Sir, Tom McPhail says that everyone needs to take personal responsibility for finding out about the value of their state pension and when it will be paid (“Careless Waspis don’t deserve to get compensation”, Thunderer, Nov 13). The 1995 Pensions Act set out that the pension age was to change at a gradual rate for women born in the 1950s and that information about these changes could be obtained on request. The changes outlined were not well advertised and countless women were completely unaware of the impact of the act on their lives.
Furthermore, the 2011 Pensions Act accelerated that timeframe to age 66 (by 2014) and the Department for Work and Pensions sent letters to all affected women only from 2011, when the 1950s women were aged 60 or approaching 60. Suddenly, millions of women had their pension dates delayed again by months and years. Women now had very little time to change or make plans for their retirement. Additionally, a large number of women had by this time changed to part-time working, been made redundant or retired. To try to re-enter the workforce to make up the shortfall at this stage in life has been impossible for many women, thousands of whom have faced real hardship because of these changes.
Women born in the 1950s should have been informed of the changes well before pension age adjustments were made. The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman agreed with Women Against State Pension Inequality campaigners on this issue and recommended compensation.
Susan Kitteringham
Hertford
Sir, Before Labour got into power Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves wholeheartedly backed the Women Against State Pension Inequality. The minute Labour won, these high-profile people, elected for being the party of integrity, looked the other way. It is no surprise that the government has just backed away from the judicial review brought by Waspi (“Compensation for Waspi women will be reviewed”, news, Nov 12); the government’s argument against the cause has now been fatally undermined.
Isla Robert
Solihull, W Midlands
Sir, I find it unconscionable that the government would consider paying Waspi compensation at the best of times, especially so when the chancellor is set to raise taxes on millions of workers who are unlikely to see the state pension at all the way things are going.
The legislation that equalised the state pension age was passed 20 years before it came into effect. Perhaps if Waspi members had spent as much time keeping on top of their personal affairs as they do campaigning, they would not find themselves in the situation that they claim to be.
Adam Shaw
Winchburgh, West Lothian
Sir, I agree with Tom McPhail that the Waspi women are “trying it on” to get compensation. For what? They haven’t lost any money, even in the unlikely event that they didn’t hear about the changes when they were announced. My wife and I, living in France at the time, were fully aware of them, and moreover were fully in agreement since it was (and is still) true that women live longer than men, so why should they draw a pension for five years longer, plus the average extra time of life they expect?
George Hart
Rickmansworth, Herts
Heyday of the BBC
Sir, Further to Edward Lucas’s piece on the BBC World Service (“BBC used to pursue truth, then the rot set in”, Nov 13), I was working with the UN in Sri Lanka when civil war erupted on July 25, 1983, and a week-long curfew was imposed. At 10am the next day, I was listening to the government radio station in Colombo. It was saying that the situation had been contained, there were military patrols on main street corners and there was no sign of the Sinhalese mobs. I at once switched over to BBC World News to hear: “This is Mark Tully. I am sitting on the roof of the Oberoi hotel. Military patrols are withdrawing from the street below and a large mob has started to burn the Tamil homes there.” Or words to that effect. On my return to the UK a few months later I was confronted by the headline: “BBC World Service to lose £4 million.” Priceless truth sacrificed for short-term gain.
John Jackson
Sherborne, Dorset
Sir, I strongly disagree with David Elstein’s formula for the BBC (letter, Nov 12). He suggests that the BBC should be transformed into just another broadcaster competing for subscriptions. We have too many of those already. Instead it should focus on providing services that are not available from the commercial sector, such as independent and local news, minority sports coverage and quality programmes. It should continually develop new talent rather than hang on to stars by paying them vast sums, and it should not waste public money on competing to cover high-profile events. We should leave that to the commercial sector.
John Kinnear
London SW15
Doctors’ strike
Sir, Anyone working in an acute hospital will know there is crisis of long A&E waiting times and corridor care, which is having a devastating impact on hundreds of thousands of older people. However, we know that this situation can be improved: government leadership is required but hospitals can also help themselves by, for example, posting staff with specialist expertise in older people’s health in A&E and by speeding up discharge times to free up beds. Against this context, the junior doctors’ decision to strike again, starting today, is both an unhelpful distraction and an impediment to tackling a problem that hurts staff as well as patients. With flu cases rising and increasing pressure on hospital beds, we urge junior doctors at the very least to pause industrial action until the spring, ideally to settle their dispute once and for all. As temperatures dip and winter viruses spread, our older population needs the NHS to be operating at full capacity.
