause such devastation to the entire world’s food production and ecosystems for at least a decade that everyone on earth who survived the nuclear holocaust and its immediate aftermath, along with the world’s domestic animals and almost all its wild species, would die from cold and starvation.

Bearing in mind these consequences, instead of viewing Jeremy Corbyn’s intelligent, reasoned opinion as eccentric, is it not much more important for us to identify all those who say they really would “push the button” and ask them to explain their terrifying madness?

Aidan Harrison
Morpeth, Northumberland

Philip Hennessy (letter, 2 November) states that “only a police officer, suitably sworn-in, can arrest persons who have committed, or who are reasonably suspected of having committed, a myriad of offences.” He goes on to state: “All the rest, the specials, the PCSOs, the volunteers and the general public, have to rely on those powers that are given to the public at large”.

Special Constables in fact have identical powers to full-time police officers, including those of arrest.

Richard Fagence
Windsor

For the first time since I took The Independent some years ago, I sympathise with those who write and complain about the prominent coverage you give to football. Today (4 November) a footballer who for some reason preferred playing in the US to playing in Liverpool features not only on the front page, but has the back page and two on the inside.

Bill Fletcher
Cirencester, Gloucestershire

Simon Usborne implies that the Biblical quote, “When I became an adult, I put away childish things”, was written by Jesus (“The pen is mightier than the word”, 2 November). It comes from first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 13, verse 11 and was written by St Paul.

Ruth Shepherd
Manchester

Instead of a new 34-page passport why not follow Ireland and introduce a credit card size passport with a “selfie” photograph?

Angela Polsen-Emy
Birmingham

Like Judi Martin (letter, 4 November) I recall the recommendation that pedestrians wear something light at night. I also recall the story of the chap who followed the advice, and was knocked down by a snow plough.

Chris McDermott
Crewe