Letter of the week: The human cost

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I was disappointed to read in this week’s Leader (28 February) that the government’s increase in defence spending “can only be paid for by making very large cuts to overseas aid”.

In recent years, the scale and complexity of humanitarian crises have escalated dramatically, particularly in regions such as Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo and Gaza. The gap between needs and an effective and properly funded humanitarian response is widening at an alarming rate.

At this critical juncture, the UK has a unique opportunity to lead by example. Instead of retreating from its responsibilities, immediate action is required to significantly increase, safeguard and deploy essential humanitarian aid, as Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) has recently urged. This is crucial to address the pressing needs of the world’s most vulnerable people.

As Andrew Marr writes in “The end of Pax Americana” (Cover Story, 28 February), the government “could have raised income taxes instead and won the argument with British voters about essential security for extraordinary times”.
Nick Owen, Winchester, Hampshire

Lammbasted

When in opposition, David Lammy, now the Foreign Secretary, loudly and constantly protested against everything Donald Trump did and stood for, launching many visceral personal attacks both in parliament and on social media. During Trump’s first presidency, he also repeatedly criticised the then prime minister, Boris Johnson, for his cuts to foreign aid (Cover Story, 28 February).

Considering that Trump has not changed one iota – in fact, he seems more bombastic than ever – and that Keir Starmer’s cuts to foreign aid go further than Johnson’s, it appears that Lammy is more a politician of convenient protest than one of unwavering principle.
Stefan Badham, Portsmouth, Hampshire

X rated

I find Ash Sarkar one of the most engaging voices on the left. Finn McRedmond compares talking to her as like talking to X (Encounter, 28 February), and maybe that’s where her appeal lies. Her wit and plain speaking are needed to counter the likes of Elon Musk and Nigel Farage. Appealing to young people is vital as more of them become attracted to the far right.
Rob Grew, Birmingham

What’s the story?

Given the Israeli government’s refusal to allow foreign press into Gaza, and given the widespread and justifiable belief that Israel has routinely and callously broken international law in the Gaza conflict, I do not condemn the BBC for showing Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone (Media Notebook, 28 February). I have yet to read any criticism of the programme’s content. Was it factually incorrect? Was it blatant propaganda? This is a classic case of blaming the messenger – in this case the 13-year-old son of Hamas’s deputy agriculture minister. Those who are outraged seem to have less to say about Israel’s crimes.
Colin Challen, Scarborough

Requires improvement?

Alasdair Macdonald is right to challenge the view that it is the introduction of academies that has led to educational improvement (Another Voice, 28 February). It’s a mirage. Both Labour and the Conservatives claim the credit. Both are going beyond the evidence.

What research there is does not support the belief that academies outperform local-authority-maintained schools or the reverse. Nor is there any incontrovertible evidence of a substantial improvement in the quality of education since the inception of Ofsted in 1992 or the Conservative coalition in 2010: Ofsted’s frequent changes of inspection framework and the inevitably subjective judgements of inspectors make comparisons over time highly problematic.

Cherry-picking items from international tests, themselves of contested validity, also fails to convince. It would be great if we had absolutely firm evidence of improvement or decline since either 1992 or 2010 but we don’t. That is a fact of educational life. We have to live with it.
Professor Colin Richards, former HM inspector of schools, Spark Bridge, Cumbria

In his defence of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, Alasdair Macdonald cites a survey of multi-academy trust leaders who said that many of the key, and contentious, policies in the bill (such as the requirement to use statutory pay scales and implementing the national curriculum) would have minimal or no effect on how they run their schools. If that is the case, why were they included in the bill, other than as a form of virtue-signalling towards the teaching unions? At the very least it is bad politics, distracting the government from addressing what Macdonald describes as “the issues [schools] face in reality”.
Daniel Callaghan, Ealing, London

Believe it or not

Lamorna Ash’s review of The Spirituality Gap and Why We Believe (The Critics, 28 February) asserts that faith “remains an existentially necessary part of human life”. Fewer than 50 per cent of residents of England and Wales identify as Christian. There are no statistics for those who believe in forms of alternative spirituality such as astrology. Ash suggests those who reject all forms of faith are missing an “existentially necessary part of human life”. This is a tendentious opinion, implying that to be a realist and a rationalist is to be not quite human. I’m an atheist yet do not regard believers as lesser.
John Boaler, Calne, Wiltshire

Shouting prophecy

Ed Smith dismisses Chris Hayes’s analysis of Trump, which he characterises as “we used to debate like Lincoln, now we are just shouting at each other” (The Critics, 21 February), but it seems prescient given the tantrum we saw directed at Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office on 28 February.
Dave McElroy, Reading

Fully on board

My son-in-law enjoyed Becky Barnicoat’s “Get the Kids to School” board game (Outside the Box, 28 February) and suggested that game expansion packs should include: Weekend Activities, Swimming Class, and the all-time-favourite, boss-level Going on Holiday.
Fiona Bedford, Swindon

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