Letters: Taking on the anti-motorist lobby could bring Rishi Sunak election success

SIR – At last Rishi Sunak is taking on the sanctimonious anti-motorist lobby (“I am on motorists’ side, says PM as he orders review of anti-car schemes”, report, July 30). 

This relatively small group of politicians and planners seem to live in a fantasy land, where everyone is able to use public transport or ride a bike or walk. They appear oblivious to the fact that there are very many people whose only way of getting anywhere is to use a car – and it has to take them from door to door, not half a mile away from their destination. 

There are over 12 million adults over pensionable age in the UK, and of these six out of 10 have mobility issues. Many can walk only short distances, and the idea of asking them to ride a bike is a joke – which leaves public transport. 

According to surveys, six out of 10 rarely or never use public transport, and you can understand why. Three out of four have difficulty getting to a bus stop and two out of three struggle getting on or off the bus. Even the young need door-to-door transport much of the time – in bad weather or carrying heavy loads. 

Most adults in the UK are motorists, for good reason – the car is the most efficient and convenient way of travelling and a necessity for many. 

Mr Sunak: this could be a vote-winner.

Peter Rusby
Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire

SIR – More than anything else, cars have driven social equality by creating independent mobility for ordinary people – a way to travel to work or for pleasure. They have changed the face of employment, shopping and our towns and streets. Nearly everybody aspires to car ownership; from 17, it remains a widely held dream.

Politicians seem obsessed with the push for electric vehicles. Were these to become the only option, the immediate impact would be to make car ownership once again the privilege of the rich. Alongside policies such as Ulez, this will be socially detrimental, as it takes car ownership away from the ordinary person. 

We need the Government to butt out of our dreams and get the car industry to find more efficient ways of working.

Michael Seals
Ashbourne, Derbyshire

SIR – The preponderance of lithium-ion battery fires highlights an important issue regarding the growing number of electric cars. The fire and rescue services have great difficulty in extinguishing such fires, often leaving them to burn out. 

The Fremantle Highway fire shows what can happen at sea (report, telegraph.co.uk, July 26), but consider the consequences of a similar situation in the depths of an underground car park. Many hotels and office buildings are designed this way for space efficiency; indeed, a hotel of such a design is being built near my house. 

Do we have a plan?

Phil Drewett
Torquay, Devon
 

Germany and Ukraine

SIR – Germany, whose last shooting war ended in defeat in 1945, sees fit to criticise the pace of Ukraine’s advance through Russian minefields that are many miles deep and hundreds of miles long (report, July 26).

If memory serves, when Ukraine asked for military aid, Germany first sent helmets and then dithered for months over sending anything more lethal. Since the Ukrainians have been fighting Russia in a hot war since 2014, they might know a little more than chair-bound paper-pushers in Berlin about how to address the invasion threatening their nation’s existence.

Dale McIntyre
Cambridge

SIR – Charles Moore asks why the British are so supportive of Ukraine (Comment, July 25). I suggest that part of the answer is that we have a higher regard for democracy than some other countries. 

For example, we allowed Scotland to have a referendum on independence, and we believe that the future of Gibraltar, Taiwan and the Falkland Islands should be decided by the people who live there. 

Many other countries – even some major European democracies – do not fully support this approach.

Robert Ascott
Eastbourne, East Sussex

SIR – Had President Zelensky and the people of Ukraine shown the weak stomach of some Nato leaders, Vladimir Putin would by now be rejoicing with his cronies in Kyiv, dividing up the spoils and plotting where to strike next.

By fast-tracking Ukraine’s membership into Nato and providing full support to drive Putin’s forces firmly back behind Russia’s legitimate borders, the West will be sending the clearest of signals to all autocratic regimes that similar illegal land grabs will not be tolerated.

Lance Warrington
Cirencester, Gloucestershire
 

Queen on camera

SIR – I read with interest your report (July 30) on previously unpublished photographs of the late Queen. 

My father, Lt Col W R Reeves, who died in 2003, is the figure escorting the then Princess Elizabeth in the photograph you published of her climbing into a Comet tank in 1945. 

A few moments after the photograph was taken, the Princess slipped and was caught by my father as she was falling. Needless to say, a photographer captured the scene, but due to Royal protocol the film had to be destroyed. 

Jonathan Reeves
Aberedw, Radnorshire
 

Noisy eating

SIR – I, too, suffer from misophonia and it’s very misunderstood, much like tinnitus (“Strictly star has irrational hatred of the sound of people eating”, report, July 30). It’s hard for people who don’t suffer to accept how it can make us feel. Like Seann Walsh, I was so relieved to find that it had a name.

I first noticed it when my Dad was eating a sandwich. I was about 12 and the sound of his false teeth grinding actually made me angry, so I always play music to drown out eating noises.

