Letters: For all the Tories’ criticism of Ulez, the Government has once again failed to act

SIR – The expansion of the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) to all London boroughs is imminent. The Tories have alleged that Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, made “false” and “dishonest” claims to the London Assembly over the scheme’s consultation. Furthermore, his office funded scientists who published studies on Ulez’s effectiveness, and he then sought to discredit those whose findings contradicted the claims about its impact (report, August 20).

The Government has the means to ban the expansion but has chosen not to. A full explanation of why is surely the least that we might expect. The Prime Minister would have scored a lot of brownie points had he stepped in.

Susan Hall, the Tory candidate for the mayoral election next May, has promised to scrap the Ulez expansion if she is successful (Comment, August 24). She must make this the central theme of her campaign. If she does, she will be at least half way to winning. 

Peter Higgins
West Wickham, Kent

SIR – Will the Ulez charge be another poll tax?
Gail Dodds
Lindfield, West Sussex

SIR – Matthew Lesh highlights the Government’s anti-tech agenda (“The UK is regulating itself into a backwater”, Comment, August 23). This should not surprise readers.

In 1865 the government introduced the Red Flag Act, compelling an individual carrying a flag to walk 60 yards in front of a “road locomotive”. This set back progress in our fledgling automotive industry by decades. Nothing has changed.

John Urwin
Hitchin, Hertfordshire

SIR – Michael Miller (Letters, August 24) mentions particulates in his claim that Ulez will improve health by reducing emissions, leading to cleaner air. It’s not that simple. Emissions are not only from exhausts. Electric cars are much heavier and can emit higher levels of dangerous respirable particulate matter from brakes and tyres that are damaging to health.Gases are retained transiently in the lungs but particulates remain, doing harm over a longer period.

If all cars became electric tomorrow, the effects might actually be more damaging, not less.

Dr Michael Blackmore
Midhurst, West Sussex
 

Who runs hospitals

SIR – The disaster at the Countess of Chester Hospital wasn’t caused by a litany of mistakes, but by the system working as it’s designed to work.

Management 101: take away all the authority from those who carry the responsibility (the clinical staff) and give all the authority to those who carry no responsibility (the managers). The result? Frustrated doctors and nurses and complacent managers.

I watched this develop over 30 years in the NHS and in the Canadian system. It’s no accident that many managers are former nurses. The career pathway for nursing is limited and management is one option for those who are ambitious or do not enjoy clinical work (or aren’t good at it).

Things will not change until the hospitals are back under the control of the clinical staff and the managers are back to being administrators whose only function is to provide the human and other resources required for the clinicians to do their jobs. But I’m not holding my breath.

Dr Stephan Larsson
Onslow Mountain, Nova Scotia, Canada

SIR – The case of Lucy Letby has focused public attention on egregious failings by an NHS trust. However, my own crushing experiences challenging the failures of a hospital over the death of my 25-year-old daughter, Gaia, suggest there is a far broader problem in our health service. It concerns how the NHS investigates unexplained hospital deaths. 

Previously well Gaia died in hospital of an unexplained brain condition shortly after admission. The hospital successfully and astonishingly opposed my request for an independent neurologist to attend her inquest. The court concluded that the cause of her death was “unclear” – what else to expect? Reputation trumps all.

Lady Young
London N1

SIR – If the senior management at the Countess of Chester Hospital are to be held to account for their delays in taking appropriate action in the Lucy Letby case, what about Jeremy Hunt, who was health secretary for six years, for his failure to set a commencement date for the implementation of recommendations arising from the inquiry into the Harold Shipman case (Letters, August 21)?

Martyn Abbott
Rossendale, Lancashire
 

Thames Water’s debt

SIR – The years of profligacy and mismanagement at Thames Water have been well documented. It is mired in debt and teetering on the edge of collapse. Some hapless people, however, are now going to have to pay for this mismanagement. 

My husband and I have been Thames Water customers for four decades. We have always paid our bills twice a year, on April 1 and October 1. We have never been in arrears. This year, we were billed in May and paid the full amount. We were expecting the next bill in October, as normal. However, on August 8 we received an email demanding the next payment by August 25. On August 21 I received a perfunctory and rather aggressive text telling me payment was almost due. 

Unlike the well paid members of Thames Water’s board, my husband and I are not wealthy people, and we have to manage on a very tight budget, but we will cough up as we have always done. How many other customers are being harassed for payments in this way? 

The regulator, Ofwat, is not doing its job. But then, no one seems to be required to do the job they are paid for anymore, and no one has the courage to hold these companies to account.

