It seems that politicians are switching from environmental hypocrisy to green cowardice (“Sunak and Starmer are warned: don’t dump your green pledges”, News). Our current government has already exposed its true feelings about “green crap” by approving airport expansions, new coal mines and oil and gas exploration licences. Green initiatives are regularly announced and then quietly ditched. Businesses are encouraged to invest and then stranded by political backsliding. Customers are confused by ever-changing subsidies and grants.
We need true leadership to convince the public that action on the climate emergency is the highest priority. It will involve unpleasant decisions that will affect people’s everyday lives. If Labour want to differentiate themselves from the Tories they need to propose clear plans to help the worst affected. What we cannot afford is for both leading parties to renege on the commitments that Britain has made internationally to implement net zero. There is no place for cowards at the environmental top table.
Richard Gilyead
Saffron Walden, Essex
Don’t blame formula milk
In my experience, the low rate of breastfeeding has nothing to do with marketing of formula (“Baby formula: does it deliver on manufacturers’ health claims?”, New Review). My struggles have been due to the appallingly low amount of paternity leave available and lack of support in the wider community to make sure I can eat, sleep and mentally rest during the postpartum period. In addition, poor breastfeeding support in an underfunded and understaffed NHS in the immediate aftermath of giving birth was a major factor.
Even with a traumatic birth, and a viral infection of my newborn at seven days old requiring readmission to hospital, I’ve had it easy compared with some new mums, particularly those who are malnourished and unsupported due to the cost of living crisis.
Without significant changes to postpartum care and support, breastfeeding is likely to remain at low levels. Restrictions or “handwringing” on types of food for babies is not the answer. Feed children; it shouldn’t matter how.
Louise Wright
Bristol
I fell foul of anti-terror laws
Regarding the article “Terrorist Breivik’s manifesto found on Waterstones website” (News), I accidentally fell foul of UK anti-terror legislation some time ago. I was teaching a university class on global politics and emailed my students an al-Qaida newsletter for discussion during seminars. I later learned that I could have been sent to prison.
Under the same laws, the sister of a UK jihadist sympathiser was given a prison sentence just because she wanted to find out what was leading her brother astray and was found to have forbidden literature on her laptop. I need to be able to teach students without having to look over my shoulder. More broadly, the government should not decide what citizens are permitted to read.
Name and address supplied
Advertising faux pas
I cannot be the only reader of last Sunday’s Observer to have noticed the irony of accompanying Helena Smith’s trenchant critique of tourists flying in their thousands to sweltering Athens (“As my home city of Athens burns, I can only watch in amazement as sunseekers fly in”, Comment) with an advertisement for “eight days in Sicily”, currently Europe’s climate crucible. This surely undermines the impact of an otherwise admirable leader (“Do not use our fragile planet as a political football”).
Ian Barge
Ludlow, Shropshire
Cruelty writ large
Thank you, Séamas O’Reilly, for your out-of-character raging (“Painting over the cartoons in a migrant centre for children is a new low, even for this government”, Magazine). It is well received. I recalled Alan Bennett’s warning: “There are occasions in life, often not in the least momentous, which nail one’s colours to the mast.” This government has certainly succeeded in portraying its cruelty on that mast.
Marilyn Humphrey
Belfast
Pupils know their history
David Olusoga’s article repeats the idea that the consequences of colonialism are somehow forgotten and ignored by society (“Blackface uncovered: Britain’s forgotten history of minstrelsy”, Focus). At the large secondary school where I teach English, we dedicate a term of year nine to postcolonial literature, which often includes discussions about historical aspects of racism such as blackface.
It is a topic which the children find interesting and valuable. Sometimes it is heartbreaking – the memory of the child who told of his experience of seeing a golly for the first time and learning what it was will never leave me – but the topic is probably one of the most valuable in terms of getting the children to see how quickly society can change and how the rights they enjoy have had to be fought for and actively defended.
Besides this, the GCSE literature texts are full of possibilities for discussing race and colonialism: a new anthology of diverse voices has been provided for teachers to choose for their exam classes, but the anthologies that have been around for a while hardly ignore the issue – poems such as Checking Out Me History give lots of scope for discussion.
Clearly, documentaries such as the one Olusoga writes about are important and interesting. It would be good to acknowledge, though, that people – and young people especially – are not as ignorant as is sometimes implied.
Edward Wainwright
Harrogate, North Yorkshire
How to beat Big Pharma
Big Pharma has become powerful through the creeping capture of regulatory processes, health professions, university departments, patient groups (“Drug makers fund groups that lobby watchdog”, News). We all pay the price because that capture allows pharmaceutical giants to charge the NHS a fortune for new medicines.
A recent study by Global Justice Now found that just 10 drugs cost NHS England £13bn over the last decade. These drugs could have been produced for less than a tenth of that cost.
The real irony is that Big Pharma doesn’t invent these drugs. Almost all medicines are made with public money, at universities or small research companies. They are then gobbled up by giants who behave more like hedge funds than medical research bodies, profiteering from monopolies for decades into the future. The Labour party has promised to turbocharge R&D funding. It will need to, if we want cutting-edge medicines in the future. But if we also want the medicines to be affordable, it will have to use its clout to fundamentally reshape how we make drugs, demanding public value and collaborative science, building public capacity and reversing the capture of our institutions.
Nick Dearden, director, Global Justice Now, London E1
Hair of the doll
My sisters and I never had Sindy dolls, let alone Barbies (“Sindy plots her return to British children’s hearts”, News), but I was enchanted by another rival, Tressy, whose special feature was a button in her tummy which, when pressed, released her hair so you could adjust the length and style it.
Ruth Eversley
Paulton, Somerset
