The Oscars was a not so pleasant distraction from current events

With all that is going on in the world it is disgraceful that the media led all day with the incorrect announcement at the Oscars.

Like other award ceremonies, this terminally boring event should attract just a few moments at the end of the news bulletins.

I suppose it represents what people now feel are important issues!

Anthony Ingleton South Yorkshire

Call me an old cynic if you like, but the fiasco at the Oscars diffused any criticism of Donald Trump in the acceptance speeches. All the pundits expected a flow of criticism and that was neatly side stepped by the off stage blunder.

D Leddy Surrey

Pensions

With regard to the letter about pension justice for 1.5 million British expatriate pensioners, is the British public aware of how mean spirited its Government is being about this issue?

A minimal increase in National Insurance contributions, averaging £0.40 per week, would fund the £600mn the Government claims it would need to uprate all UK pensioners equally.

James Tilley, British Pensions in Australia Australia

A divided nation

The opening paragraph of Alex Orr's letter is a perfect example of the chip on the shoulder that holds Scotland back: an anti-Englishness that I and at least two million other “No” voting Scots either do not feel.

Nowhere can I find a quote by Sadiq Khan calling the SNP racist and bigoted. It is clear what Khan meant was that the SNP’s nationalist politics can be divisive. This includes blaming the problems of the deprived and poor on the rich and “their austerity”, referring to “No” votes as “yoons” and raising the issue of Scotland v “Westmonster” at any opportunity.

It’s all designed to divide, create resentment and win votes for independence. Sadiq Khan has done us all a favour by legitimising, defining and publicising the topic beyond Scotland.

Allan Sutherland Stonehaven

Cutting off ties

Two recent Independent articles resonated with me: Samuel Osborne's “Donald Trump's proposed $54bn increase to military budget...” and Will Gore's “Brexit won’t save the UK from being affected by the Greek debt crisis”.

On the face of it there may appear to be little connection but in a global economy there is a huge one that affects the wealth of everybody who uses British sterling pounds.

The problem is one of economics and GDP, where all production including gambling, tobacco and, most of all, expenditure on armaments is deemed to be a positive contribution to national GDP. My argument is that it is really negative production that provides no benefit for the bulk of humanity and therefore should be extracted from GDP.

However, under the present system it is accounted as positive and taken into account for the valuation of the national currency against others. Trump’s massive spend on the military will strengthen the US dollar. It's an aberration of logical thinking to consider what human beings do to create adversity for themselves as being equal to beneficial production.

Will Gore article unwittingly provides us with the solution to this global nonsense: autarky or autarchy – a system or policy of economic self-sufficiency aimed at removing the need for imports. This would reduce our need to deal with countries with artificially inflated foreign currencies from making stuff that is detrimental to the common good and then, absurdly, getting richer through it.

Geoff Naylor Hampshire

Pushing back

With regard to your article 23 February, “Pushy parents causing children to be misdiagnosed with special needs”.

As a support group for families with children on the autistic spectrum we would like to clarify some points we feel were not fully addressed in the reporting of the research findings. There is already a huge deficit in communication and cohesive thinking when working with children and young people and the reporting of this survey might perhaps have focused on the real issues raised; the underfunding of SEN, the concept of inclusion that has lost its way in too many mainstream schools and the worryingly low level of regard the teaching profession apparently holds SEN parents in.

Paula Donovan, mASCot Committee Hove