Vicki Driscoll
London SE17
 

The shape of tins 

SIR – I enjoy tinned sardines (Letters, August 20) and find that square tins fit in my kitchen cupboards without wasting space. Most tinned food comes in round tins, however, leaving a lot of gaps. Curved cupboards have the same problem, whether the tins are round or square. In this age of beautifully designed kitchens, I am surprised that this has not been addressed.

Rosemary Reed
Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire
 

How modern couples are jazzing up weddings

SIR – You report (August 20) that the average cost of a British wedding has risen to £24,069 thanks to the extras couples are now demanding. 

Examples include drone footage, a giant model of a velociraptor that shared a couple’s first dance, and a bride who floated down the aisle suspended from helium balloons. 

Are these the same couples who say they struggle to raise a deposit for a mortgage?

Phil Angell
Helston, Cornwall
 

Army camaraderie

SIR – As a veteran, I recently visited a working Army barracks. Apart from enjoying a nostalgic day, I was disappointed to learn that modern soldiers frequently eat outside the camp because it is cheaper to patronise local fast-food outlets. I was surprised to learn that military food and accommodation allowances are being used to pay for these services. I also saw that modern soldiers do not necessarily even have to live in at their barracks – where there are growing numbers of single-occupancy rooms – preferring their own or rented accommodation instead.

My understanding and experience of military life taught the value of communal regimental living. When the chips were down, camaraderie and team spirit greatly helped in forming efficient single soldiers that made for unified regiments, not to mention healthier ones, thanks to the services of the Army Catering Corps. 

Time spent together – especially eating – facilitated valuable exchanges of ideas, information and often plain old-fashioned fun. I cannot help concluding that these are retrograde steps, that necessary standards are slipping, and that these practices do not create the best possible soldiers.

Richard Allen
Camberley, Surrey
 

Dearth of deliveries

SIR – Last Sunday was my wife’s birthday. Traditionally, in the morning I’d have taken her her cup of tea along with all the cards from friends and family brought by the postman over the preceding week. Last Sunday there were none. 

The general pattern now appears to be two deliveries a week, or a delivery when there is a minimum of five items. Last month it was my birthday and the same happened, with cards still arriving nearly two weeks later, despite first-class stamps costing more than £1 being attached. 

Are we alone in this predicament?

Mark Wade
Reading, Berkshire

SIR – As a descendant of Sir Rowland Hill, the founder of the penny post , I’m disappointed by the decline of Royal Mail. I recently received a letter from Leicester that had taken 10 days to arrive. I pointed out to the postman that it would have taken a fraction of that time in the days of horse and carriage. His response: “The horses are older now.”

Guy Bargery
Edinburgh

SIR – I was disgusted to receive my “refund” from Royal Mail for returned unused stamps. I submitted £16.40 worth of stamps in a wide variety of denominations, as I send packages abroad to people who collect them. 

I have been sent: 169 1p stamps, 153 at 2p, 120 at 5p and just 33 at 10p. How can I fit this lot on to normal envelopes? Does Royal Mail think this amusing? I don’t.

Beryl Fleming
Worthing, West Sussex
 

Police hospitality

SIR – Hitchhiking one December night in the late 1960s (Letters, August 20), I found myself stranded on a wet and windy road in the West Country.

At 2am, and with no prospect of a lift, I made for the friendly light of a red telephone kiosk half a mile away. Cold and utterly exhausted, I climbed into my sleeping bag and lay on the floor of the kiosk with my legs around the telephone apparatus and fell into a deep sleep. 

Ages later I woke to the flashing light of a parked police car, and a burly policeman motioning for me to open the box door. After apologising for disturbing my sleep and asking my name and address, he explained that a passing lorry driver – stopping to make a call – had reported seeing “a dead body in a phone box”. Smiling and much amused at the “talking corpse”, the officer concluded I might as well stay put – “not fit for a dog out here”. Then, delving into his top pocket, he produced a Hamlet cigar and a box of matches. “This’ll keep you warm till morning, son,” he said. He wished me luck and drove off. 

I’ve held the police in the highest regard ever since.

Paul Marshall
Perranporth, Cornwall
 

Office noises off

SIR – To deal with the audible distractions of working in an open-plan office (Letters, August 20), my son found noise-cancelling headphones most helpful: no music or audiobooks playing, just very near silence.

John Bath
Clevedon, Somerset

SIR – Is there a tactile equivalent to the misophonia described by your readers (Letters, August 20)?

I am a keen home cook and prepare most things from scratch. I am well used to cleaning, gutting, jointing and scraping food. However, I cannot squeeze a lemon in my hands without a physical sense of revulsion and usually an actual shiver to go with it. Using a juicer isn’t much better. Limes produce a similar reaction, but oranges are bearable.

It causes some distress at gin-and-tonic time, and recently I have resorted to a sprig of rosemary.

Richard Gibson
Jarrahdale, Western Australia
 

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