Letters: The Tories are missing an opportunity to show voters what the party really stands for

SIR – In your perceptive Leading Article (August 13), “The Tories can’t sit out the cultures wars”, you make the point that it is “highly questionable that these matters do not have an electoral relevance”.

I’d go much further. A majority of the electorate knows that the culture wars, presently being lost to the Left, are at the heart of the decline of Britain. Though late in the day, if the Tories finally grasped this (as Kemi Badenoch, the Business Secretary, appears keen to do) and concentrated on calling out the self-destructive nature of most of the Left’s ideas that seeded the culture wars, and on proposing legislation where needed to combat those ideas, they would surprise themselves with the number of votes that would bring them.

Even if they lose the next election, they’ll finally have put a marker down to show what they stand for, which is the only way they’d ever regain power.

Nick Trevor
London SW4

SIR – Why are so many leading Tories convinced that they are heading for a disastrous defeat in the next election when the solution is staring them in their faces? 

If only they would stand in any queue or sit in any pub and listen to the people there, they would quickly learn that they have a simple way to achieve victory: just have these four items in their manifesto. 

First, declare a vigorous anti-woke and return-to-common-sense campaign. Secondly, withdraw from the ECHR and return to common law. Thirdly, scrap HS2. And finally, amend net zero to what is practical.

John Buckley
Belmont, Lancashire

SIR – Why is it that we never hear Labour, the Liberal Democrats or the trade unions talk of growing the cake and improving productivity? All we get are more ways of taxing the public and getting more pay for no increase in work. Aspirational youngsters are thwarted by non-aspirational politicians.

The Tories have little to be proud of in this context either. I do wish Sir Jim Ratcliffe would take over and run this country for 10 years.

Idris White
Sevenoaks, Kent

Mortgage tax relief

SIR – The demand for rental accommodation is rising sharply and supply is falling. Inevitably rents are also increasing sharply.

One of the main reasons for diminishing supply is the decision of George Osborne in 2015 to limit tax relief on mortgage interest. This is taking landlords out of the market as they cannot make a net profit. The recent rise in interest rates exacerbates the problem. 

The disarray in the housing market (Letters, August 6) has many causes and needs a fundamental review to increase supply, but the mismatch in the rental market is an immediate issue causing great distress. Restoring full tax relief on mortgage interest would stabilise the market.

David Lewis
London W1

Commute cacophony

SIR – I’m grateful that you gave column inches to the sufferings of misophonics (Letters, August 6). Misophonia, or “sound rage”, has long been derided and ridiculed, but as a misophonic commuter, every day is a challenge. 

My trigger noises are the sounds of other people eating and people typing on laptop keyboards, so most train journeys are affected. It tends to be keyboards in the morning and food in the evening, though the slurping of muesli or crunching of an apple often affect a morning commute.

I work in an open-plan environment, so there is no relief when in the office. The only way to cope is to mask the trigger sound. Thank heavens for earbuds, audiobooks and Test Match Special.

Iain Thomas
Hadlow, Kent

SIR – While I hardly find it pleasant to hear the sound of someone eating, or of out-of-tune music, I cannot say that I share the visceral loathing of those sounds that Debbie Freebury describes (Letters, August 6). 

I see what she means, though, for I have a similar detestation – in my case for the sound of wire coat hangers clattering together on my clothes-horse at the slightest touch. I realise that the anger that this sound causes me is completely irrational, and is easily dealt with by sweeping the hangers off the rail and putting them aside while I potter, but the rage feels real nonetheless. 

Sam Kelly 
Oldham, Lancashire

Silk escape maps 

SIR – Silk escape maps were not new in 1939 (“Secret escape document to reveal Bond-style gadgets”, report, August 13). 

My father, who served in Gallipoli and Palestine in the First World War, carried one, which I still have. I doubt it could have been of much use, being very small scale and covering Greece to Syria.

Christina Phillimore
Amesbury, Wiltshire

BBC Red Button 

SIR – Why is it that the BBC Red Button coverage is such a covert experience? 

It was only by chance, watching the hour of highlights of the ladies’ golf from Walton Heath starting at the ridiculous time of 11.55pm on Saturday, that my wife and I learnt that Sunday’s highlights were to be shown on the Red Button at the more reasonable time of 9pm, as well as the later BBC Two time.

Why is this Red Button facility not widely advertised in the same way as other BBC programmes?

James Thacker
Tanworth-in-Arden, Warwickshire

HS2 and productivity

SIR – William Barter (Letters, August 13) states that the rationale for HS2 was always to increase capacity, and that speed was just a bonus. This is simply untrue, and flies in the face of the way the project was initially sold to the public. 

