Letters: Heathrow Terminal 5

Terminal 5 – yet another grand showcase for British ineptitude

Sir: BA told us what a marvellous building they have at Heathrow's Terminal 5. What a pity that the lessons of recent history haven't been learned. I refer to the Millennium Dome, another landmark building which likewise proved to be a showcase for every kind of British ineptitude.

The whole world must be waiting to see what sort of hash we make of the Olympics. Perhaps, between now and then, we could start to build structures around systems that work, not the other way around.

Paul Dunwell

Alton, Hampshire

Sir: Had the climate-camp protesters last year caused a fraction of the disruption that BAA and BA have inflicted on the travelling public during the opening day of Terminal 5, how many prosecutions would now be wending their way through the courts?

Andrew Calvert

Ruislip, Middlesex

Sir: In case the rest of the country thinks residents around Heathrow are making a fuss, two million people would be affected by a third runway. I live in Chelsea and am regularly woken between 4.30 and 5am.

To read a book, I either wear earplugs or sit and grit my teeth, waiting for the next flight. If we have another hot summer, what will we do if we cannot open our windows? Bad weather recently prevented aircraft using Heathrow. How nice it was to hear the wind and rain rather than the whining, screeching jets overhead.

Why not have a simple airport to the east of the city before inflicting any more damage on the people the other side of our densely populated capital?

G Butler

London SW10

Sir: Today's advertisement in a national daily proclaims "Heathrow Terminal 5. From here you can see tomorrow." Presumably this is because the paying customer will still be there?

ANDREW LOUTIT

Steventon, Oxfordshire

Politicians who yield to mumbo-jumbo

Sir: Mary Dejevsky is right to castigate the scientific community for its muted defence of gene research against irrational attacks by the Catholic Church (Opinion, 26 March). Where – with some honourable exceptions such as Lord Winston – are the leaders of the Royal Society, the Medical Research Council and the great medical research charities when we need them?

But, more importantly, where are the non-sectarian politicians who should vigorously be arguing the case for public acceptance of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill? Spinelessly avoiding giving "offence" to any vocal minority who might vote for them, that's where. Just as they were when pharmaceutical researchers and their families were under assault from the thugs on the fringes of the so-called animal-rights movement.

Ever-ready to yield to such advocates of the New Unreason, our political elite are as willing to connive at the withering of Britain's leading role in medical science as they have been in physics, chemistry, engineering and, most recently, astronomy. Clearly, the political calculation is that it is more important to placate the merchants of mysticism and mumbo-jumbo than to stand up for scientific and enlightenment values. Welcome to the new Dark Age.

Ralph Windsor

Ramsey, Isle of Man

Sir: Teaching biology, I find one of the greatest difficulties for pupils is with the vocabulary. So, it seems, it is for most politicians, churchmen and journalists.

A "hybrid" has two parents of different species, like a mule: half its chromosomes come from a horse, half from a donkey. The chromosomes in the proposed controversial cells are entirely human: they are not therefore hybrids.

An embryo results from division of a cell which is the product of the fusion of egg and sperm, each contributing one set of chromosomes. These so-called hybrid embryos do not involve such fusion, either of two human gametes (sex cells), nor of one human and one sheep gamete: therefore the cells are not embryos.

The cells produced by inserting a nucleus containing human chromosomes into an "empty" sheep egg are best described as stem cells, giving rise to a tissue culture when allowed to multiply. It is unfortunate they were ever labelled "hybrid", or any other kind of embryo. No one could ever want to consider implanting these cells in the uterus of either a sheep or a woman.

Since cells for experimentation are scarce, is it not preferable to utilise ones readily available from the ovaries of sheep, rather than those obtained from women undergoing IVF treatment, which really do have the potential to become human life, if fertilised?

Sue Worley

London W7

Sir: Mary Dejevsky's column on the "pusillanimous and tardy response" of scientists to the Catholic bishops' attacks on embryo research is spectacularly unfair and inaccurate. I should know, because I spent my entire Easter holiday issuing press statements from scientists – within minutes of the bishops' offensive – and setting up back-to-back media interviews with scientists defending their research.

Indeed, by Easter Sunday the scientific community had recaptured the headlines after the release of a joint letter from more than 200 patient charities supporting stem-cell research and a letter listing leading scientists offering to meet with Catholic bishops and MPs.

Dejevsky asks: "How much effort do scientists make to admit lay people to the inner sanctums of their thinking?" In the case of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, the answer is that the scientists have spent inordinate amounts of their time over the past year briefing the public, media and policy makers.

Instead of pouring scorn on scientists for their "dereliction of elementary duty", Dejevsky should have used her column to heap praise on a group of brave scientists who have done exactly what she's calling for.

Fiona Fox

Director, Science Media CentreLondon W1

Banks learn what a crisis feels like

Sir: As a hard-working professional who was once made bankrupt, I take great delight in the current plight of the high-street banks. Too greedy and too cautious even to lend to each other, they are finally being taught what it feels like to be "asset rich but cash poor". How many hard-working, self-employed entrepreneurs have they bankrupted in similar circumstances?

As the fiscal pendulum swings back from a credit-driven economy to one centred on savings, central bank intervention with cheap money can only delay the inevitable. I wonder if I will have the opportunity of taking a chunk of HSBC's assets as cheaply as they squandered mine.

Dr Tony Marchington

Buxton Derbyshire

Sir: James Moore calls it the blame game (27 March); in the European Parliament we are just saying: "We told you so."

