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We need your name and a county address, e.g. Yorkshire or London. Letters may be shortened. There is no guarantee of publication.
Letter of the week
Dear Editor
Thank you so much for your excellent article On The Latest Yellow Card data regarding covid vaccines. I find it absolutely disgraceful that the very organisation responsible for regulating the safety of vaccines have delayed publishing their latest summary for over a year, and is it a coincidence that the data has been released just after the spring booster campaign has finished? The MHRA are entirely unfit for purpose.
The figures are shocking: 3,000 deaths, 1.6million Yellow Card reports, 370,000 serious adverse events and by their own admission this may only represent 10 per cent of actual adverse events.
Whatever happened to informed opinion?
David Jameson
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Jupp on target
Dear Editor
Wow, Daniel Jupp doesn’t pull his punches, does he?
Good stuff.
Anthony Stimson
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Say No to e-scooters
Dear Editor
Under changes to the UK Crime and Policing Bill cyclists will face tougher sentences in line with motoring offences. This is long overdue and will penalise cyclists who injure or kill someone by riding inconsiderately or dangerously.
This legislation will include e-cyclists who are now a major threat to pedestrians as they join cyclists riding illegally and dangerously on roads and pavements. What about e-scooters, should they not be added to this Crime and Policing Bill?
The Conservative Government started a trial using hired e-scooters in July 2020 and the extended timescale will see it concluded in May 2026. What will the Labour Government do? What they should do is blame the Conservatives for the 50 deaths and thousands of injuries, many serious and some life-changing, and state that e-scooters will never be allowed legally on UK roads and illegally on pavements.
There are 750,000 private e-scooters in the UK so releasing them on to our roads and pavements in 2026 would certainly result in carnage. The climate brigade say that e-scooters are green but they need to be reminded that blood is red.
Clark Cross
Linlithgow
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The Bezos extravaganza was paid for by us
Dear Editor
Did anyone else look at the new Mr and Mrs Bezos and their Venetian nuptials, and realise all their mindless late-night Amazon purchasing funded the gaudy affair?
Bill Kenwright
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Illegal immigration makes us a global laughing stock
Dear Editor
Illegals who cross the Channel in small boats are working as fast-food delivery riders within hours of arriving in the UK, while being housed in mainly hotels, being fed and given £49 a week, all paid for by the ever-suffering UK taxpayer.
The illegals are operating from asylum accommodation, used as hubs for black-market work, on apps like Deliveroo and Just Eat. Why are these illegals not instantly arrested for illegally working and deported? Why aren’t the delivery firms who employ them being hit with large fines for employing illegal deliverers?
The whole situation is farcical. We are a laughing stock to the rest of the world.
Brian Silvester
Crewe
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The psychological damage of full-term abortion
Dear Editor
I write as a very old man – father and grandfather – on the topic of abortion which you have covered so well; I have only a little money to spare but what there is goes to SPUC.
Now, it seems possible that before long a young woman, hardly more than a girl, could give birth to a dead baby, alone in an empty house. What should she do with (I can only use this term) the corpse?
Too big to flush down the toilet? My mind runs on to horrific possibilities, too gross to expand on. And the permanent, unforgettable, psychological, damage to that young woman when she realises what she has done cannot be calculated.
Has no one considered this?
Maybe – and at the age of 90 this wouldn’t be surprising! – I am completely out of touch with modern thinking but surely a baby is a human being from the moment of conception and therefore: abortion is murder!
Congratulations, God bless you, and I thank you.
Max Byford
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Net Zero: Batteries are not the answer
Dear Editor
Solar Energy UK says that a lack of grid scale batteries contributed to the recent Iberia power failure.
But battery capacity is very expensive and what is needed is enough to allow time backup Gas Turbine Generators (GTGs) to start – whether they are fired by natural gas or by Hydrogen (H2) – along with pumped storage hydro (PSH).
The UK seems to be planning a battery storage capacity of around 30GW by 2025, which would support that grid load for long enough to meet the above need and assist with subsequent black starting. But if >50 per cent of the planned solar power (60GW) is lost then that will not be enough.
Also if wind speed exceeds 58mph, turbine output plummets to zero and it would only take
The second key issue is that none of the planned 180GW of solar and wind power will produce anything much on a still night, in conditions which may well obtain across northern Europe. So there must be enough backup power to carry the projected maximum grid demand (MD) of > 80GW by the early 30s. Add that to the cost of solar and wind and you will find that renewables are not cheap.
By that time around 40GW of ageing nuclear and gas will need to have been replaced and we will need 80GW of backup, much of which is able to start and load quickly and respond to rapid load changes and as indicated above. We should not be relying too much on 20GW from vulnerable EU dc interconnectors.
But the government plans only up to 26GW of new GTG capacity by the early 30s, which along with 5GW of new nuclear power, would leave us with a back-up power shortfall of around 50GW, neglecting 20GW of EU interconnectors. Currently the delivery times for GTGs is stretching to 2029 or later for new builds and it must be clear (even to Mr Miliband) that Net Zero targets are unsustainable.
So this is not just about battery backup, it is about far more than that, not to mention the inherent rotational inertia provided by gas and nuclear power plants.
Roger J Arthur
West Sussex
