John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his presidential running mate was one of his only shortcomings

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Sometimes the good don’t die young; they get the chance to continue to make a great contribution. And few exemplify this more than John McCain.

His military service and extensive time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam showed the depth of his character when he refused early release as it would aid his captors. This time left him injured for life.

His willingness to continue his life of service as a senator and presidential candidate rather than retire to a life of family and friends further adds to his reputation. His selection of Sarah Palin as a running mate was however one of his few failings.

He was better than most and yet a down to earth, humble person.

We need more like him to help run our countries.

Goodbye to a good person.

Dennis Fitzgerald
Melbourne

Paper prescriptions aren’t the headache we think they are

A few days into his new job as health secretary and In order to make his mark, Matt Hancock has come up with yet another solution looking for a problem. I have never found paper prescriptions particularly inconvenient, and certainly don’t worry about losing my scripts. Surely there are more important problems facing the NHS. As for his statement that that our health system is uniquely placed to become the most advanced health system in the world, bearing in mind where we currently languish in the league tables of western countries, I would think he will have something if an uphill struggle here.

G Forward
Stirling

Don’t let Brexit overshadow humanitarian crises

It is commendable to draw attention to the plight of orphaned and unaccompanied Rohingya children in refugee camps. Their ongoing predicament is another blemished chapter in human history.

In the midst of the tumult of scandal and sorrow over President Trump’s possible impeachment, his racist rhetoric and reprehensible foreign policies, the furore over Britain’s potential exit from the EU and the seething resentment over mass migration to Europe; we seem to have forgotten the profound grief, humiliation and degradation of unaccompanied children in Syria, Palestine, Yemen, Myanmar and neighbouring countries like Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Bangladesh.

Many children are also left to languish without educational attainment and economic opportunity, creating an ideal environments for terrorism to flourish. The world cannot continue its deafening silence. It is time to open up a new chapter and help children become stakeholders in the future of their countries.

Dr Munjed Farid Al Qutob
London NW2

Planning ahead is only sensible

Dave Hill wrote, in his letter about Philip Hammond’s statement about future borrowing after Brexit, that no one can predict the future. He’s correct. However, his implication is that it is, therefore, a waste of time trying to predict future events. In this assertion he is totally wrong.

It is a normal action of any human being to try to predict future events that may affect them either directly or indirectly, be it relationships, employment or finances. Similarly we expect our governments to make decisions based on analysis of how future events may unfold; if they did not we would castigate them for that lack. Most actions a government undertakes will be based on analysis of it’s likely impact. Imagine how we would react to a government stating, “we have no clue how this will turn out but we’re going to do it anyway”.

The vast majority of predictions about effect of Brexit on our country have been that it will be bad economically. These have been expressed as either falls in or a lessening of growth in our GDP. The impact of such reductions have to be managed in some way; if less taxation flows into government, then it must either borrow more or do fewer things. Hammond’s statement is simply trying to express that in terms of the former when the latter will surely bring more and continued austerity.

Nick Haward
Havant

How to save the NHS millions at a stroke

The digitalisation of repeat prescriptions is to be welcomed as an obvious way to streamline traditional NHS methods. However, since doctors and pharmacists are paid a fee per prescription, the current practice of limiting prescriptions to just a month’s supply incurs a huge and unnecessary cost. If prescriptions for long term medication were to be written for, say, three months, the fees would be reduced markedly with no detriment to the patient. In fact, it would reduce the frequency of the monthly trip to the pharmacy to collect the meds.

No doubt there would be strong opposition from the medical practitioners, and probably even more from the inexplicably powerful pharmacist lobby. However, there can be no medical risk in supplying a larger amount of many, relatively benign, drugs which on which so many people rely on for the duration of their lives.

Tim Phillips
Plymouth

Hangovers

Well done the psychologists at Bath University who discovered that hangovers impair the ability to do stuff. Such an unexpected result.

Alan Pack
Canterbury