At the beginning of June 2007 the Parliament finalised the report of its Committee of Inquiry into the Crisis of the Equitable Life Assurance Society. We noted: "There have been compelling accounts which indicate that the UK consistently applied over a substantial period . . . a light-touch regulatory policy." The committee went on to demand "the further strengthening of prudential supervisory and regulatory standards".

The detailed 350-page report was delivered to the UK government shortly thereafter and still awaits a full, substantial and reasoned response. Many of our findings have now been repeated and reinforced by the internal audit into the regulation of Northern Rock. Will the Government perhaps now take notice before we witness yet another UK regulatory failure where many individual investors face the loss of their life savings?

Diana Wallis MEP

(Liberal-Democrat, Yorkshire and the Humber), Rapporteur of the Committee of Inquiry into Equitable Life Assurance, European Parliament, Brussels

All-black shortlists come at a high price

Sir: Diane Abbott MP (letters, 28 March) claims that "on current trends, it will take over 70 years to have a fair representation" of black and Asian MPs. But projecting an increase of just two-and-a-half new non-white MPs each parliament – the average for the past 20 years – makes sense only if non-white candidates today still face similar barriers to those which pioneers like Abbott had to break through. The evidence suggests otherwise.

Three Conservative minority candidates have been selected so far in Tory-held seats, and several more in target seats. Labour is likely to elect its first two Asian women MPs, because they won open selections, while in south London Chuka Umunna defeated the leader of Lambeth council in Streatham earlier this month.

So Diane is too pessimistic. If this was purely a numbers game, all-minority shortlists might mildly accelerate progress or make little difference. And the cost when it comes to building broad coalitions for social justice is too high.

Sunder Katwala

General Secretary, Fabian SocietyLondon SW1

Sir: Ordinary voters choosing party candidates via US-style primaries would be more "representative" than party organisations imposing "all-black" or "all-woman" shortlists ("Black shortlists 'would create political apartheid' ", 27 March). MPs would then cater more to constituents than party leaders. As it stands, party whips control MPs in safe seats by threatening them with "deselection".

MOHSIN KHAN

Oxford

Villages that won't need post offices

Sir: I fail to understand the emotional declarations of injustice when closures of rural post offices, banks, pubs or shops are threatened or carried out.

Are those who run these establishments supposed to remain at their posts, living in penury, just to satisfy the occasional nostalgic notion of popping in for a postal order, to cash a cheque, quaff a half of mild-and-bitter, or purchase a mouse trap?

Villages are not dying. They are just different. They are not lively communities because they are very quiet most of the time. The more houses that are acquired as second homes, the quieter they will be.

The only real concern that town dwellers have about the locals is that they will not be able to engage one to keep an eye on their property, to keep it clean and stock up the larder from the nearest Waitrose. It won't be long before the prettier, more desirable villages need only a handful of able-bodied residents to keep them neat and tidy.

Peter Dryden

Pevensey Bay, East Sussex

Sir: Joan Bakewell suggests that churches could be the salvation of the rural post office (21 March). Happily, a number have provided excellent venues for outreach post offices for some years, in service to their local communities. Eskdale Green in the Lake District, Whitwell on the Isle of Wight and Hemingford Grey in Cambridgeshire are but three examples. The Post Office recognises these creative partnerships and has joined with the Anglican, Methodist and United Reformed Churches in producing guidance for local churches hoping to do so in the future.

Many rural churches – unlocked and active – have not stopped there but act as "community hubs" for local authority services and advice centres, hosting shops for local produce and farmers' markets, and providing school classrooms and cafes (for tea and the internet). None of these activities compromise their primary role as centres of mission and worship.

Stephen Bowler

Acting Secretary, Council for the Care of Churches,London SW1

Sir: Today (28 March), I read in a French newspaper (Le Monde) that the state-owned French Post Office is paying the first dividend in its history (amounting to €141m) to the French treasury. It would seem that the French taxpayer is actually making a profit on a nationalised industry. Isn't there a lesson to be learned here by our own Royal Mail? Instead of wholesale closures and cost cutting, maybe the PO management should get over to France to see how the French do it.

Christopher Lumb

Salisbury, Wiltshire

Royal flush

Sir: Over-provision of toilet facilities for visiting dignitaries (Letters, 26 March) is nothing new. When, many years ago, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, visited Manchester University, a new loo was installed for her exclusive use. To my knowledge, it has not been used since.

Dr Bob Heys

Ripponden, West Yorkshire

GM food is fine

Sir: Emma Hockridge from the Soil Association cites a couple of small studies on mice and rats in her belief that GM crops are dangerous (letters, 27 March), but makes no reference to the tens of millions of people in America who have been eating GM food for around a decade with absolutely no detrimental effect to their health.

John Riches

Brighton

Mme Sarkozy's legs

Sir: I did not find your front-page photograph of the French First Lady's legs shaming or demeaning as did Cherry Heywood-Jones (Letter, 28 March). I was delighted to see an original and interesting photograph used imaginatively. Surely style is a virtue, not a sin, and a legitimate subject for coverage. I thoroughly enjoyed the photograph and it cheered me up no end to see such a playful picture make the front page.

Tina Rowe

Ilchester, Somerset

Flaming Olympics

Sir: Is there enough oxygen at the top of Everest to sustain the Olympic flame, or will the climbers have to share the contents of their precious bottles with the torch? An alternative would be to keep the reserve flame at the base camp and re-ignite the torch after the descent, but that would make the entire project pointless, wouldn't it?

Brian Atkins

EYNSHAM, Oxfordshire

Dying out loud

Sir: Is the Charlotte Green incident during the 8 o'clock news on Radio 4 on Friday morning the first case of a newsreader "corpsing" while reading an obituary?

Malcolm Treen

Camberley, Surrey