It is welcome to see attention being drawn to the appalling lack of transparency surrounding the UK’s programme of post-Brexit free trade agreements (FTAs) (“Rishi Sunak faces fresh conflict of interest row over India trade talks”, News). That the government should advise parliament’s trade committee not to so much as visit a prospective FTA partner during negotiations is absurd, and emblematic of the anti-democratic way in which trade agreements have been negotiated since we took back control.
Negotiations with India are into their 12th round and neither the public nor parliament has seen a word of what has been concluded. Compare our system of scrutiny with the US, where Congress sets out the negotiating mandate that the executive branch can follow, and individual members of Congress have the right to request briefings during negotiations covering classified materials.
The negotiation of this FTA raises questions about the relationship between trade and human and labour rights and has implications across swathes of domestic policy. However, there has been minimal debate about this. Let’s hope stories such as this will stimulate debate about why post-Brexit negotiations have been so opaque, and in whose interests they are conducted.
Leo Verity
London N5
Taking holy orders?
Alex Clark is obviously too young to remember the dreaded “holy hours” that required Irish bars to close between 2.30 and 3.30pm, depending on where you were in the country, and for two hours on Sunday (“Don’t say the craic of doom has come for Ireland’s pubs”, Comment).
Except, as always, there was an Irish solution to an Irish problem. I was once enjoying an imperial measure of a certain opaque beverage known to all outside Joseph McHugh’s pub in Liscannor nearly 40 years ago, along with several others, when the dreaded holy hour crept up and Josie came out to announce: “Sorry lads, you’ll have to come inside now, we’re closing.”
Nick Adams
Miltown Malbay, Co. Clare, Ireland
Happy to be self-employed
Kenan Malik fails to acknowledge that the UK boasts millions of self-employed people who don’t want employment rights, and who are content to chart their own course (“Labour’s backtracking on casual workers will weaken the rights of all employees”, Comment).
For years, rhetoric in the UK has tended to take a more negative view of self-employment, portraying it primarily through the lens of tax policy and worker protections. This fails to acknowledge the more aspirational motives of many self-employed people who just want the right to be their own boss, without interference from the state.
Other countries have mechanisms where people simply declare themselves self-employed. They then choose to enter into contracts with customers, and all parties know where they stand. The status tests in the UK are a mess.
Dave Chaplin
Cringleford, Norwich
Tibet: a solution
Simon Tisdall rightly highlights human rights violations in Tibet (“China wants to erase Tibet. Will timid Britain stay quiet about this crime?”, World Affairs Commentary). However, the solution is neither the wholesale condemnation of China nor the granting of full independence to Tibet, which the Dalai Lama himself opposes, but the implementation of China’s “one country, many systems” model, both in letter and spirit.
If China can use the model to legitimise its claim on Hong Kong and Macau, notwithstanding the fact that its implementation has been far from perfect, what prevents it from applying the same to Tibet? Such a framework, if implemented in true federal spirit, could go a long way towards protecting the cultural and spiritual identity of Tibet.
Randhir Singh Bains
Gants Hill, Essex
Equal tutoring for all
News of the widening gulf between students in the north and the south of England was as depressing as it was unsurprising (“Can the north-south divide be repaired?”, Focus). There has been an obvious need to give extra support to the vulnerable and less affluent students who missed learning during the Covid lockdowns.
The National Tutoring Programme, in its aim to give more individualised learning to young people who need it, is the right idea. However, its implementation has been poor, with not enough investment or quality control. Many schools have been reluctant to use it because it means finding 40% of the cost from overstretched budgets.
Meanwhile, affluent pupils underachieving in GCSE or A-level studies, or those whose parents want them to pass the 11-plus, are afforded high-quality private tuition. Anything less than this for less affluent peers will make it very difficult to close the gap in performance levels. The NTP needs a complete overhaul if there is any hope of providing equal opportunities to all young people.
Phil Bond
York
A nation of weeds
To claim that weed-choked pavements and gutters are an attempt at rewilding is an insult to real rewilding projects and suggests a misunderstanding of the financial difficulties facing local authorities (“Weed-choked pavements and messy verges: has rewilding gone too far?”, News). The state of roads and pavements reflects the degradation of the public realm caused by the austerity policies of 13 years of Conservative governments, and vividly portrays a nation that has both lost its way and any respect for itself or the wellbeing of its citizens.
Dr Peter Davis
Kingsdown, Bristol
The downside of PE
Chris Pratt wrote in glowing terms about how essential PE is for children’s health and wellbeing (Letters). In many instances he may be right. But, as a pupil long ago and as a teacher until recently, I have seen the opposite: the level of bullying endured by the physically limited from teachers has negatively affected many a young person. Good games and PE teachers nurture children and their skills, but there are far too many who deride the unfit and build up a lifetime of insecurity and unhappiness rather than helping them develop in their own way.
Of course schools should be emphasising activity and health-related fitness. But let’s not pretend hours spent immobile, shivering, as a fielder or defender, automatically make a child active, fit or happy.
Gill Othen
Kenilworth, Warwickshire
