Letters: Double standards over the vitriol on display at pro-Palestinian marches

SIR – Reading about the language used against Jews at the pro-Palestinian demonstrations has made me wonder: if such language were directed against any other group, would action be taken? 

Sidney Sands
London N12

SIR – Danny Cohen (Commentary, November 7) expresses vividly the trials of being Jewish, though he ends his article on a positive note.

It is incredible how some people have ignored the atrocities of October 7, or even lauded them. The hatred revealed by these events must be eliminated.

Dr David Bushby
Crieff, Perthshire

SIR – Peter Baker (Letters, November 7) is right that those who choose to demonstrate have the freedom to do so “within the law”. The law proscribes the use of hate speech, and calls for the destruction of the Jewish state surely fall foul of it (“‘From the river to the sea’ is hate-speech”, telegraph.co.uk, November 8).

Michael Bristow
Bristol

SIR – Duncan Rayner (Letters, November 8) calls the Israeli response to Hamas’s actions disproportionate.

What would he consider proportionate, given the manner in which Hamas attacked? 

Only by destroying Hamas can Israel defend its people from further barbarities. 

John Richards
Gosport, Hampshire

SIR – The hue and cry over Suella Braverman’s comments about the pro-Palestinian protesters (report, November 9) has missed the point. 

By planning to march on Armistace Day, the protesters are insulting every family in Britain with relatives and friends who fought in the two world wars and other conflicts. With free speech comes responsibility. When will these people grow up?

Jackie Perkins
Whitstable, Kent

SIR – Participating in a pro-Palestinian march does not indicate a person’s political position. For many of us, the marches are a chance to show solidarity with the ordinary people of Gaza. In my book, that is humanitarian.

Clare Gardner
Sheffield, South Yorkshire

SIR – Allison Pearson (Features, November 8) is right. It is time to take a stand. 

I normally observe Remembrance Sunday at a local venue. This year I plan to head to London to be near the Cenotaph. I hope many others will do the same. Our quiet act of remembrance will be for those who gave their lives to protect the rights and freedoms we have today.

Nick Green
Devizes, Wiltshire

Continuity of care

SIR – As an NHS GP for 35 years, it distresses and concerns me that we hear such frequent stories of very unwell patients battling to be taken seriously and get the help they need, especially if their symptoms are not clear cut.

A major factor in this is the difficulty in getting a timely appointment with the GP. But equally important, I think, is the lack of continuity, with patients often seeing a different doctor every time they attend a surgery. The doctor, therefore, often doesn’t know the patient, so doesn’t recognise when they are not their usual selves.

Some time ago, a patient of mine who I had known for years – a sprightly 79-year-old – came for a routine blood-pressure check. She mentioned that a few days earlier she’d found herself naked on her bedroom floor and couldn’t work out why. I asked if anything else unusual had happened recently, any infection or accident. She said that about four weeks ago she had tripped in the street and hit her head.

I persuaded a reluctant A&E surgical registrar (unimpressed by the symptoms and her age) to do an urgent computerised tomography scan of her head, which revealed a large subdural haematoma. It was only because I knew her well that I was able to recognise that her symptoms were quite abnormal for her.

Dr Fiona Underhill
Woodford Green, Essex

SIR – Dr Adrian Crisp (Letters, November 8) believes that the failure to investigate major symptoms in this country reflects a difference in approach to that in the United States. I’d argue that it is simply bad medicine.

As a medical student in Britain in the 1980s, I was aware of many red-flag symptoms that were to be treated as cancer until proved otherwise. I am appalled by some of the stories that I read in today’s newspapers about missed diagnoses.

Dr P McInnes
Exning, Suffolk
 

Refereeing rabbit hole

SIR – To those watching football on television, with all the advantages of frame-by-frame review, incorrect refereeing decisions are understandably frustrating. Everybody except the referee knows what happened. 

But the video assistant referee (Var) has only made the problem worse (Letters, November 7) – as exemplified by the Newcastle v Arsenal game last weekend, and Tottenham v Chelsea on Monday. 

Var is a rabbit hole leading to ever increasing complexity and frustration. Perfect judgment, by whatever means, is unattainable. We should accept this limitation and return to on-field decision-making. The role of Var would then be in the continuing professional development of referees. Encouraged to review and analyse their own performances with a high-tech resource at their disposal, referees would be able to hone their talents more effectively. 