I also cannot listen to out-of-tune instruments or flat singing. It wasn’t till Gerry Rafferty died and the sax player said he couldn’t listen to Baker Street because his sax was out of tune that I had an explanation as to why I couldn’t listen to it either. The sax solo causes something like an actual pain in my head. I only have to hear the first note and the radio is switched off.

Debbie Freebury
Wokingham, Berkshire
 

Fond memories of a summer of hitchhiking

SIR – Rob Cantellow (Letters, July 30) wonders where all the hitchhikers have gone. His letter reminds me of the adventures two friends and I had while hitchhiking to Barcelona in the summer of 1968.

After saving the grand sum of £60 each by office cleaning under the watchful eye of a character very reminiscent of Del Boy, we set off on our travels. As we were three, the journey took us three weeks, though we did stop off for wrongful arrest in Clermont-Ferrand and a bit of beach partying in Agde.

After spending time on the Costa Brava we split up to come home and I got one lift – Barcelona to Southampton in two days – in time to get my A-level results.

Happy days – and I still had change out of the £60.

Peter Stevens
Hartley Wintney, Hampshire

SIR – I was planning to join a team pushing a mobile bath from London to Cambridge in the 1960s but needed last-minute emergency dental treatment, so missed the official departure time. 

Realising after treatment that I didn’t know which major road they were going to use, I hitched up the A1 to Baldock without success, so got a lift in a truck heading east to the A10. The driver asked for my destination, to which I said: four people pushing a bath. He was delighted when one came into view as we joined the A10 at Royston, but disappointed when I said it wasn’t the one I was looking for.

Jeremy Burton
Wokingham, Berkshire

SIR – Many years ago we dropped our daughter’s boyfriend – a seasoned hitchhiker – on the A9 just outside Wick, Caithness, with a key to spend the night at our house in London on his way to a dentist appointment in the West Country. 

When we came south a week later we found a timed note of thanks on the kitchen table and were amazed. He made the journey quicker than we ever did. 

He became an eminent travel writer.

Field McIntyre
London SW3

SIR – As an 18-year-old student nurse I hitchhiked from London to Winchester to see my parents with a fellow nurse friend. 

We were picked up by an older gentleman in a Rolls-Royce. He insisted on taking us to the door of my house, which was out of his way. 

During the journey he gave us a stern lecture about the perils of hitchhiking. He was, he said, a judge and had witnessed the tragic results of hitchhiking in the courts. We only discovered afterwards that he was Lord Denning, Master of the Rolls.

Remembering this, I would not like to see hitchhiking return.

Jennifer Murray
Woking, Surrey
 

Too many houses

SIR – Regarding Raymond Short’s concerns as to whether the infrastructure exists to support incoming residents where new houses are built (Letters, July 25), the answer is no, it doesn’t. 

The village I live in has had three major new housing developments built since 2015. To date there has been no change to the village infrastructure, leading to chaos on the narrow roads, an over-subscribed school and long waiting times to see a medical practitioner.

John Kerry
Fleckney, Leicestershire

SIR – Christopher Bulstrode (Letters, July 31), who I understand proposes to build at least 17 houses on a site in Dorset that he owns, criticises the local parish council and the Government. He claims that both bodies are against “sustainable” house building.

Does he not realise there is nothing sustainable about bulldozing a woodland and covering it with concrete? The parish council is correctly mirroring the concerns of local people, who, apparently unlike Mr Bulstrode, realise the value of wooded green space, wildlife habitats and biodiversity.

The Government’s policy is to prioritise brownfield sites for redevelopment; hopefully Mr Bulstrode can understand that.

Joy Blackwood
Potters Bar, Hertfordshire
 

Pantry explosions 

SIR – Like Jeremy Clarkson (report, July 23) and Dr D C Spooner (Letters, July 30), I have experience of exploding bottles.

In my childhood it was not an infrequent occurrence that, when watching the latest episode of Z Cars with the family, the excitement was added to by a small explosion coming from our kitchen pantry. It was caused by a bottle of my mother’s homemade ginger beer, and the method of closure could be distinguished by either the loud pop of a cork or the more dramatic crack of a screw top.

Scott Clapworthy 
Shrewsbury

SIR – I once made ginger beer and stored it in stoppered, quart beer bottles. These were put in the garage when we left for the family summer holiday. On our return there were no bottles and no beer. Fragments of glass were all over the place, many embedded in the rafters. 

Jeremy Clarkson’s customers – beware. 

R G Rothon
Robertsbridge, East Sussex
 

Parcel jargon

SIR – I am awaiting a parcel from DHL, which informed me on Wednesday that it is currently at its “sortation facility”. 

There must be other examples of corporate speak to discover, but in the meantime I’m hoping my parcel is resting comfortably.

Nick Palk
Chelmsford, Essex

SIR – Having received the following from my energy supplier, I’m unsure how to respond: “The fixed prices we can offer change unpredictably and regularly.”

Robert Leven
Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire
 

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