Letter of the Week: The New World provides informed journalism without the misery

Thank you to The New World for doing such a great job. I don’t want to be rendered miserable while reading about the news. I definitely want to be informed about the politics of the news. You do this brilliantly. Your rivals can be misery and mystery spreaders!
Andrew Proudfoot

Re: “12 angry months” by Henry Morris (TNW #464).

If nothing else, this was a comforting reminder that while Britain may be failing economically, environmentally and morally, at least we’re still world-class at satire.
Charles Saunders

Re: “Why are they such damned liars?” by James Ball (TNW #464).

It is not just our leaders’ lack of honesty that we should worry about. David Owen, the doctor and former Labour minister who later led the SDP, drew attention in 2009 to what he called Hubris Syndrome, in which holders of power, in particular political power, tend to develop hubristic tendencies. 

Owen described 14 diagnostic features of the syndrome, manifestations that have become all too familiar to us: excessive confidence in his/her own judgment; actions aimed to cast him/her in a good light; contempt for criticism; loss of contact with reality; recklessness and impulsiveness. The rest of his list would be equally familiar today. 

“Some of the fix is to unlearn old habits,” James Ball opines, as though this could be a simple solution. It would not be. It is said that hubristic habits are lifelong while the individual remains in power, after which they only fade slowly. 

A citizens’ assembly could possibly play a role here. A group of individuals independent of government and not nominated by it could curb some politicians’ overweening sense of power and perhaps encourage honesty in the political domain.
Robert Behrman
Cookham Dean, Berkshire

Against my better instincts, I have come to believe that where voting is concerned, it depends on whose lies you are willing to believe.
Ted Smith

Modern journalists contribute to the culture of dishonesty that James Ball describes by asking “gotcha” questions designed to create headlines. As an example, on a recent podcast Wes Streeting was asked if he wanted to be prime minister. If he says “yes” then the headlines are “Streeting challenges PM”, if he says “no”, no one believes him.

Focus groups also contribute, with politicians saying what they think the public in key constituencies want to hear, rather than arguing for their own beliefs. Some voters are gullible, but can still spot insincerity when it hits them in the face.
Brian Ronson

Re: “The Pope v MAGA” by Andrew Brown (TNW #464).

I concur with Christopher Hitchens that religion poisons everything, but it does seem that the current pope is offering sound resistance to the diktats of Donald Trump and the US super-rich.

The desire of Peter Thiel and his acolytes to bully the Catholic Church into supporting their dubious worldview smacks of big money taking over religion in the way that billionaires and the Gulf states have taken over sport.

Meanwhile, quite how MAGA lawyer Tim Busch can characterise JD Vance as articulate is beyond me; every time the vice-president opens his mouth, he checks the wind of opportunity before spouting lies or rubbish. A fake who would be better suited as sales manager at a very average company.
Keith Brisley

Re: “Europe’s left must turn up to fight Putin” by Paul Mason (TNW #464), again restates the western European attitude to Vladimir Putin and Russia.

From the outset of the Russia/Ukraine war, Paul Mason has been shouting for more weapons. Meanwhile, Donald Trump, for all his absurdity and criminality, has halted the flow of weapons and maybe has the best chance of stopping this pointless and destructive war. The outcome will be a frozen conflict, but the body count will plummet.
Karlin Rushbrooke
Hereford, Herefordshire

Paul Mason’s is a hard message for a country/continent that has mainly lived in peace for 80 years, and that’s a mindset that needs to be addressed. Looking at the actions of Trump and Putin (not to mention the useful idiots Paul refers to), preparing for war seems the right (only?) course of action.

I do not like this, but there we are. Complacency is not going to cut it.
Richard Debonnaire

It is obvious that Putin is conducting a war against Europe and Britain, and has been for a long time. It is not a conventional attack, especially in the age of the internet. 

When are we all going to wake up and realise we have to fight back, and now? Wanting peace is admirable and preferable, but Putin does not want it, he is out to destroy Europe as it is now, and he will use any method to achieve it.
Adam Primhak

Re: “Citizen Trump” (TNW #464).

Matthew d’Ancona is spot-on about the president’s Hollywood aspirations. He already embodies one of Warner Bros’ most famed films, A Clockwork Orange, in that he speaks a language all of his own, and at least one of his droogs is Dim.
Dr Chris Williams

Re: The Rats in a Sack quiz of 2025 (TNW #464).

As a bigly genius, I wish to report that I got 31 out of 30.
Adrian Withill

Re: Shariq Siddiqui’s letter  “should MI5 start staking out Wetherspoons?” (TNW #464). 

Not long ago I also read about a worrying shortage of staff at all the security services. With my memory restored and fortified post-Christmas, I happily volunteer to fill the void.

My only stipulation is that while sitting in a van outside Wetherspoons, I am offered refreshments from elsewhere. 
Pamela Boston

Re: “The linguistic logic between dropped syllables” by Peter Trudgill (TNW #463).

As a Scot, when speaking English I speak “particularly properly”. About 20 years ago, I was head of a secondary school in Renfrewshire, twinned with the town of Fürth, Bavaria. On a visit to a high school specialising in modern languages, I found the students (about 12-13 years old) were fluent in English to the extent that they regularly corrected my pronunciation of English words.

Their teacher, amused at this, played me the recordings from which the class learned English. The pronunciation was estuary English, with its haplological plenitude. 

Peter’s point about the actions of teachers of English as a foreign language was exemplified.
Alasdair Macdonald
Glasgow, Scotland

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BELOW THE LINE

Re: “The cream of 2025” (TNW #464)

What a cracking list of cultural highlights! One addition from me – Wild Twin, the second novel by Jeff Young. A Scouse hitchhiker’s guide to Paris & Amsterdam low-life in the 70s & 80s… wonderful, poetic prose bursting with a host of memorable characters.
Mick Ord

Re: “The unacceptable face of MAGA” by Nicky Woolf (TNW #464)

Just wait until those who paid to have ‘Mar-A-Lago face’ are in their nineties! No amount of injectables will put that right!
Ruth Slater

What a gruesomely interesting article. I’d noticed and been repelled by the physiognomic homogeneity, but this lifts it into the nightmarishly surreal.
Michael Rosenthal

Re: Nic Aubury’s poem, “Nigel’s wonderland” (TNW #464)

Back in 1961, my last Christmas at school, a song was going around: “Conservatives Right, Labour’s Wrong, We’re going to sing the colour bar song. I’m dreaming of a white Christmas”.

I knew then, aged 15, that this wasn’t “banter” but wrong, and I didn’t sing it. What is Nigel Farage’s excuse?
John Simpson