I am one of those foreigners with dual nationality who has been living here most of his life (“They also served”, 8 November). I have never worn a poppy. I shall do so once poppies become a remembrance not only of British soldiers fallen in the battlefield but also of the innocent victims from Dresden to Iraq. In this way, the Queen at the Cenotaph will be also paying tribute to those unjustly killed in her name.

With all their colourful glamour, the memorial poppies at the Tower are given a grotesque meaning. The equation of one fallen serviceman with one poppy betrays a lack of perception of what war is all about. Fallen soldiers and innocent victims should be remembered together, without distinction. No field could contain the number of poppies needed to include all of them.

Agustin Blanco-Bazan
London NW8

Your article (8 November) looks at the wars Britain has been involved in since 1945.

If you did a similar exercise for the century between the end of the Napoleonic Wars, in 1815, and the start of the First World War, in 1914, you would see a similar pattern.

There were very few wars directly between the great powers, and such as there were – Crimea, Franco-Prussian, Russo-Japanese – were nasty and brutish, but short.

The almost continuous asymmetric colonial wars, interspersed with wars about “national interest”, were about coal – now they are about oil fields.

That was why August 1914 found so many in Britain expecting the war to be over by Christmas. Let us hope we don’t wander into another big conflict through a similar concatenation of delusion.

Nik Wood
London E9

Elizabeth Churton (“You are what you wear”, 8 November) is pictured sporting an enormous poppy. It’s no surprise that such a flamboyant demonstration of what Jon Snow termed “poppy fascism” should be allied to such unwavering dogma about pupils’ attire.

Ms Churton describes uniform as “part and parcel of the way in which we communicate with each other”. Quite.

Marc Patel
London SE21

The clamour to retain “the poppies” at the Tower seems in danger of missing a conceptual aspect of the work. It is intentionally transient. If it is gone too soon, so, too, were the lives it commemorates.

The shorter and more intense the flowering, the more powerful will be what remains: memory. If the impermanence of the work causes regret at the untimely loss of the physical, the moral is: carpe diem.

Peter Dodge
London WC2

Am I the only person who has had enough of the First World War? War, war and more war. How about peace, peace and more peace instead?

When my dad was alive, the last thing he ever wanted to hear about or talk about was the Second World War. And when his dad was alive, the last he ever wanted to talk about was the First World War. Give peace a chance.

Ray J Howes
Weymouth, Dorset

PM’s bluster damages our credibility

Less than two weeks after David Cameron blustered in Parliament that, under no circumstances, would we pay the increased contribution to the EU budget demanded by the European Commission, we have a deal, trumpeted by George Osborne as a victory for the UK (“Osborne accused of accounting trick to claim cut in EU bill”, 8 November). It was always obvious that we would have to pay the increase, as it was based on a calculation mechanism to which all EU members, ourselves included, had agreed.

What is really worrying is the bluster repeatedly shown by Cameron in his dealings with the EU.

He begins by flouncing out of the centre-right mainstream in the European Parliament, tying himself to fringe parties, and damaging his chances of forming useful alliances with the main centre-right parties in Europe.

He is one of two EU leaders to bluster unsuccessfully against Jean-Claude Juncker, with whom he now has to work and who has the power to influence the outcome of any renegotiation of the conditions of our membership of the EU. He blusters on about limiting immigration from the EU, one the four main freedoms on which the union is based, a stance which he should have known would be unacceptable to our European partners, even before Angela Merkel put him in his place.

The bluster about the budget can serve only to erode his image and credibility in the EU still further.

It is obvious that the bluster is the result of the Ukip threat to the Tory vote and Cameron’s chances of remaining PM after next year’s election. The real worry, however, is that it merely serves to reduce Cameron’s negotiating power with our increasingly frustrated European partners, who will feel less and less inclined to accommodate him, and us. This risks forcing him into a position where he has no choice but to recommend a “No” vote in a future referendum on EU membership.

Bluster should not determine an issue so fundamentally important to the future of the UK.

David Barker
Surbiton, Surrey

Light the blue touchpaper ...

I take issue with John Rentoul (5 November) over Guy Fawkes Day bonfires and fireworks. He has the concept upside-down.

Bonfire night is not “a chance to glorify Guy Fawkes”. The annual celebration is of the discovery and foiling of the plot against the king and Parliament. So, really, it is a festival to remind each generation of the risks of terrorism and the fate in wait for traitors.

We burn the effigy, recite the poem and teach our children how to look out for danger. Quite a modern message.

Claire Johnson
Sevenoaks, Kent

I was so pleased to read Sidney Alford’s informed appraisal of fireworks and how they enrich life (letter, 8 November). I envy him his laboratory.

I would, however, remind readers of another forbidden tradition – the tradition of street fireworks. Where are the squibs, bangers, jumping jacks, torpedoes and serpents that many of us grew up with?

There will have been accidents, mostly minor. But I suspect it was their effectiveness in puncturing bourgeois composure and detachment that has led to their suppression.

We have nothing to compare with the tracas and mascletas with which the Valencianos still purify and purge the streets of their city at fiesta time.

R W Chaplin
Norwich

I feel it was rash, even reckless, of you to publish Mr Alford’s letter about home-made fireworks.

I fear that Mr Alford is in danger of being overwhelmed by applicants wanting to become adopted grandchildren.

Vivienne Cox
London W4

Your cancer ‘battle’ could be my ‘struggle’

Isn’t the whole point of Elena Semino’s research that cancer patients vary in their reaction to “battling” metaphors? Some, such as Charles Garth (letter, 6 November), have no problem with them. I hate them, as do most cancer patients I know.

Professor Semino’s work highlights a real issue. It is surely a mistake to dismiss it as “politically correct silliness” when we should be considering its implications. After all, we cancer patients are just like any other cross-section of humanity. Some words and phrases communicate better with some individuals than others. What’s “silly” about taking that on board?

Christine Howarth
Maidstone, Kent

Directors’ cliches worth more than boos

A more appropriate response than booing at the opera (“A chorus of boos”, 7 November) would be general hilarity and a chorus of “Emperor’s new clothes”. I suggest a rebate on the price of each opera ticket for directors’ use of lazy clichés as follows:

Dominatrix-style outfit for foil to saintly heroine: 50p.

Proto-fascist black-clad gun-toters: 50p.

Removal of clothes and pseudo bonking on stage: £1.

Chorus costumes from the local charity shop: £1.

Pointless (and endless) use of revolving stage: £1.

Non-processions to obvious processional music: £1.

On a ticket price of approximately £45, that would give me a tidy little discount each time I attended an opera production.

Glynne Williams
London E17

Not much grace in an insult

Grace Dent (7 November) seems strangely insensitive. I thought John Lewis’s Christmas ad was charming and delightful. OK, it’s sentimental, but what’s wrong with that? Lighten up, Gracie!

But the worst thing she did was to use “bedwetter” as an insult, which is on a par with “spastic” or “four-eyes”. You can try too hard to be funny, and this time she missed the target.

John Hodgson
Barston, West Midlands