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Letters: Winston Churchill valued a united Europe

Nick Cohen omits just one piece of history in his recollection of Churchill (“Invoking a fantasy Churchill won’t help as Brexit becomes grim reality”, Comment). This is his “speech to the academic youth” of Zurich in 1946. In this, he offered “a remedy which… would in a few years make all Europe free and happy. It is to recreate the European family, or as much of it as we can, and to provide it with a structure under which it can dwell in peace, in safety and in freedom. We must build a kind of United States of Europe.”

This was the recommendation of a man who, for much of his life, had been witness to a fragmented continent, including extreme nationalism. Arguably, it might be questioned as to whether his “United States of Europe” was to include Great Britain, but it would be surprising if it did not. In any case, our eventual membership was surely in keeping with his thinking. Those who seek to portray his philosophy as that of British exceptionalism do his intellect a grave disservice.
Michael Benoy
Cranleigh, Surrey

Hold politicians to account

The politicians and their promoters who flout rules and laws that other citizens obey do so because citizens are locked into their very own variant of Stockholm syndrome and idolise their crooked captors who preach the rule of law while prepared to breach it (“Why do those in power think the rules are for others, not for them?”, Kenan Malik, Comment).

Through the twisted logic of this syndrome, the British are endlessly loyal and devoted to the very social, educational and constitutional arrangements used to shore up economic disadvantage and hinder equality of opportunity and social mobility. The way to end this nightmare is through the therapy of a national project for a written constitution that includes extensive powers for the National Audit Office to hold politicians personally to account.
Miles Secker
Heckington, Lincolnshire

Deterring domestic violence

Yvonne Roberts asks “what can be done” to curb the numbers of women killed by men, still averaging three a week “in spite of… changes in the law” (“If I’m not in on Friday, I might be dead”, Special Report). She should not assume all changes have been to the good.

Family courts were prevented from attaching powers of arrest in 2007 when breach of a non-molestation order became an offence to be prosecuted in the criminal courts. A power of arrest effectively deterred such a breach, as a reported breach incurred immediate arrest and a contempt hearing before a senior judge. It promoted calm while the court resolved related issues, crucially children, which keep victims vulnerable to former partners.

However, taking action now is a matter for the police and CPS, not the civil courts, and victims face the ordeal of testifying in criminal proceedings of uncertain date and outcome. When half of domestic killings occur around separation, powers of arrest provided continuous victim protection, with swift accountability for perpetrators of breach.

I invite readers to sign the new petition on the government website to allow family courts to attach powers of arrest to non-molestation orders again, at petition.parliament.uk/petitions/556516
Jan Williams, director, the Campaign for Effective Domestic Abuse Laws
Knaresborough, North Yorkshire

Opportunities for girls

What a relief to us working-class girls and our daughters and granddaughters that Jessica Butcher, the new equalities commissioner, may give us back the right to aspire to becoming Page 3 girls and Formula One grid girls, jobs that she says “we love” (“Revealed: new equalities commissioner attacked ‘modern feminism’ and MeToo”, News).

What happened to my body, my choice? she asks. Well, perhaps given the opportunities of a decent education, working-class girls can aspire to a lot more than the narrow, old school and frankly insulting ideas suggested by Butcher.

Perhaps they could even aspire to the lofty heights of working for the Equality and Human Rights Commission and bringin g a much-needed touch of social and educational awareness to the role, along with a good grasp of working-class culture.
Christine Baranski
Arnside, Cumbria

Saving a poets’ paradise

There are no villains, but few heroes either in the sad saga of 8 Royal College Street (“Art world’s dismay at fate of London home of hellraising French poets”, News).

Thousands of poetry lovers the world over have their eyes fixed on this, the only remaining house in the UK where these two famous French poets Rimbaud and Verlaine once lodged while advertising French lessons, enjoying forays into the emigre community in Soho, where they are said to have heard Karl Marx speak, and writing poetry in the warmth of the Reading Room of the British Museum. Rimbaud’s ticket, with his age falsified, survives.

The singer and poet Patti Smith recently bought a house on the ruins of Rimbaud’s family home in France to “keep it in safe hands”. No 8 Royal College Street, which is privately owned and not yet available as an arts venue, also needs a philanthropic buyer. The decision of the owner to sell it on the open market has come as a shock. Already, there are a number of plans to save the building that involve the local and the wider community, both here and in France.
Joyce Glasser, resident, Gerry Harrison, former councillor
Laughton, Lewes, East Sussex

Secondhand, seventh-hand

Shane Hickey has a point about recycling secondhand clothes (“Secondhand no longer second-best for the UK’s ‘circular’ consumers”, Cash). How sensible, but nothing new. In the 1970s, my daughter was dressed in many hand-me-downs passed on from family and friends. I remember in particular a pink checked coat that had previously kept warm four little girls (from different families) before reaching my house.

A year or two later, it was handed on to a family with two more girls, making seven children in all. I feel sure it was passed on yet again, long before being worn out.
Susan Easton
Leeds

One swallow…

Surely swallows that are born and bred in Britain and Ireland are natives and not summer visitors? (“One little straggler… the swallow that didn’t fly south for winter”, News.) Like the rest of us, they like to get a bit of sun late in the year and hence go abroad for their holidays.
Tom Gelletlie
Rathnew, County Wicklow
Ireland