Letter of the week: Why Starmer must be tougher with the media

The UK isn’t much better. We often fail these young people in their teens and early years, so they end up in prison. Locking them up solves nothing, but I fear the alternatives would never be properly funded and therefore not as effective as needs be.

I hope Alastair will advocate in the courts for the young man he mentions. Who knows, a human judge might see some hope and try an alternative to prison.
Hugh Marcus

I very much agree with Alastair Campbell about the Leveson report. Keir Starmer ought to be adopting it: he is too scared of the media, but if he does not take a tough line, they will continue to bully him.

As regards Leveson on prisons, I think we ought to listen to Rory Stewart! He would have done some good if he had not been thrown under the bus by a disgraceful PM.
Professor Peter Chadwick

Re: Everyday Philosophy on the Sycamore Gap (TNW #445). Four years in prison is an absurd punishment for cutting down a tree, a “crime” for which community service is a more appropriate sentence, and dealing with the popular opprobrium a more suitable form of suffering. As well as far cheaper.
James Douet

A more appropriate punishment for the perpetrators would be to be made to work, unpaid, for the Forestry Commission (or whatever it is now called) planting new native woodland and felling trees by hand.

Or as in Monty Python and Holy Grail, to cut down the largest tree in the forest, with a herring!
Andy McGregor

The big question from James Ball’s “How the Epstein scandal broke MAGA” (TNW #445) is whether this will be enough for the Project 25 group to cut Trump adrift as he might now threaten the success of their plan.

JD Vance could carry it forward for the rest of the term and they could keep on damaging America’s institutions.
Michael Boon

Re: Paul Mason’s “How to beat Putin” (TNW #445). How have we suddenly forgotten about MAD – Mutually Assured Destruction?

Is there some tacit agreement that we’d all like to go back to fighting traditional European wars?
Seamus Macbride

Re: “The Tory MP who inherited a crime scene” (TNW #445). James Drax, who landed in Barbados in 1627, is not a descendant of Richard Drax, current owner of Drax Hall. He was his ancestor. Richard is the descendant of James.
Malcolm M Caporn,
Aston on Trent, Derbyshire

I love your magazine, but suggest you are out of date using the word “ton” in Philip Ball’s “On a New Telescope” (TNW #445). “Ton” was replaced with the word “tonne” in the late ‘60s or early ‘70s. We cannot live in the past.
John Baldry,
DeMontfort, Isle of Wight

Suggested Reading

Letter of the week: How can we make European leaders speak up on Gaza?

Reader Letters

Interesting reading Ros Taylor’s article about the leadership of the Greens (TNW #444): in an electoral landscape where personalities count as much as policies, they really need a forthright and recognisable figurehead to emerge from the relative media invisibility they have long suffered. 

Talking about media invisibility though, I want to point out though that this is the Green Party of England and Wales, not “The Green Party”, or Britain’s Green Party, as you might think from the headline. No mention is made of the Scottish Greens, of their electoral successes, nor of their erstwhile contribution to government in Scotland, after striking a now-defunct agreement with the Scottish National Party. They are also staging a co-leadership contest (which I hope TNW will cover to an equivalent extent).

Despite Scotland’s near-two-thirds Remain vote, and myriad other differences that mark the country out as different, and differently managed, from England, it’s difficult not to dislodge the persistent notion that TNW, love it though I do, has something of a Scottish blind spot.
David White

I found Sonia Sodha’s “Nobbling the Jury” (TNW #444) unconvincing. Her argument for keeping the present right to jury trial unchanged is based on very shaky evidence. 

It boils down to her saying “black women are 22% more likely to be found guilty by magistrates than white women” whereas conviction rates are “similar” in jury trials whatever their colour. She attributes this 22% discrepancy entirely to bias – a serious charge against professionals – without any supporting evidence at all.

But it is surely perfectly plausible that maybe black women are more likely to commit the sort of minor offences heard by magistrates, such as shoplifting, than white women. On average they are likely to be from poorer homes, they tend to have more children, and there is less likelihood of a male wage earner being in the household, all of which would make them more liable to take risks to provide for their families. 

Whereas such factors would be a lot less likely to promote the more serious criminal activity that goes to the crown courts. 
Richard H Burnett-Hall,
London W11

Although I agree with most of Simon Barnes’s article on Shakespeare (TNW #444). I don’t think it’s fair to call Racine and Corneille “stilted” or Moliere “so-so”.  I can’t help wondering if he read them in the original or only in translation?
Carolyn Beckingham

Am I the only one who wonders why in TNW #444 Richard Luck thinks photographer Lee Miller, who died an alcoholic with lung cancer, had a “great life”, and Katherine Cooper lauds the chef Anthony Bourdain, who committed suicide? Extreme lives surely need to be considered with caution.
Barry Shurlock,
Winchester

Re: Peter Trudgill (TNW #444). We use the word “swains” quite often to describe groups of somewhat dissolute youths.
Phil Jackman

In his search for good social media, Matt Muir (TNW #444) doesn’t seem to have come across Mastodon or the rest of the Fediverse. Perhaps he could give them a try for a few months, and then update his column.
Tim Ward

BELOW THE LINE

Re: Jonty Bloom’s “Judge Dreadful” (TNW #445). Farage cannot bear any form of forensic scrutiny and so far he has had almost none. It would reveal that his approach to politics is all smoke and mirrors – but that doesn’t mean a gullible electorate will not elect him. 

Labour really needs to get its act together and start offering a convincing and appealing alternative, not trying to outflank him on his own talking points.
Liz Court

Farage has the unerring ability to tell each and every person he meets EXACTLY what they want to hear. This is why this man is so dangerous.
Linda Simmons

Reform’s plans are performative claptrap that will never come to fruition.

Farage is a champion gaslighter but is never going to be prime minister – too divisive, support broad but shallow, even his supporters think it’s flim-flam. His policies and methods are attackable.
John Price

Re: Marie Le Conte on the Coldplay couple (TNW #445). I admit I laughed like a drain at some of the Instagram posts related to this story, but also felt the sting of cognitive dissonance. How great it would be not to have the pernicious influence of social media permeating every corner of our lives.
Ian Dobbie