Letter of the week: Defence, but at what cost?

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In Another Voice, the former soldier Al Carns claims that “buses and devolution and the price of a pint… are important, but none of them matter if we get security wrong”. But the 2025 Strategic Defence Review, which he supports, proposes increased defence expenditure through reduced spending on hospitals, infrastructure, schools, transport networks, welfare and climate transition. This demonstrates a blinkered and outdated view of security. As humanity faces an existential crisis brought about by accelerating climate change and ever more devastating weapons of mass destruction, we should be pressing for a significantly reduced defence budget, rooted in human security and common security, prioritising diplomacy, global cooperation, conflict prevention and investment in the social state, as proposed in the 2025 Alternative Defence Review commissioned by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
Peter Smith, King’s Lynn, Norfolk

The female perspective

Yes, Grace Walsh, I do feel the same as you! Years ago I had a similar letter printed, identifying the lack of the female voice and perspective, and the omission of so many female politicians and stateswomen. I had hoped that the writing would change over the years, so that, like Grace, I could feel this was a magazine more representative of its potential readership.

However, the lack of female correspondents in the letters page (usually 10:2, male:female) is likely to be an indicator of either a dwindling female audience, or that women are disengaged from the contents. Granted, much of the world is preoccupied with the actions of a few destructive men, but do we really need to have endless front covers of these people, and accompanying articles? Come on, New Statesman, you can do better than this.
Helen Ryan-Atkin, Penzance

Grace Walsh is spot on with her reading of the 3 July issue. The problem of the recent run of the New Statesman and its dearth of women contributors is not a one-off; it is longstanding. Soon after I subscribed, I wrote to the editor about this. In the last issue, of 22 named contributors, 17 are male, and none of the Front Pages are written by a woman. There is also an unmistakable vein of male nostalgia for “the pub” (Beer and Sandwiches, the underlying trope of the NS soubriquet “The Staggers”) and lots of male talk (cf, Nicholas Lezard on his former lover Debbie, “astonishingly beautiful” and “daft as a brush”).

Unfortunately, good as much of the copy is, issues are a weekly affront to intelligent women readers. A different discourse is available, and a wider circle of contributors.
Laurel Brake, professor emerita of literature and print culture, Birkbeck, University of London

Following on from Grace Walsh’s comments on the preponderance of references to male cultural figures in recent editions, I was struck by Oli Dugmore’s framing of the housing crisis as an issue for “young men and their spouses” and call for “a generation of Englishmen” to be able to “unlock their own front door”. Maybe Oli needs to escape from the 19th century he references and wake up to the diverse community of lifestyles and nations we actually live in.
Colin Paine, Horsforth, Leeds

In memoriam

Following the shocking news about the murder of Ann Widdecombe, my memory goes back to the large, futuristic building at one end of Malet Street, London WC1: the Senate House of London University, where she and I both worked in the 1980s, as well as her close friend, a lady of West Indian extraction. Ann was instrumental in her being allowed to stay in the UK, where she has, for 40 years now, been a much-loved godmother to my daughter.
Tom Stubbs, Surbiton, Greater London

Development squad

Thank you, George Monaghan, for the This England on the subject of football’s role in English culture. George writes: “How do you love a son? That almost infinite question has, in England, one simple answer: you teach him to kick a ball.” He goes on to quote his parents: “We knew we wanted to send you to school able to play football.” As well as finally making sense of my husband’s urgent, despairing words on the birth of our son, more than 40 years ago (“I can’t play football!”), George reminded me that I belong to the minority who lack interest in the beautiful game and England’s standing on the football world stage.
Dorothy Jerrome, Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire

On truth and beauty

Freddie Baveystock’s Letter of the Week offers us a timely reminder that the best artistic endeavour is “truly great” when “it creates space for the reader to pondering make up their own mind” and furnishes us with an impressive bibliography of examples far from exhaustive. I might add Hans Fallada’s Alone in Berlin, Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy, and even, dare I say it, the devastating conclusion of the parable of the prodigal son.

In his conclusion, Freddie quotes John Keats. I was anticipating the famous line from “Ode to a Grecian Urn”, “Truth is beauty and beauty is truth”, which earned a devastating putdown from Friedrich Nietzsche: “Truth is ugly; we have art lest we perish of the truth.”
Paul Thomson, Mobberley, Cheshire

The best laid planning act

Oli Dugmore joins a long line of New Statesman columnists who take their analysis of the housing crisis from free-market think tanks that hate any measure of public control. “Real housing heads know”, he says, that the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act “is the piece of legislation that birthed a million Nimbys”. But the Act, socialist legislation that asserts the public interest in the development of land over any sectional interests, did not stop the country building large numbers of new houses for 35 years after the Second World War. It did not stop the development of 32 new towns between 1946 and 1970 – towns that now house almost three million people. We have had decades of planning liberalisation, with little positive effect. Perhaps it’s time to draw instead on Labour’s heritage and use the system to deliver the development we need.
Shaun Spiers, Rochester, Kent

What is it good for?

It is brave of John Bew to argue in a single article that Russia threatens the Baltic states, necessitating substantial increases in defence spending, while also asserting that “Russia’s war is not going well, with vast casualties on the front line and scant territorial gains”, and expect us not to notice.
Dr John O’Dowd, Bothwell, Lanarkshire

Talk about global anarchy – how many heatwaves does it take for the word “climate” to pass anyone’s lips? Burnham made no reference to it in his to-do speech; other so-called leaders are busy fighting the same wars as 80 years ago. If we don’t start seeing global warming as the emergency it is, the rest ain’t gonna matter.
Jill Haas, Oxford

The Eagleton has landed

Terry Eagleton’s review of Communion by JD Vance is an absolute gem. It deserves to be celebrated for its skewering of Vance’s so-called Christian faith and practice. Keep up the good work, Terry.
Andrew Mottram, Pencombe, Herefordshire

It is unfair of Terry Eagleton to draw an equivalence between Trump’s spiritual depth and that of a slug. Since we can never understand the (possibly rich) inner lives of gastropods, it is only right that we give them the benefit of the doubt and refrain from such ungenerous comparisons.
Matt Hawkins , London E17

A northerner’s relish

I notice we’ve got a bottle of Henderson’s Relish in the kitchen cupboard. Perhaps it is one of those northern things that they don’t quite get down south. Never mind, Burnham’s on his way. He’ll sort you out, one way or the other.
Chris Wright, Tweedmouth, Northumberland

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