Letters: It is only a matter of time before Putin meets the fate of other tyrants

SIR – Yevgeny Prigozhin, the former Wagner Group chief, is reported (August 24) to have perished in a plane “accident”. 

Vladimir Putin is number one in Russia, and therefore the number-one target. His luck will soon run out, just as it did for Nicolae Ceaușescu, Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi.

Dominic Shelmerdine
London SW3

SIR – I am surprised that the reports of Prigozhin’s death have come two months after his failed coup attempt. I had expected news of an unfortunate accident to arrive sooner.

Dr Richard A E Grove
Isle of Whithorn, Wigtownshire

SIR – Boils are festering in Russia. One, that of Prigozhin, has been lanced. Internal strife could put a stop to the “special military operation”. The end game is approaching.

Camilla Coats-Carr
Teddington, Middlesex 

SIR – The old saying goes that those who live by the sword, die by the sword. This will surely be Putin’s fate. 

Adrian Thornton
Shackleford, Surrey

SIR – The suspected assassination of Prigozhin and his fellow Wagner fighters is just another factor that magnifies the farce of keeping Russia in the United Nations Security Council. 

Putin is no believer in security – whether for innocent civilians in the countries he attacks, grain being shipped to African nations or, with the backfiring invasion of Ukraine, his own countrymen. In his speech to the Brics nations, he has openly condemned any Western-based organisation.

Is it not about time the UN introduced a democratic vote, rather than allowing a dictatorship such as Putin’s Russia to veto Security Council resolutions?

Everything that happens in the country is subject to the dictator’s rule, but that is no reason to let it spill over into organisations such as the UN, which should exist to benefit the whole democratic world. 

Thanks to Putin and his disastrous actions over the past two years, Russia is no longer a global power. The rest of the world needs to recognise this fact through appropriate action, and Russia’s removal from the UN Security Council would be a good start.

Barry Gibbs
Wimborne, Dorset

SIR – India has a successful space programme (report, August 24), nuclear weapons and close economic ties with Russia. It has refused to condemn the latter’s invasion of Ukraine, and has recently overtaken Britain to become the world’s fifth-largest economy. 

Can anyone explain why our cash-strapped country is still sending it foreign aid?

Charles Smith-Jones
Landrake, Cornwall

Healing the NHS

SIR – I am a retired NHS consultant surgeon. Several times during my career the pay rise recommended by the doctors’ and dentists’ pay review body was cut or cancelled, but we never went on strike (report, August 24). Doctors’ first duty is to their patients, not themselves.

If the current strikes were about the way the NHS is managed, I might be more sympathetic to my striking colleagues. The NHS management’s first priority should be the patients, and those treating and caring for them. The current system puts budgets and targets ahead of good care.

The way that we – intelligent, highly trained, highly skilled and caring professionals – are increasingly demoralised and diminished by NHS managers is, in my opinion, a disgrace, and the main reason for the current level of dissatisfaction.

If the NHS is to provide the service people expect, it requires a major rethink.
 

Kenneth Moore FRCS
Chichester, West Sussex

NatWest’s conduct

SIR – From the 1980s to 2003 I was finance director of a medium-sized building society. 

The highest standards of probity and confidentiality were required of all staff, from the chairman down to the most junior clerk, and we were closely regulated – initially by the Building Societies Commission, then by the Financial Services Authority. 

The alleged behaviour of Dame Alison Rose (report, August 24) and the reported actions of NatWest would, quite simply, never have happened. To hear that she may just be able to walk away, as though she has done no wrong, simply beggars belief.

If the regulator does not, as a matter of urgency, step in and take suitable action, it will seriously undermine its future standing and authority.

Chris Witcher
Marlow, Buckinghamshire

Rank service

SIR – Those who run our public service monopolies, such as railway stations, have forgotten their customers. 

Southampton Central station has moved its taxi rank from one side of the tracks to the other. So now, on arriving from London, you have to climb two storeys of steep steps, cross a wide bridge, then descend two steep storeys to get a taxi. The lifts to help the infirm and those with prams or baggage are currently out of service. 

This means that hundreds of paying passengers are daily being put through hardship. I suspect this example is just the tip of the iceberg.

Lord Grade of Yarmouth
London SW1

Avocado exclusion 

SIR – In the late 1940s my wife’s parents lived in West Africa, where two of their children were born. My wife was born on their return to the UK in the 1950s.

Whenever they could afford the treat they would buy two avocados, to be shared by the parents and elder siblings. My wife was told that she would not like the taste “as she was not born in Africa”.

She did not try one until she was 21, since when she has been making up for lost time.

