Letter of the week: Big words, little action

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I won’t question Ailbhe Rea’s judgement that “Ed Miliband’s dynamism is remaking Britain’s foreign policy” (Politics, 11 September). However, will this cause more than passing consternation in Israel? The sanctions are so restricted to the West Bank as to make their effect almost negligible. Labour fails to understand that its two-state solution bears no relation to the wishes of the majority of Israelis and Palestinians. And that without some 50 per cent of the land of historic Palestine, a newly created Palestine would end up as little more than Israel’s Bantustan. Violence would not cease.

Israel is ensuring that there will never be a second state: Canada, France, the UK and other’s sanctions will not prevent E1, the building of which promises to put an end to the two-state ideal. Miliband’s dramatic speech might have been appropriate before Netanyahu began his 18 years as prime minister.

Many Israelis have now deserted their country, despairing at what it has become. How long it will be before there is internal collapse? Sadly, despite Miliband’s words, we are firmly tied to Israel, via trade and military cooperation.
Graham Murphy, Liverpool

Hitting self-destruct

As much as the rapid developments in artificial intelligence need to be taken incredibly seriously (Cover Story, 18 September), rather than it being a malign, exterior force, please can we agree that AI is us? The systems and accountability belong to human beings, so AI is never going to kill us; it would be humanity killing itself. Who knows where we are heading, but opposing AI will soon make as much sense as being anti the internet. If it’s true that we’re an evolving species, we need to move behind any desire to hold back progress and this sense of being paralysed by fear. Neither will help us on the path into the future.
Keith Griffin, West Yorkshire

It seems that, as with governments, we will get the AI we deserve. We assume that if machines develop dominance, they will behave as humans do and exploit that dominance to the detriment of all else. Humanity has, after all, done such a great job of caring for its fellow beings, the environment and the rest of nature. Who’s to say the machines wouldn’t do a better job?
Ian Jamieson, Walton-on-Thames

The great escape

“Death, it seems, is in the air,” writes Tom McTague (Editor’s Note 18 September). Death is always in the air, Tom. And, if I may make a recommendation for your dad’s book club, please could I suggest With the End in Mind by Kathryn Mannix? I have recommended the book many times. I don’t think talking or thinking about death should be something we do only as we get older. And it certainly shouldn’t push us towards being more conservative. Conversations about death should be everyday – not confined to the elderly, hospitals or hospices. The process of dying should not be mysterious. With the End in Mind breaks down the mystery of dying and shines a light into an area many of us find difficult to talk about. Make sure you have a tissue handy.
Eleri Cubbage, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales

Tom McTague cites instances of loved ones occasionally rallying, for a brief moment, from the effects of dementia. My late mother seemed to have lost all sense of her whereabouts in a “secure” care home. But, late one night, she managed to escape. She fought alongside Tito’s partisans during the Second World War, and I like to think her wartime training came back to her. No one had ever escaped before, and the staff never did figure out how she’d managed it. A police helicopter had to bring her back – she thanked the officers for the lift.
Tom Stubbs, Surbiton

Forgotten voices

There is no doubt that Tim McNally is enjoying his 15 minutes of fame in dealing with politicians and the media (This England, 18 September). Emily Lawford pinpointed residents’ fears in coping with migrants possibly being housed nearby in a new camp. What was not included was that on Newsnight, a Piddington mother of two mixed-race children was upset by being cut off from other people. Shamefully, Nigel Farage mocked her on social media. But I guess that is indicative of his vitriol.
David Rimmer, Hertford

Shos’ fired

I was disappointed with Andrew Marr’s framing of Trump’s support for a united Ireland as Maga “wanting to destroy the UK” (At Large, 18 September). Trump’s position is mainstream, even if he is only trumpeting it to annoy the UK government.

I was less annoyed with Marr’s coy but correct observation about the validity of Stalin’s critique of Shostakovich. The best recording of the Fifth is Leonard Bernstein’s. He does justice to it by taking it at its word, rather than scrabbling around for ironies. Stalin may have been a violent man, but he wasn’t a stupid one.
Robert Maisey, London

It is great to think of Andrew Marr enjoying the Holy Fool about Dmitri Shostakovich. However, his conjecture that Stalin might possibly “have had a point” in triggering the “most glorious” Fifth Symphony is something most adherents to Shostakovich do not share.

It is desperately sad that Shostakovich’s genius was crushed. The greatest of his music was written despite Stalin and not thanks to him. A great tragedy of Russia since 1917 has been its destruction of its own formidable artistic potential. Stalin was the architect of that process. Think how hard it is for artists in Russia today to express themselves. What a loss to us all.
Nick Goulder, Saffron Walden, Essex

Something in the air

Like Les Bright, I enjoyed Will Dunn’s Sketch (Correspondence, 18 September). But I was horrified at the mention of a “smell of increasing age”. I just turned 80 and was feeling pretty chipper – now I am worried that I’m going about my business unwittingly giving off an odour of decay.
Vivien Martin, Kingston upon Thames

Gordon’s glory

In a period of unrelentingly bad news that has seemed determined to turn this 75-year-old optimist into a miserabilist, reading the review of Gordon Brown’s book The Future Starts With Us was an uplifting experience (The New Society, 18 September).

Brown’s capacity to think and write about big issues while still engaging with what matters in his locality is an approach that should be followed by those who attain high office. I hope he lives as long as Jimmy Carter and is encouraged to keep on thinking globally while acting locally.
Les Bright, Exeter

What democracy?

I enjoyed Rachel Cunliffe’s column about proposals to restrict “vertical drinking” in Soho, despite opposition from 81 per cent of respondents to a consultation (Future Perfect, 18 September). The council’s willingness to proceed regardless sounded familiar to those of us in Liverpool. In 2022 the council consulted on plans to end free on-street parking after 6pm; 89 per cent of respondents opposed it. Nevertheless, following a further consultation, the council implemented the changes in 2025.

Consultations may not be binding votes, but when opposition is so overwhelming, residents could reasonably ask how much influence their views have. If the outcome is unlikely to change, why ask in the first place?
Gary Owens, Liverpool

The unforseeable future

Not for the first time, whoever chooses the Archive has found an exquisite resonance with contemporary moods. I imagine that when it was first published in 2010, Dominic Sandbrook’s column imagining how the country might look after five years of David Cameron might have seemed unduly apocalyptic. Sixteen years on it feels somewhat understated.
David Perry, Cambridge

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[Further reading: Letter of the week: Prestige is never innocent]