Geoff Trickey
Tunbridge Wells, Kent
 

The Christmas ad

SIR – Does anybody shop at a particular store just because they like its Christmas advertisement (report, November 4)? Probably not. 

Why, then, do retailers spend thousands of pounds every year competing with each other? I do wish they would all agree to just make one wishing customers a happy Christmas, and then donate the money to a worthwhile charity instead.

Chris Clarke
Newport, Isle of Wight

ECHR overreach

SIR – It is extraordinary for Lord Lexden (Letters, November 7) to criticise the immigration minister Robert Jenrick for invoking Winston Churchill in respect of the need for reform of the European Convention on Human Rights. 

The convention was written in the late 1940s, largely by British lawyers, to provide continental Europe with freedoms long enjoyed in Britain. Since our own laws already guaranteed these freedoms, Churchill insisted that the Strasbourg Court should have no jurisdiction in the UK, as we had no need of it.

In the 1970s, European Court of Human Rights judges decided that the convention should be “a living document”. This enabled them to invent ersatz new rights. 
 

It is profoundly undemocratic and in conflict with British common law principles for judges to create law, and Churchill would not have approved. It was Tony Blair who, for entirely political reasons, allowed ECHR jurisdiction in Britain for the first time through his 1998 Human Rights Act – an egregious error. Mr Jenrick was right to invoke Churchill in this context.

Gregory Shenkman
London SW7

Built-up bungalows

SIR – Many pensioners would like to live in a bungalow (report, November 8) but lots of these homes are now being bought and extended upwards.

The elderly are encouraged to downsize from their large and underused houses. However, the thought of moving into a row of bungalows that are then gradually purchased for upward conversion – so that they overlook your garden – is a deterrent.

It should not be permitted to extend bungalows upwards.

Roger Rashleigh
Epsom, Surrey

 

Comfort smoking

SIR – I am a retired GP and have smoked a pipe since experiencing a nervous problem aged 31 (Comment, November 7). 

I am now over 80 and doubt that I would have survived to this age without the distraction and comfort provided by my pipe. 

Banning smoking could lead to a worse addiction. Beware the law of unintended consequences.

Dr John Taylor
Alderley Edge, Cheshire

The First Folios with a dramatic backstory

SIR – Gregory Doran, former director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, rightly celebrates the 400-year anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio, and is on a “zealous pilgrimage” to see as many of the 235 surviving copies as he can (Features, November 8). 

The anniversary is also an opportunity to reflect on the criminality that has sometimes attended the valuable First Folio. 
In 1898, the Manchester philanthropist Sir Edward Donner obtained a fine edition for just £500, and donated it to Manchester University in memory of his fellow philanthropist Thomas Ashton. On the night of July 12 1972, someone smashed the case in which it was held and stole it. Sadly, the edition has never been recovered, and the trail has long since gone cold. 

There would be great rejoicing if whoever now holds it listened to their conscience and returned the book to its rightful owners, to mark the 400th anniversary. 

There is a precedent: the Durham University First Folio, stolen in 1998, was eventually recovered in 2010, having surfaced in Washington DC.

Rev Canon Derek Earis
York

Questions hang over the Covid vaccine rollout 

SIR – The litigation associated with deaths from the AstraZeneca vaccine for Covid-19 (report, November 9) raises a number of questions about the programme. 

In particular: why was the vaccine rolled out to all healthy adults under the age of 50? 
It was known at the time that this was primarily a severe disease in the elderly, with the average age of death above 80. 

Given he fact that these were 
new vaccines, greater caution should have been exercised before the programme was extended to all age groups. 

With any medical treatment a risk-benefit analysis needs to be performed – and, wherever possible, 
the potential side-effects should be explained.

Dr David Walters
Burton Bradstock, Dorset

SIR – The comments of Lord Sedwill, the former cabinet secretary (“Johnson’s team labelled ‘brutal and useless’”, report, November 9), indicate the depths to which both politicians and the Civil Service have sunk in recent years. 

No further evidence is needed for the electorate to understand the mess that responsible clinicians and epidemiologists were faced with in objectively advising on the complex disease pattern emerging globally. 

F D Skidmore FRCS
London SE3

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