Phil Woodington
Rustington, West Sussex

SIR – I am allergic to avocados but find them in Caesar salads, club sandwiches and garnishing breakfasts. Please keep them where they belong – on trees.

Philippa Woodward
Purley on Thames, Berkshire

Pothole plague 

SIR – I complained to my local council about the treacherous potholes (Letters, August 24) that are a feature of many roads in my area. These are dangerous for both motorists and cyclists, who have to swerve to avoid damage or injury.

I was advised to submit photographs of these potholes and to measure their depth so that my complaint could be investigated. I replied that it was surely the council’s job to do this.

Needless to say, having carried out a survey, the council found that the potholes weren’t yet bad enough to warrant repair.
I hope that the owners of any cars or bicycles damaged by these potholes will apply for compensation. Only then will the council pay any attention.

Marilyn Parrott 
Altrincham, Cheshire
 

Big cat tales

SIR – I never took big cat sightings seriously (Letters, August 24), but last summer we travelled through rural Northamptonshire to visit Sulgrave Manor in Oxfordshire, the ancestral home of George Washington. 

It was early afternoon and we were cursing our satnav for directing us down an appalling country lane, so were moving very slowly. Rounding a corner, we saw about 50 yards in front of us a large dark-grey cat, thickset and tall as a greyhound, like a cougar.

It looked at us, then moved across the lane and “dissolved” into the foliage. There is no mistaking the sinuous gait of a cat and, though we looked, we could see no trace of it in the hedgerow.

We noted the time and location in order to report the sighting to the police.

Kevin Liles
Southampton

SIR – I have been following the reports and correspondence regarding sightings of wild beasts in Britain.

What baffles me is that, when almost everyone these days has a smartphone with a high-resolution camera in their pocket, all the supposed photos of these animals are grainy and blurred.

Chris Potter
Otley, West Yorkshire

Numbered days

SIR – We have just received our first BT telephone directory since August 2016, which is down from 406 pages to 158. 
I wonder whether we will ever see another printed version.

Michael Fielding
Winchester, Hampshire

Cast actors according to ability, not origins

SIR – The controversy over non-Jewish actors playing Jewish roles in Oppenheimer is a bit of a puzzle. 
I note that the leading actors in Braveheart (1995) were Mel Gibson, an American-born Australian playing William Wallace, the leader of the Scots, and an Irishman, Patrick McGoohan, playing the English king, Edward I. In Mary, Queen of Scots (1971), there was only one Scottish actor and he played a Frenchman. 

In the same year, Michael Caine played Alan Breck Stewart (a Scottish character) in Kidnapped. In the cases of Gibson and Caine, their accents were painful. 

However, when a Scottish actor, Ian Richardson, played the deadly and oleaginous Francis Urquhart in House of Cards (1990), he was entirely credible as an English politician (albeit of Scottish descent).

If an actor or actress can carry the role, it doesn’t really matter where he or she is from. It’s called acting.

Andrew H N Gray
Edinburgh

The limited effect of Ulez on London traffic

SIR – I’ve just stayed two days in central London and could not believe how congested it was. 
Will the expansion of the ultra-low emission zone (Letters, August 24) make any difference? I doubt it. We will pay up and continue to cough up.

What would help is for Sadiq Khan to remove or reduce the number of sightseeing buses in the capital, many of which were travelling empty looking for tourists, or parked while guides encouraged tourists to buy tickets. This would help the flow of traffic considerably – and make cab drivers’ jobs a lot less stressful.

Richard Hance
Niton, Isle of Wight

SIR – The real question is what comes after Ulez. Sadiq Khan has already announced an end date for the electric car exemption from the congestion charge, and the installation of his surveillance cameras all around the North and South Circular Roads and the new Ulez boundary will make it ridiculously easy for him to expand the charge to the inner – or, in time, the outer – boundary at virtually no cost to him, but grievous inconvenience to almost all Londoners outside his natural inner-London constituency. 

Road charging, together with yet more money-spinning 20mph zones, low-traffic neighbourhoods and 15-minute cities, will surely follow.

It’s time for a rethink of the whole Blairite Greater London settlement, and to reduce the role of mayor to opening supermarkets – or, better still, abolish the office completely. 

But does Rishi Sunak have the guts to take on Mr Khan?

Brian Gedalla
London N3

Letters to the Editor

We accept letters by email and post. Please include name, address, work and home telephone numbers.  
ADDRESS: 111 Buckingham Palace Road, London, SW1W 0DT   
EMAIL: dtletters@telegraph.co.uk   
FOLLOW: Telegraph Letters on Twitter @LettersDesk 
NEWSLETTER: sign up to receive the award-winning Telegraph Conversations here