Letters: Family values

Published: 13 December 2006

The dangerous dream of traditional family values

Sir: It might be good for Britain to avoid the schism that has occurred in the US around the what is called family values. Perhaps the best way to do this is to stop seeing family breakdown as a morality issue, or one that demands harking back to an earlier age when the illusion of family health was maintained by dishonesty about what really occurred in the inner workings of the family and the complete male domination of the family unit (to the detriment of every one involved, including the men).

The way to help the family-based system evolve into a healthy basic unit of society is to face its previous shortcomings honesty and move on to encourage evolving alternative arrangements that can work to the betterment of the social order as a whole.

The Victorian family in both the European and American past was one that thrived in a world that also encouraged deep and wide class divisions, prejudice and horrific levels of racism and sexism. To dream that we can somehow sift out what "family values" means, and meant, from all of these attendant evils and keep it functioning without them to bolster it, will damage society more than save it.

BOB VANCE

PETOSKEY, MICHIGAN, USA

Sir: There have been Conservative calls to "encourage couples to marry", on the basis that married parents are less likely to split up than unmarried parents .

Marriage is not a way of making a relationship more likely to succeed. The reason married parents are less likely to separate than unmarried parents is that the married parents are more likely to have thought carefully about the decision to have children in the first place. Incentivising marriage through tax and benefits is likely to encourage people to marry for the wrong reasons, increasing the number of bad marriages and divorces. That will undermine, not promote, family life.

ALEX MACFIE

OXFORD

Sir: I applaud David Cameron's vision for the family which includes non-traditional relationships such as gay couples and single parents. For indeed, if the traditional family is the building block of society, then it is the gay aunts and uncles doting on their nephews and nieces, and the single parents supported by their parents and siblings who are the cement.

DANIEL EMLYN-JONES

OXFORD

Pinochet and the human rights trade

Sir: Rupert Cornwell suggests that in the judgement on Pinochet "the jury could prove to be hung" ("Brutal ruler who sacrificed his people to win the fight against Communism", 11 December). He believes that the "problem" in judging Pinochet is "the trade-off between prosperity and human rights".

It seems to me, however, that the problem here is the very concept of a trade-off. For how could there ever be a trade-off between prosperity and the murder, torture and disappearances of thousands of people?

Such notions also underlie the justifications offered to the public for the invasion of Iraq, wherein we are asked to accept a "trade-off" between mass violence and liberation from tyranny. Many people will agree that the end proclaimed by Messrs Bush and Blair cannot be "traded off" against - that is, used to justify - the bloody, chaotic means they have employed. I think that it is also true of General Pinochet.

A T MOORE

OXFORD

Sir: So Pinochet is to be buried without a state funeral. That'll teach him.

ROWLAND JONES

CHEADLE, CHESHIRE

Tax incentives to save energy

Sir: I commend The Independent's long-running campaign on the effects of climate change, which I believe has contributed to changes some of us are making to our lifestyles.

However, I feel frustrated that the Government doesn't make it easier for us. For instance the rules and regulations to install renewable-energy equipment could be made less demanding and complex. Tax incentives instead of disincentives could be made available for biofuel and energy-efficient measures.

It is noteworthy that the Carbon Trust's study demonstrated that our leisure activities produce the most carbon, because of the electricity used. The best way to reduce carbon production would be to do something about our ancient and outdated electricity power stations. Sixty per cent of the energy is wasted before it even gets away from the cooling towers and only about 20 per cent of it is available by the time it has been transmitted through the grid and into our homes.

Many European countries, with government help, are already decentralising their power production through smaller combined heat and power units. Renewing our nuclear-power stations is an expensive long-term option where the waste disposal has not yet been resolved.

So I suggest that instead of throwing away our DVDs and TVs and giving up the swimming, we write to our MPs asking them to support more investment in smaller, decentralised power production.

GAIL COLESHILL

RADSTOCK, NORTH EAST SOMERSET

Sir: The breakdown of our annual contributions to the emissions of carbon dioxide (front page, 9 December) was both timely and useful. It helps us to realise where we can individually try to make reductions.

However, the headlines and the accompanying texts are in some confusion between the weight of carbon dioxide emitted and that of carbon. I think the figures on the front page are tons of carbon. It is important to distinguish the difference, because each ton of carbon emitted is equivalent to the emission of four tons of carbon dioxide.

HOWARD FULLER

ABINGDON, OXFORDSHIRE

Help Palestinians to rebuild their lives

Sir: As a director and secretary of a small trust working in the Middle East I would like to say how heartening it is to see that your paper's Christmas appeal includes support for the work of the Welfare Association, whose efforts to alleviate some of the suffering of the people of Palestine deserves to be more widely known and supported.

The Welfare Association has offered useful advice and information to our own charity, the Dominic Simpson Memorial Trust, since its inception in 2005. The DSMT seeks to support access to education and educational opportunity in the Middle East, particularly where relatively small interventions can make a difference to people's lives. It is currently funding a project that is enabling expert teachers to train trainee teachers in pre-school education, equipping them to work with young children and their families in the Palestinian cities of Nablus and Tulkarem and their adjacent villages and refugee camps. A further project, to support some disadvantaged Palestinian pupils to remain in education and complete their schooling is currently under development.

We are aware of the particular difficulties that face charities working in this region of the Middle East in the current political climate and appreciate the profile your paper is giving to such work through your appeal.

We would urge readers to support the work of the Welfare Association, and to be aware of the constant hardships and constraints under which ordinary Palestinians labour daily in their attempts to make decent lives for themselves and their families.

