Letters: It’s time for Britain’s institutions to stand up for the values that made the country great

SIR – I was saddened but not surprised to read that the Civil Service has asked its employees to hold “festive celebrations” rather than the age-old tradition of a Christmas party (report, December 11).

Every day, the vast majority of people in this country are being told by a very small minority what we can say, do, eat and believe. This minority is seemingly able to protest in the most destructive fashion, avoid any form of penalty and gain vast amounts of air time on the BBC and ITV to promote its point of view.

Britain has been one of the most diverse and welcoming countries in the world. You can be any gender you want, eat whatever food you want, observe whichever religion you want, speak whatever language you want. Why are we allowing this small minority of unelected do-gooders and violent protesters to tell us that we must change our traditional way of life and beliefs to suit theirs?

While they are being supported by civil servants (who mostly “work” from home), the police (who take glued-to-motorway protesters cups of tea and cushions), and courts that are unable to lock them up, they feel that they are winning. Nothing could be further from the truth. For the majority of the public (for whom the aforementioned organisations no longer speak), a protestor pulling off a destructive stunt will have the opposite effect and make us more determined to ignore or condemn what they are promoting.

We are not going to protest as they do. We have not been asked to vote on whether we want any of these changes. So why are they being forced upon us? Knee-jerk reactions by our institutions to these minority fads should stop, and what little common sense is left should be used to decide what is best to ensure this great country remains so.

Has there ever been anyone of any faith in this country who has ever complained about a Christmas party?

Jeremy Quitman
Fownhope, Herefordshire

SIR – I will soon fly home to join my family for a few days over Christmas. Here in Pakistan, shops, hotels and offices are adorned with Christmas (not “festive”) decorations, and our majority-Muslim staff join in the celebrations with as much enthusiasm as we do with them during Eid.

I previously served with Gurkha soldiers in the Far East and latterly in Nepal. They were as eager to wish us all a merry Christmas as we were to wish them a happy Dashain.

We need guidance from civil servants on how we should define these events no more than we need their equality, diversity and inclusion policies, as reference to a simple directive given millennia ago has stood the test for most: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

John White
UN Office for Project Services
Islamabad, Pakistan

SIR – Civil servants have been told to find restaurants that do not serve alcohol to avoid “excluding” non-drinkers. I presume they will also have to find restaurants that do not serve meat to avoid excluding vegans.

Woke gone mad again.

Rob Dorrell
Bath, Somerset

Turbine trip

SIR – Anyone in England who is tempted to support new onshore wind farms (Letters, December 11) should take a trip north of the border.

Here you will see turbines in any direction you care to look, despoiling the countryside while they gobble up taxpayers’ money just by standing idle.

Alastair Hibbert
Dunfermline, Fife

SIR – You report (December 12) that UK spot prices for electricity soared to a record £2,586 a megawatt-hour at the peak hours of 5pm to 6pm last Sunday because low wind speeds meant renewables were failing to provide sufficient electricity.

Who would have thought it?

John McDonald
Mobberley, Cheshire

Depoliticise the NHS

SIR – As a provider of healthcare for 40 years and a consumer in retirement, I’m well aware of the deterioration in the NHS since the disastrous deal struck in 2004 between the Blair government and GPs, when their obligations were dramatically reduced (Letters, December 12).

Ill patients require, most of all, availability and continuity in their care. What they do not want is snap-shot or telephone consultations with medical staff who they may never see again. Obviously rota systems have to be devised but in much of our real world – mercifully not in these parts – it is almost impossible to get out-of-hours medical advice promptly. As a result patients flock to A&E departments, where they know that eventually they will receive professional care.

Reducing working practices is not the way to deal with changes in healthcare, such as new patterns of disease, patients’ expectations, exploding populations and medico-legal constraints. Politicians must accept that a radical change is necessary for the NHS, which can no longer be treated as source of a political point-scoring between the parties.

Peter Toghill
Emeritus consultant physician
Whatton-in-the-Vale, Nottinghamshire

SIR – There is increasing statistical evidence that before, during and after the Covid pandemic, British healthcare performed badly compared to most other European nations.

Sir Keir Starmer proposes to enshrine this underperformance in perpetuity by incorporating free NHS healthcare as a constitutional right (report, December 6). This is about as sensible as giving all Britons the constitutional right to bear arms like their American counterparts.

Dr Tim Cantor
Tunbridge Wells, Kent

Questioning a popular tea-making ritual

SIR – A ceramics expert once told me that the reason for pre-warming a china teapot has nothing to do with the quality of the tea brew, but is done to protect the pot from the thermal shock of boiling water.

