Letters: Britain risks repeating past mistakes in the race for clean technology

SIR – Ambrose Evans-Pritchard says that any country that ducks the challenge of clean technology “will slide into irrelevance”, and that this is akin to “sticking to horsepower as others embrace the steam engine” (“Britain cowers as China leads revolution in clean tech”, Business, August 3). We have been here before.

In the late 1940s, as Europe emerged from the rubble of the Second World War, the British government decided that, since we had plentiful supplies of coal, we should stick with outdated steam engines, unlike Germany, which (with our financial assistance, it has to be said) electrified its railways. 

This helps to explain why Europe now has many thousands of miles of high-speed rail track, while we languish at the bottom of the table with a pathetic 67 miles from London to the Channel, and little prospect of this changing in my lifetime. The Chinese have over 26,000 miles.

Robert Harvey
Henley-in-Arden, Warwickshire

SIR – Much has been said about plans to phase out gas boilers after 2035. In contrast, very little is heard about current proposals to ban replacement oil-fired boilers after 2026 – just two and a half years off.

The Government issued a little-publicised consultation paper in October 2021 regarding homes that were off the gas grid. All the feedback to this consultation paper that I’ve seen questions the wisdom of such a short timeframe and the notion that heat pumps will be a viable alternative to oil boilers.

How long will it be before the Government responds to this feedback and decides, one way or another, whether to proceed with the 2026 deadline? Rural dwellers – those most likely to have an oil boiler – need as long as possible to assess whether they should replace an ageing boiler before the deadline, or budget for the considerable expense involved in installing a heat pump. Are we being treated as guinea pigs in the apparently inexorable rollout of expensive and unproven technology?

Stuart Thomson
Tarrant Keyneston, Dorset

SIR – The actions of Just Stop Oil (Comment, August 2) – which go beyond peaceful protest and extend to trespass and the disruption of the legitimate activities of others – must be stopped. We live in a democracy. When people disagree with what has been democratically decided, their option is to make their feelings known at the ballot box. It is undemocratic and unacceptable for any small group to decide that it will force its minority view upon the majority by illegal and sometimes anarchical activities.

In respect of yesterday’s protest by Greenpeace at Rishi Sunak’s Yorkshire home (report, telegraph.co.uk, August 3), questions must also be asked of the police, who are surely meant to protect such premises.

Lewis Ayers
Stockton-on-Tees, Co Durham
 

Bank branch closures

SIR – Sixty years ago I opened an account at the District Bank in Frodsham to save babysitting earnings. I was welcomed by the manager. The National Provincial was a few doors away. At the time of my marriage both were absorbed into NatWest. On the other side of Main Street was the Midland Bank, taken over by HSBC, and the Trustee Savings Bank, taken over by Lloyds.

HSBC was the first to close. Then the NatWest branch closed and our account was moved to Runcorn – six miles away. The stately building in a prominent position was left empty, and the site glares at everyone who passes. 

Barclays withdrew from a prominent place at a T-junction next to a busy pub. Then TSB closed. For years the sites of NatWest, Barclays and TSB have been empty, despite being up for sale. The Runcorn branch of NatWest is to close on August 4, meaning my local branch will be more than 10 miles away – not bad for an “inclusive” bank. 

Rosemary Heeley
Frodsham, Cheshire

SIR – HSBC has closed its branches – perhaps 10 in total – in Southampton and its neighbouring districts, leaving only one in the city centre. 

I made a journey there to carry out some transactions, only to find it is closed until a date in September for redecoration. Unbelievable.

Kevin Liles
Southampton
 

Stamp clampdown

SIR – You report (July 31) that Royal Mail will fine recipients of post sent with its “old” stamps after July 31.

I always buy stamps at my local post office. I recently sent £190 worth of “old” stamps to Royal Mail to be swapped for new barcoded ones, only for it to say that the vast majority are not valid or authentic. The stamps were unused and in their original books. Royal Mail has thus already “fined” me over £150 for trying to adapt to its new barcode regime.

David Hedgecox
Buckingham
 

Fathers of the bomb

SIR – Calling Oppenheimer (Letters, August 3) the “father” of the atomic bomb is to rewrite history. “Midwife” would be a more appropriate word.

The work on enriching uranium-235 was all done initially in Britain, notably by Rudolf Peierls in Birmingham, who in 1940 first realised the possibility of a uranium weapon, from which began Tube Alloys, the nuclear research programme. Later, the British team moved to New York to join in the Manhattan project. If the uranium weapon has a father, it is Peierls. The Trinity test was of a plutonium bomb, whose “father” was arguably an experimental physicist at Berkeley, who identified plutonium’s potential, though the precise history is not clear. In any event, it was not Oppenheimer.