ANGELA SIMPSON

HONORARY SECRETARY THE DOMINIC SIMPSON MEMORIAL TRUST LIMITED, BRIGHTON

Chavez is a real socialist

Sir: It was heartening to read Johann Hari setting the record straight on Chavez (11 December). However, I disagree with his comparison of Venezuela under Chavez to a European social democracy.

Systems which encompass social democracy and free market capitalism have only survived in Europe in the presence of a third factor: neo-imperialism under the aegis of globalisation. Under such a system, those who are exploited are kept at arm's length in developing countries and do not enjoy the benefits of the social democracy.

The defining feature of Chavez's Bolivarian revolution is the rejection of imperialism. If he is successful, socialism and capitalism will not happily co-exist in Venezuela and one or the other will have to give. His rhetoric suggests that it will be the latter.

ANDREW DEAN

PARIS

Troops let down by their officers

Sir: What a terrible indictment the formation of the British Armed Forces Federation is on the officer corps of the Army, Air Force and Navy. The primary duty of an officer is to the welfare of his troops, and the fact that soldiers, sailors and airmen (and don't forget the marines) have had to form a federation to protect their interests is a direct result of this duty being ignored.

The words of General Sir Mike Jackson after he left the Army are no help to those still in the services.

Over-emphasis on specialisation and probably concern over future promotion seems to have eroded the primary responsibility of the office corps, which is to their men and women. Let us hope that the necessity for the BAFF is soon eradicated.

NICK KERR

COMMANDER, ROYAL NAVY (RETD) BRISTOL

Media portrayal of murder victims

Sir: Well done Thomas Sutcliffe (12 December) for highlighting how the young women murdered in Ipswich have been portrayed in the media primarily as prostitutes rather than young women.

This was brought home to me whilst watching the BBC breakfast news, when a policeman was filmed doing house-to-house inquiries, beginning his comments with: "We are investigating the murder of three prostitutes." In contrast one of the young women's relatives referred to her as a much-loved member of the family.

JOHN HOGAN

LIVERPOOL

Sir: Referring to the murderer in the current cases as the "Ipswich Ripper" (12 December) is at best presumptuous, at worst factually wrong.

The police have yet to reveal how the victims were killed, and it was hinted at the weekend that there were no immediately apparent outward signs of death. Both "Jack the Ripper" and the "Yorkshire Ripper" were so dubbed because of the slashing damage they inflicted on their victims. Nicknaming the murderer in Ipswich after these two is sensationalistic.

PETER GASSTON

LONDON SE5

The Labour Party's demands for money

Sir: Jeremy Beecham's letter (7 December) paints a rosy picture of Labour Party subscriptions.

When I was Secretary of the Gloucestershire Labour Group in the late 1990s, a group member indicated that, whilst he was happy to pay his party subscription, he didn't see why he should pay for membership of the Association of Labour Councillors. He was told that if he didn't pay his ALC membership he would be thrown out of the party. He chose to jump before being pushed, and resigned.

Subscriptions are deducted from authorities' payrolls but I doubt that costs are attributed to Labour groups. As to supporting Labour councillors, including legal advice, a couple of years ago, when leader of Gloucestershire County Council and its Labour group, I had reason to seek the assistance of the ALC. None was forthcoming. Other group members tried, on my behalf, to seek advice from the ALC but they were also unsuccessful.

The telephone number of the ALC was rarely answered. Usually, calls were diverted to other party officials, who refused to help. When I finished my term as leader of the council, I resigned from the Labour Party.

There may not be a major "slush" fund, but it is my opinion, and that of many others, that ALC subscriptions are simply another way of raising cash for the hard-up Labour Party.

PETER CLARKE

GLOUCESTER

Diana mystery

Sir: Perhaps Mary Dejevsky (Opinion, 12 December) could answer just one question. If, like her bodyguard, Princess Diana had been wearing a seat belt she would still be alive - how did the supra-national conspiracy prevent her from putting it on during that fatal journey?

CHRISTOPHER ANTON

BIRMINGHAM

Proust in German

Sir: Miles Kington can rest assured that he is not the only person to have seen the "German film about the last days of Marcel Proust" to which he refers (8 December). Celeste, an excellent chamber-piece based on the memoirs of Proust's housekeeper, had at least a two-week run (about 50 screenings) in a London cinema, and I was far from alone when I saw it. I believe it was subsequently shown on late-night TV.

ALAN PAVELIN

CHISLEHURST, KENT

Wrong rocks

Sir: Christopher Hirst's piece about misleading book covers (Magazine, 9 December) omits the best example. A French translation of Graham Greene's Brighton Rock was entitled Les Rochers de Brighton and the cover picture was of the most jagged rocks in the Alps.

JOHN CROOKS

LONDON SW15

Spend, spend, spend

Sir: Doesn't it worry anyone that the billions paid to city slickers as bonuses on top of their already vast salaries are billions that don't go to investors and savers and those putting by for their pensions? No wonder a lot of folk see "under the mattress" as a viable option these days, or just spend it now, and then hope their house makes enough for them to downsize when they move to the coast at 65, and live on the money left over.

DAVE MORGAN

BEDDINGTON, SURREY

Losing the peace

Sir: Before Tony Blair apologises for losing the War of American Independence (Letters, 12 December) shouldn't he first apologise for losing the peace in Iraq? Plus the wars back home on poverty, drugs and crime?

PHILIP MORAN

LONDON N11