Price hikes in Houston are the result of free market capitalism

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Hurricane Harvey was the biggest storm to hit Texas in 50 years (AFP)

A shortage of petrol following Hurricane Harvey leads oil traders to move supplies to the USA and benefit from a hike in the price. This being the result of free market capitalism. Local small businesses raising the price of fuel or bottled water locally are accused of price gouging. I fail to see the moral difference.

G Forward
Stirling

Houston flood funds

Like so much of this President’s grandstanding I wonder if this money will ever be paid.

If it goes to form, in a year or so it will emerge that there was never any evidence that the money was handed over or if there was a payment it went toward repairing one of his hotels.

This will be blasted as fake news by the Trump Organisation and the world will just forget it. In the meantime his hardcore supporters will sing his praises as a great benefactor.

Alastair Duncan
Winchester

Broken communities

Sarah Champion’s disgraceful dog whistle politics about so-called Asian sex gangs flies in the face of reality and lived history.

The actual predominant group involved in sex crimes over the decades has been white. Sadly the victims – youngsters, usually runaways and/or from broken homes – have had little cultural capital so little resources have been put into combating their victimisation.

Even after individual tragedies and when it was known how the pimps and traffickers were harvesting victims, those of us that have worked for voluntary organisations or social services have had little success in getting police resources to target the problem. However, now it can all be blamed on the “otherness” of Asian men, some seek to make political careers and sell newspapers via a moral panic about the issue.

The truth is that Champion’s comments also display a wilful ignorance of the North and of basic criminology. People commit crimes with associates. Criminal associates are usually from the same town and even area. Sadly, after three terms of New Labour governments, the Midlands and the North still suffer a huge amount of social balkanisation. Neighbourhoods and entire towns can consist of a single ethnic group. Proximity and familiarity are the factors of consideration in criminal associations, while poverty and social breakdown not only generate crime but also are what makes the victims vulnerable to exploitation.

Gavin Lewis
Manchester

Saving energy

Your article on electric vehicles and their power needs raises important questions about our whole energy future. Battery storage will be very important to smoothing out demand and providing local sources of energy.

Experience to date shows that we do not use charging infrastructure in the same way as filling stations. Drivers would want to plug their cars in every time they park to avail themselves of numerous top-ups as opposed to major charge sessions. The latter are likely to occur whilst vehicles are at home – which may be a public street or parking area.

As White Van Man becomes de-carbonised he will need more electrical energy at his home than his neighbour’s car (or motorcycle – they will need a lot less energy) to allow him to work the next day without poisoning us with diesel emissions.

The recent tendency of our planners to prevent developers from providing parking at our homes, offices, and shops will now start to have unintended consequences. Out-of-town Park and Ride sites will find they cannot support their target customers.

The fact is most of our buildings use twice as much energy (and water) as they need to and a combined heat and power plant (CHP) could produce electricity and heat for the same energy input it presently uses to just fire boilers in our homes and workplaces.

Modernising the UK energy and transport infrastructure for the near-future demands early urgent action. Each of us uses at least as much energy for our transport as we use in our home and workplace. The two will be ever more closely linked and unless we progress efficient use of both at the same time we may find we cannot move from our inefficient buildings because we have ignored the obvious and cheapest solution for our transport energy – energy-efficient buildings.

Michael Mann
Shrewsbury

Serving the public

While I was in my local supermarket earlier today, I thought I heard Theresa May ramping up her campaigning in readiness for clinging on to her leadership and fighting the next general election.

Imagine my surprise when I turned around to find that it was merely a self-service till that was unthinkingly repeating stock phrases over and over again, superficially scanning anything presented directly to it whilst remaining insensitive to the human needs of those who it was supposed to be serving.

Julian Self
Milton Keynes