Letters: Shortsighted calls for a ceasefire that would only embolden Hamas

SIR – Tom Harris is right to lambast the Mayor of London for calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, a call since made by other Labour figures (Comment, telegraph.co.uk, October 27). 

A ceasefire, far from being a humanitarian gesture, violates Israel’s legitimate right to self-defence under the UN Charter, and its clear duty to protect citizens from a genocidal enemy. It also leaves intact the vast terrorist infrastructure created by Hamas over the past 17 years, including 300 miles of tunnels and a powerful array of rockets and other weapons.

An emboldened Hamas would lick its lips at the chance to launch further attacks against Israel, ensuring more rounds of violence. All those demanding a ceasefire should tell us how they intend to disarm Hamas, remove it from power and return the hostages still in Gaza.

Jeremy Havardi
Director, B’nai B’rith UK Bureau of International Affairs
Pinner, Middlesex

SIR – I’m proud to live in a country that values freedom of speech and opinion. But I can only assume that few of the demonstrators in London on Saturday had read your article, “The Missing” (telegraph.co.uk, October 27), about the hostages taken by Hamas. This was a harrowing recap of the savage terrorist attack on innocent civilians. More than 200 hostages are still being held.

I can’t begin to understand the fear experienced by the hostages and the ordinary citizens of Gaza. But for a significant proportion of the 100,000 protesters to think that only one side is to blame is shocking. The UN also sees Israel as being at fault, hence its failure to condemn Hamas unequivocally in its recent resolution. 

The immediate future of the citizens of Gaza looks bleak – thanks to Hamas and its paymasters, Iran and Qatar. The protesters should ask themselves if they would be free to express their views in these places. 

Oliver Tyson
Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire

SIR – It is rich for Turkey’s President Erdogan to tell the world that Hamas is not a terrorist organisation, but a “liberation group” fighting to protect its land and its people (report, October 26), when his own government describes Kurds on its border with Iraq, who have been fighting for their land and people, as terrorists.

One would hope that the Turkish president’s support for Hamas, which is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by every one of the EU’s 27 member states (and also by the UK, America, Canada and Australia), scuppers any remaining chance of Turkey joining the EU.

Moreover, we really are living in a disturbed world when Russia, despite having launched a genocidal war against its neighbour, still retains its seat as one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. 

Robert Readman
Bournemouth, Dorset
 

GP gatekeepers

SIR – Your report (October 28) says that the majority of NHS GP appointments do not involve being seen by a family doctor, and includes an extraordinary statement from an NHS spokesman: “Patients will always be able to see their GP when it is clinically appropriate.” 

One wonders which of the army of non-medically qualified personnel will have deemed the presenting complaint to be clinically worthy of seeing the GP, or, more worryingly, not worthy. 

It always used to be taught that a consultation for a relatively trivial complaint not infrequently brought to light something rather more serious.

Dr Irving Wells
Yelverton, Devon

SIR – Last Friday I had a bone-density scan at a reputable hospital, having waited three months for the appointment. 

Imagine my shock when I was told that a clinician’s letter containing the results would be sent to my GP in eight to 10 weeks.

Helen Ravenhill
Malpas, Cheshire

Finding Foxtrot Four

SIR – I fully support Commander John R M Prime’s efforts to draw attention to the fact that HMS Fearless’s sunken landing craft, Foxtrot Four, remains unfound (Letters, October 25). After 40 years, this is surely a disgrace and very hurtful to the crew’s families.

I am aware that the bereaved families support Commander Prime’s continued work on refining the search area and, as she was in my task group, I very much wish to see the vessel and her brave crew located and declared a war grave. At least one of the gallant crew’s remains are believed to be aboard.

Cdre Michael C Clapp RN (retd)
Commander, Falklands Amphibious Task Group, 1982
Newton Abbot, Devon
 

Clandon’s marble hall

SIR – As Nicholas Wightwick writes (Letters, October 28), following severe damage during the Second World War, Balthasar Neumann’s great prince-bishops’ palace was restored. 

Several of the principal chambers had survived, and the people of Würzburg have always been grateful to an American officer who had the vault of the staircase with Tiepolo’s frescoed ceiling (one of the largest in the world) protected after the destruction of the roof.

Having given a concert in the marble hall at Clandon Park many years ago, surely reconstruction of that extraordinary chamber, if nothing else, would give some meaning to the remaining fragments.