The argument was that business people, by being able to travel from Birmingham to London about 20 minutes quicker, would increase productivity, thereby boosting the economy. This made the assumption that business travellers simply sit on a train doing nothing, whereas in fact most perform work tasks, so there would actually be no productivity boost at all. It was only after the economic justification had been destroyed that the argument magically changed to one of capacity. 

In order to achieve the required high speed, the line has to be as straight as possible. This is why swathes of ancient woodland and countryside are wiped out. If the line was simply required for extra capacity, then it could take a more meandering route, bypassing sensitive areas, and potentially allowing stopping in a few more places.

Keith Whittaker
Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire

SIR – As a railway enthusiast, it pains me to say it, but, if contractually possible, I think work on HS2 should be suspended until funds for completion are available. 

I note that two tunnel-boring machines are to be buried at the HS2 Old Oak Common site while engineers wait for the Government to approve the extension to Euston (report, August 11), and trust it will be possible for them to be disinterred for use when, as one hopes, the need arises.

Alan Duncalf
Bampton, Devon

Is the TikTok sardine craze a slippery slope?

SIR – I read with concern that stocks of the humble but magnificent tinned sardine are being run down as a result of increased purchases after recent enthusiasm stoked up by TikTok (report, August 13). Regular consumers like me would be devastated if tins disappeared from the shelves, so I hope that the canneries will increase production to keep us all going.

If that does not happen and supplies run low, then we can only hope that the TikTok viewing audience don’t get alerted to the delights of kippers. If they were to go missing as well it would be a true disaster.

Tim Tayler
Bristol 
 

Battling for Britain

SIR – There can be no doubt that Sir Keith Park’s role in the Battle of Britain “secures his place in history” (report, August 14). 

Churchill, who was with him on September 15 1940 – the decisive day of the battle – wrote in his war memoirs that it was on the 25 squadrons of Park’s No 11 Group that “our fate largely depended. From the beginning of Dunkirk all the daylight actions in the South of England had been conducted by him, and all his arrangements and apparatus had been brought to the highest perfection”. Lord Tedder, who became chief of the air staff, said: “If any one man won the Battle of Britain, he did.” 

It should not be forgotten, however, that he added conspicuously to his achievements as the war progressed. As RAF commander in Malta in 1942, he broke the control of its skies that German and Italian forces had gained, and built up a powerful air base of 40 squadrons that gave vital support to the allied invasion of Sicily in 1943. In southeast Asia, where he became allied air commander at the start of 1945, he ensured that General Slim’s “forgotten army” had the provisions it needed as it advanced through Burma. Few made so great a contribution to victory.

Lord Lexden (Con)
London SW1
 

Taken for a ride

SIR – In 1977 I hitchhiked (Letters, August 13) from New York to Los Angeles. 

When we arrived in Las Vegas, the driver with whom I’d been sharing the driving since Denver suddenly took off with all my possessions still in his car, leaving me in 40-degree heat wearing just a T-shirt and jeans. 

I was a student with very little money to buy replacements, but thereafter everyone I met on my journey was so horrified at the behaviour of one of their countrymen that they showered me with gifts of their old clothes, and I returned home with a better and more extensive wardrobe than when I’d left.

Paul Merrick
Richmond, Surrey

SIR – Way back in the 1960s, I was hitchhiking with two friends from Coventry to London. One friend had been in training in the Vatican. After a while and with no lift, Brother Dominic said: “I think we should pray – but don’t underestimate God. I think we should ask for a limousine.” We humoured him.

To my utter amazement, a huge Daimler limo pulled up. The kind uniformed driver welcomed us aboard and delivered us to our destination.

I will never forget that experience.

Michael Johnstone
Bath, Somerset

SIR – On my way to a friend’s funeral at Mortlake crematorium, where I was to give the eulogy, traffic came to a complete stop. I later found that this was due to a fractured gas main. I left the car, which my wife was driving, to try to make it on foot. 

Some distance further on I noticed a hearse, with which I was able to catch up. Knocking on the window, I asked if it was going my way, which it was, and the driver opened up a dickey seat beside the coffin for me. 

I arrived just as my late friend was being carried in.

Keith Adams
London SW4

SIR – In my hitchhiking days in the 1990s, when I travelled thousands of miles, I had a trick for when I found myself at a motorway junction with several others. I turned over my sign, where I had written “Next junction?”, knowing that every vehicle joining the motorway was going at least that far. It often led to my being picked up before many of my competitors, and invariably the drivers took me far further than merely the next junction.

Stuart Fisher
Wedmore, Somerset

SIR – About 30 years ago a friend of our children was driving north from London. He picked up a hitchhiker who said in an Australian accent that he was going to “Lugaborruga”. 

Two hours later he said: “This is it”. It was Loughborough.

David Martin
Little Baddow, Essex
 

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