As for spies, the American Ted Hall was at Los Alamos and as devastating as Klaus Fuchs. Fuchs is notorious for the extent of his espionage – in Birmingham and New York before Los Alamos and in Harwell after the war.

Professor Frank Close
Abingdon, Oxfordshire
 

Kilt conundrum

SIR – My husband is 79 and when he attended Fettes school in the 1950s, his end-of-year report just said: “Would Gourlay be better if he wore a kilt (Letters, August 3)?” No explanation was given. We’ve wondered about this comment many times over the years.

Zoë Gourlay
Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire
 

Expertise in the NHS

SIR – On Tuesday I was a day patient in Southmead Hospital Bristol. As I lay in the operating theatre surrounded by space-age kit, I was cared for by two radiographers, two doctors and four nurses. For three hours these experts demonstrated their skill. The thought that went through my mind was that this kit and expertise was all just for me, and at no immediate cost.

After the procedure a team of friendly, efficient and caring nurses looked after me for the next few hours until discharge. I had an update from the doctor, tea, a sandwich and cake. I could not have received better care.

I know I paid my stamp and I understand the challenges faced by our NHS and its staff, but I must say that I was cared for by people at every level doing their absolute best for the patient.

Jonathan Yabsley
Nailsea, Somerset

SIR – I notice from the Whole of Government Accounts for the year 2020-21 that in addition to the £792 billion in NHS pension liabilities there is an entry for “clinical negligence” provision of £87 billion.

The wonderful NHS costs the British public more than they know.

Rodney Atkinson
Stocksfield, Northumberland
 

Volvo conversion 

SIR – About 35 years ago, while waiting in a queue at traffic lights, my Ford Sierra was rammed from behind. Four cars sustained major damage but the Volvo estate in front of me was the only car able to be driven away afterwards (“Volvo estate packs it in as SUVs rule road”, report, August 3). I immediately changed my Sierra for a Volvo V70 and am now on my sixth.

Michael I Draper
Nether Wallop, Hampshire
 

Faithful fleece

SIR – My very dear late husband adored a particular navy fleece jacket, so much so that I would be requested to wash and dry it overnight so he would not be parted from it the next morning. To this end we chose it for his “burial jacket” (Letters, August 3), having removed the sleeves to make into memorial cushions. 

While we were at it we added some Pringles, a cricket bail and a small banoffee pie to his willow casket. Knowing that he would have smiled about our offerings somehow made us feel a bit better about everything.

Christina Pyemont
Eastbourne, East Sussex
 

The treasured traditions of true country music 

SIR – Tim Stanley (Features, July 30) argues that country music has lost its soul. While he is correct in saying that Old Town Road was the longest-running number one in American history (overall charts), I question his claim that its author, Lil Nas X, is the “natural next stage in its [country music’s] evolution”. This fails to acknowledge the reason that Old Town Road was removed from the country charts: it is simply not country music.

Country music is about stringed instruments, simple melodies and vocal harmonies, and this song does not meet these criteria. It is widely acknowledged that the golden era of country music in the modern age was the 1990s, with influences of the neo-traditionalist movement being ever-present. To this day, popular artists are influenced by the sound of that time. Indeed, older pioneers, such as George Strait and Alan Jackson, are still immensely popular. 

Country music has always been defined by the traditional sound – the sound loved by millions of real country fans.

Aidan Bonsall
Leicester
 

An inevitable exodus of listeners from the BBC

SIR – What a surprise to read that since Ken Bruce left the BBC, it has lost  more than a million listeners (report, August 3).
 
Who on earth in the BBC hierarchy did not see this coming?

Simon Morpuss
Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire 

SIR – Nick Robinson says that he is yet to meet anyone who wants Britain to have its own version of Fox News (report, August 3). 

He would be better focusing on why Radio 4 has lost more than a million listeners in the past year. The public may not want Fox, but neither do they want Radio 4.

David Newman
London W11

SIR – How right Merrilyn Boorman is to highlight the dumbing-down of children’s radio (Letters, July 27). 

I can still remember the 1940s output of Children’s Hour, dedicated to such delights as the dramatisation of Noel Streatfeild’s Ballet Shoes, John Masefield’s The Box of Delights and the Norman and Henry Bones: the Boy Detectives series. Outside this, anyone of my generation will have memories of listening to Dick Barton: Special Agent each evening. All of these fired the imagination.

Fortunately, many of the books on which the dramas were based are still available and I take pleasure in buying them for my great-grandchildren.

Dr Daphne Pearson
Redbrook, Monmouthshire
 

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