Rev Michael J Maine
Ditchling, East Sussex
 

A job for AI

SIR – They say that among the most stressful events in life are the buying and selling of a house. I am in the process of selling my flat, and the hugely expensive, anachronistic and time-wasting aspects of the legal procedure are causing me a great deal of frustration. 

If ever there was a process suited to artificial intelligence (Leading Article, October 27), it is, without doubt, private property conveyancing. There would be no apocalyptic consequences – it couldn’t be made worse.

The legal profession and others take billions out of the housing market every year, without one brick being laid upon another.

Brian Farmer
Braintree, Essex
 

County culture

SIR – Since the 1970s, successive governments have shown utter contempt for local opinion regarding the administrative and ceremonial boundaries of counties (“I could still weep at the desecration of England’s historic counties”, Comment, October 27). 

Any cultural identity was trampled. The early 1970s saw the creation of regional assemblies and development agencies – precursors, allegedly, to integration into a pan-European model of government. This meant that the need for historical boundaries was seen as quaintly anachronistic.

The most recent iteration of this contempt has given us the nominal unitary authorities of Cumberland and Westmorland and Furness. Neither is based on the historical regions connected with these names. Towns in the north Pennines are now linked with the Furness peninsula in the same authority. Two more diverse cultural identities are difficult to imagine.

More than 90 per cent of people surveyed in my parish would have comfortably accepted either a single unitary authority of Cumbria, or a return to the former model of Cumberland and Westmorland, where the boundaries, culture, history and peoples are, even now after nearly 50 years, well established and understood.

Why does this matter? Without a local identity and culture it is impossible to create a cohesive society. I am not alone in feeling that changes of this nature are unnecessary and disruptive, and ultimately lead to the diminution of our lives.

Tony Wolfe
Penrith, Cumbria 
 

Uses for pumpkins

SIR – Dr Peter Sander (Letters, October 28) suggests that supermarkets should sell pumpkins with recipes to ensure that they are not thrown away after Hallowe’en. 

Having tried pumpkin pie, I can understand why an alleged 98 per cent of pumpkins grown in this country are used for lanterns.

John Brandon
Tonbridge, Kent

SIR – My husband grows many varieties of pumpkin in our vegetable patch. Their uses are endless: pumpkin pie, pumpkin soup, pumpkin casserole, pumpkin chips (delicious coated in parmesan before frying) – and roasted halves are a good Yorkshire pudding substitute. No need to throw anything away.

Patricia Rayner
Kneeton, Nottinghamshire
 

Welcome progress in musical performance

SIR – Nicholas Kenyon discusses the use of period instruments in the early music movement (Features, October 20).

Was there ever a field in which progress was more welcome than in the performance of music? Chopin may have written some of the most sublime piano music ever, but imagine his joy at experiencing a modern Steinway – surely far more expressive than anything he played. 

As for the serpent, the sackbut and the crumhorn, maybe the clue is in the names. Odd, though, that the violin seems to have reached perfection three centuries ago, and defies further improvement. 

Incidentally, why do you never see a left-handed violinist?

William Smith
St Helens, Lancashire
 

No getting out of eating bony fish on Fridays 

SIR – The letter from my boarding school days that my father cherished was not one of the many sent home from his loving daughter (Letters, October 28). 

Instead, he kept a succinct reply from her headmistress. A response to his formal request that she might be excused from having to eat the bony fish provided every Friday, which she found sickening and impossible to eat, it read: “Dear Mr Allen, All the girls have a thing about fish. Yours sincerely, Monica Tuck.”

I am now 68 and still can’t eat cod or any similarly bony fish.

Penny Girardot
Pons, Charente-Maritime, France 

SIR – While on national service, I received regular letters from my mother. One included a postscript from my father: “Enclosing a picture of the Queen” – a 10-shilling note.

John Patrick
Falkirk, Stirlingshire

SIR – In 1982, I wrote a letter to my mother from university. I told her I had met a girl I was sure she would like, who was very pretty, voted Conservative and did the Telegraph crossword. 

My mother did, and 41 years later my wife still is and still will – and now we do the crossword together.

Phil Hoddell
Copford, Essex

SIR – I have a handwritten recipe book from my grandmother dated 1932 (Letters, October 27), in which is written in her own handwriting a recipe for cough mixture. 

This contains oil of aniseed, oil of peppermint, paregoric, laudanum, chlorodyne, essence of cayenne, treacle, vinegar, sugar and water. 

As far as I’m aware I never experienced this concoction and I have reached 78 years of age. 

Elizabeth Briggs
Burnley, Lancashire
 

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