Caroline Abrahams
Charity director at Age UK
‘Lawfare’ bill fears
Sir, What Lt-Col the Rev Nicholas Mercer says in his letter (Nov 12) about the Human Rights Act being a “force for good” is true, but that is not the whole picture. And in the context of arraigning 80-year-old veterans over incidents in Ulster that happened more than 50 years ago, the implications of the proposed Northern Ireland Troubles Bill are extremely damaging to the morale of serving soldiers. There is no doubt that the effect of the bill (if passed) will mean that our service personnel, when fighting, will be considering not only the enemy in front of them but the lawyer behind them, and will have no trust in the state to protect them. The “robust safeguards” in the bill that the government has highlighted are an illusion.
Admiral Lord West of Spithead
House of Lords
Turn-up of terror
Sir, My father, as a young houseman at Bart’s hospital in the 1920s, frequently found himself dealing with the result of accidents at the nearby Smithfield meat market. One evening, travelling home on the Northern Line, he glanced down to find that a severed finger was lodged in one of his turn-ups (letters, Nov 11-13).
Chris Hunt Cooke
Welwyn, Herts
Raising child cap
Sir, Rachel Reeves would be unwise to tackle child poverty by raising the cap on child benefit (letters, Nov 12 & 13). Doing so would not guarantee that the money would be used for a child’s welfare. Increasingly, the state is taking on parenting responsibilities that were traditionally family matters. If Reeves wants to help children she should channel funds into schools’ ancillary activities, meals and support services, rather than throwing money at families with no way of knowing what it will be used for.
Duncan Heenan
Kington, Worcs
The play’s the thing
Sir, In 21 years I have never “struggled” to make Shakespeare “relevant” (“Online Shakespeare curriculum makes all the web a stage”, Nov 13). What isn’t relevant is actors telling teachers how to teach. I invite both Sir Ian McKellen and Dame Helen Mirren to attend my Shakespeare lessons, in which pupils yell out quotations and discuss and debate the motives of characters, all while critiquing various productions.
I am not alone in inspiring children to get into Shakespeare and, frankly, we teachers are fed up with the constant detractors who think that they know better. Just because someone has acted in Shakespeare for years doesn’t mean they have the first idea how to teach it.
Ben Wolfin
English teacher, London NW7
Refugees’ baptism
Sir, Over the years I have baptised dozens of asylum seekers and refugees (“Keep baptising asylum seekers, next archbishop tells churches”, Nov 13). They all went through a lengthy discernment process involving other converts who were established in their Christian faith. Of those baptised, I estimate about 25 per cent continue to be actively involved in churches. None has reverted to their previous faith. Moreover, conversion assists asylum seekers to integrate in UK society long-term. I would contrast their level of continued church involvement with that of the much greater number of English families whose children we baptise and confirm each year and whom we rarely see again until Christmas, if at all.
The Rev Larry Wright
Wilmcote, Warks
Heap of faith
Sir, Further to Tom Whipple’s Notebook (Nov 12), one of the Catholic targets of the Second Defenestration of Prague (1618) called out “Jesu Maria! Help!”, at which his Protestant assailant sneered, “We will see if your Mary can help you” as he pushed him out of the window. He then exclaimed, “By God, his Mary has helped!” when the victim landed on a dung-heap below.
Jacquie Pearce
Cowes, Isle of Wight
Prefer both barrels
Sir, Regarding your editorial on hyphenated double-barrelled names (“Royal Dash”, Nov 11), as someone afflicted from birth with a polysyllabic hyphenated family name I can attest to it being a total pain and best avoided wherever possible. I usually fire with only one barrel and reserve my full surname for legal documents, an occasional cheque, letters to the editor and suchlike. I advise Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to do the same.
John Vincent-Townend
Chichester
Out of the question
Sir, Your leading article on the pub quiz cheats of Urmston (“Hollow Triumph”, Nov 12) said a “cheeky Google in the loo at a drinks’ break” was a “practice so rife most quizmasters turn a blind eye”. As a pub quiz stalwart I would be shocked at the idea, as would any quizmaster I know.
Paul Taylor
Oldham
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