Letters: we baby boomers are an easy target

I would like to point out to Phillip Inman that most baby boomers and those who are older worked hard for their money and saved, a concept not much in evidence today (“It’s time for Britain’s millionaire pensioners to pay up”, Business). We did not expect to buy a house and have all the goodies associated with it; we saved for a mortgage, bought a house and continued saving for the items needed to furnish it. We paid our taxes and national insurance – in my case for 44 years, in my husband’s 49 years – and we are entitled to a return on that in the form of the NHS.

That house prices have risen to sky-high levels is not our fault; you will have to blame governments for that, with their ill-advised housing policies such as selling off council houses and buy-to-let schemes.

Instead of taxing people who have already been taxed, what about taxing all the businesses and people who conveniently don’t pay taxes because of avoidance schemes and offshore tax havens?

If there are a lot of older people owning a lot of expensive property, there are a lot of younger people who, when their parents/relations die, will inherit vast sums. Have you never heard of the saying “divide and rule”? Governments are very good at it.
June Grant
Plungar, Notts

Phillip Inman clearly believes that pensioners are the new immigrants – a handy scapegoat for all the ills of society that we have failed to solve. He charges the over-65s with a long list of evils: being a tax on the young; blocking tax changes; ducking the cost of oil and gas industry decommissioning; gloating as our property prices go up.

He forgets to mention: women who sacrificed a career for the health and wealth of a family; our own relative poverty when younger (no modern gadgets, foreign holidays, new clothes, internet); living in semi-slum conditions while we improved our modest properties.

The over-65s have not created the short-term, shareholder-takes-all business environment that creates zero-hours contracts and places no value on long-term loyalty (either by staff or customers) and has offloaded its pensions responsibilities. We do not benefit day to day from artificially inflated property prices, but live in fear of having to sell up to support ourselves in old age. Pensioners pay tax like anyone else. When government properly raises taxes from all the companies that ship their profits overseas, all taxpayers might feel more inclined to see a general rise in tax. But we are today’s easy target.
Stuart Barry
Beech Hill, Reading

Come on England!

David Olusoga’s piece was interesting and engaging (“Southgate’s England team reflect the best of us. It feels good to embrace them”, Comment). As a Welshman, I support England in tournaments such as this, if only because of my regard for my many English football-loving friends. It seems worth pointing out that the phrase “anyone but England” is the title of a fine book published in 1994 by Mike Marqusee, his title being the reply from Dennis Skinner MP when asked for his response to the “Tebbit test”.
Bill Gabbett
London E7

Brexit and the law

While I agree with much of Kenan Malik’s analysis of the role of the law and judiciary (“The law can’t change society if we resist”, Comment), his claim that Brexit poses a threat to equal rights and workers’ protections because Britain will be beyond the jurisdiction of the European court of justice does not tell the whole story.

With the implementation of the Human Rights Act by the Blair government, Britain is also subject to the European court of human rights and this will remain the case post-Brexit since it is administered by the council of Europe, not the EU. Arguably, the ECHR has a more significant role to play in the protection of rights. That being said, Brexit will see the removal of the charter of fundamental rights from UK law, which includes important rights not incorporated into the Human Rights Act, not least the rights of children and the right to non-discrimination. In some cases the CFR also provides a stronger way of enforcing certain rights.
So yes, Brexit does pose a threat to rights but not just because Britain will no longer be subject to the decisions of the ECJ.
Neil Macehiter
Great Shelford, Cambridge

Hall hits the heights

Vanessa Thorpe’s article on the Bradford literature festival project to commemorate the work of the Brontë sisters with poems carved in the stones of Thornton and Haworth rightly credits Kate Bush, Carol Ann Duffy, Jeanette Winterson and others, but fails to mention Pip Hall (“Out on the wiley, windy moors, Bush sings new praises to Emily Brontë”, News). She is the artist who has spent weeks in all weathers on the Yorkshire moors carving the commemoration poems on the stones that, as the festival organisers say, will delight visitors for years to come.

Hall has become one of Britain’s foremost letter carvers, following her work at Jane Austen’s house museum, the Stanza Stones project with Simon Armitage and the Sheffield city centre poems-on-seats projects. It is her work on the Brontë project that will endure the wind and rain on Yorkshire’s wuthering heights.
David Boulton
Dent, Cumbria

Don’t call us…

What does Rebecca Nicholson think the audience for Titanic: The Musical wanted to see (“Theatre’s for everyone, even for smartphone peekers”, People)? As the ship begins to sink, Captain Smith suddenly stop, pull out his smartphone and say: “Hang on a minute, Colombia have just scored the equaliser!”? Or the whole cast sit down and gape over his shoulder as he watches the penalty shootout?

Her defence of the indefensible betrays a lack of comprehension of the art of live performance. Would she applaud the “gumption” of someone shaking the tightrope during a circus performance?
Andy Alsop
Claregate, Wolverhampton

Off with his head

In “Our Brexit solution will enable us to take back control” (Comment), David Lidington says the deal means that “parliament will again be truly sovereign”. Has anyone told HM Queen Elizabeth II?
John Pilsbury
Gresford, Wrexham, Wales