There was nothing wrong with Tesco's 'Good Friday' advert

As a church member and a believing Christian, I wasn’t in the least offended by Tesco’s Good Friday beer advert.

If some people wish to consume more alcohol than usual on Good Friday (or any other day), that’s fine by me, as long as I don’t have to encounter them.

It is not up to religious groups to coerce non-members into aligning with their own beliefs, and we should be wary of the danger that advertisers will be reluctant to adopt any slogan for fear of offending some group or sect or cult somewhere on the planet.

Sam Boote
Nottingham

Grammar schools are divisive and unfair

I disagree wholeheartedly with Janet Street-Porter’s views on grammar schools. Dividing children at aged 11 into those who succeed and those who fail is morally wrong. Children should not be seen as failures at such a young age. Indeed, many children are late bloomers and continue to improve through their secondary school years. These are the children we would condemn to a poor education in the more practically focused schools that Janet Street-Porter has suggested.

I believe in the comprehensive system as being the best education for our children. They are encouraged to do their best within the realms of their abilities and explore and pursue their interests whether this is a career as a sportsperson, a chef, or going to university to study maths. All children deserve the opportunity to reach their potential.

My own mother failed the 11-plus and ended up going to a secondary modern school. I don’t feel she ever got over her failure at aged 11 and this caused her lower self-esteem and lower confidence, which marred her belief in her own abilities. This is the unpleasant legacy of the grammar school system.

Nicki Bartlett
Cardiff

Students are not long-term migrants

International students come to the UK on short-term study visas. Counting them as long-term migrants is an embarrassing admission of utter incompetence when it comes to monitoring their departure when their visas expire.

While it has been obvious for some months that Theresa May is hell-bent on myopic self-harm, it is perhaps more surprising that she should still be so relaxed about this failure given she was Home Secretary.

David Maughan Brown
York

We need to value our doctors

Kristian Niemietz assumes doctors must work for low pay to demonstrate compassion. Their pay has been cut by between 13 and 17 per cent in real terms over the past five years, with junior doctors being hit worst.

It is easy to display one’s compassion in other countries where one’s skills are better valued.

Dr Simon Frain
​Telford

The hidden cost of the Afghanistan bombing

The use of one of the US military’s largest non-nuclear explosive devices – the “mother of all bombs” – to kill more than 90 jihadis in Afghanistan is baffling in more than just military and economic terms.

What is consistently overlooked, besides the effect on the natural world, is the dropping of the bomb was also the destruction of the vast resources – human, material and financial – utilised in its development and manufacture. This has an economic cost that is disregarded by conventional economics.

The effort expended to create the bomb can also be argued to have destroyed previously existing wealth in the form of the resources that could have used for beneficial purposes and, as a consequence, devalued the currency. Negative production, such as this, can be considered to be a hidden cause of price inflation in essential goods and services affecting us all.

Geoff Naylor
Winchester

Your editorial is right in emphasising the fact that bombing Afghanistan will not end Isis nor prevent any murderous fanatic from weaponising his car and ploughing it into innocent pedestrians.

The US wanted to test the intensity and accuracy of its bombs and there was no better place to do that than the lawless mountains of Afghanistan or the devastated neighbourhoods of Syria.

Dr Munjed Farid Al Qutob
London NW2