I quite often notice people pre-heating a stainless steel teapot. If the expert was correct, would this not be an unnecessary ritual?

Francis Bongiovanni
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

Rickshaw regulation

SIR – Pankaj Shah (“Rickshaw rip-off”, Letters, December 11) has not learnt his lesson.

Never mind what the fare was, the rickshaws are unregulated, are not covered by insurance and take terrible risks with passengers’ lives.

Howard Ricklow
London W8

Pressure on parishes

SIR – As the parish treasurer of a rural church, under constant pressure from the demands of the diocese, I fully support Stephen Billyeald’s practical proposals for centralising the administrative and financial tasks of the Church of England’s 42 dioceses (Letters, December 11).

We could ask at the same time for a reduction in their number, given that 200 years ago there were only 26 dioceses – at a time when the Anglican Church was flourishing. Such a rationalisation would reduce the financial burden on the parishes to more manageable levels, as well as freeing front-line clergy to carry on their pastoral work and rebuild their congregations.

In the season of Advent it would be reassuring to hear some more good news – of a serious attempt by our Church to do something about its bloated bureaucracy.

Donald R Clarke
Tunbridge Wells, Kent

SIR – I have been a member of the Church for 60 years and for the last 20 have stopped contributing to the Sunday collection. Instead I give to a range of charities throughout the year.

The Church has lost its way and become obsessed with its buildings, at the expense of thinking about its people. Most vicars these days have multiple parishes. I have a friend in Dartmoor whose vicar takes care of 14.

There are far too many bishops. The vast Church hierarchy has its own agenda, which has little to do with the word of God. I cannot recall seeing my bishop in my church during the many years I have worshipped here.

We are lucky if we are buried by our own clergy when we die. We are more likely to be buried by the retired clergy who we hear preaching in our church more often than not.

Hanneke Coates
Budleigh Salterton, Devon

SIR – I am sure your readers will be reassured to know that the claim that the Diocese of Leicester proposes a team of “approximately 20 ministers” (Letters, December 4) is mistaken.

In fact, we propose 20 to 25 minster communities, each with a range of ministers (comprising both stipendiary and non-stipendiary clergy, as well as lay ministers and other roles). The vision for this has been arrived at following a comprehensive process of discernment by our parishes called Shaped By God Together. This resulted in minster communities being voted for last year by the democratically elected Diocesan Synod, which directly represents every parish through its own deanery. They will support those very parishes in the challenges they face as we seek to retain a missional presence in every parish, proclaim the Gospel and enable every Christian to live out their everyday faith despite social change and economic challenge.

The new structure also seeks to bring schools into the heart of all that we do, ensuring children and young people are at the centre of shaping the Church of the future. Schools and churches will be working with parents, grandparents and carers to grow faith among the next generation so that they in turn can grow the Church.

Contrary to the claim that the Church of England is “considering a complete overhaul of the organisation of the Church” and proposing “to dispense with the parish system,” it is in fact set on revitalising parishes for mission. As just one example of this, more than £1 million has been allocated for Youthscape, which will build on its present work with three dioceses training and enabling parish priests to start youth groups where none presently exist. Other initiatives funded by the national Church, such as Everyday Witness and Leading in Evangelism, are among many other resources aimed explicitly at supporting parishes and their clergy.

Rt Rev Martyn Snow
Bishop of Leicester

Clampdown on drivers

SIR – Plans are emerging from the local authorities in Oxford (report, December 10) and Canterbury (report, December 11) to divide their cities into separate districts between which private travel is monitored and controlled. These plans are redolent of the harsh authoritarian landscape more normally associated with post-apocalyptic science-fiction and defeated dictatorships.

Neither scheme appears to exclude privately owned electric vehicles, which suggests their real purpose is more about politics and control than ecology and pollution – both somewhat inexplicably cited as reasons to require private motorists to take longer, more congested routes.

History suggests that restricting personal freedom using turnpikes and other artificial forms of segregation is ultimately doomed to failure in the face of popular rebellion.

The local Conservative opposition is therefore quite right to oppose such plans. However, could I take this opportunity to remind the Conservatives that they are currently, at least nominally, in power in Westminster, and are therefore in an ideal position to nip this nonsense in the bud?

David Warden
Coleford, Gloucestershire

Sprouts and sparkles

SIR – My granddaughter will not eat Brussels sprouts, so I told her they give you sparkly eyes, so now she will eat two sprouts, one for each eye.

Joyce Emerson
Truro, Cornwall

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