Supermarkets are to blame for our junk food problem

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Should supermarkets take responsibility for the way they present junk food? (Shutterstock)

As you gaze at the myriad junk food on offer, it seems that our supermarkets and manufacturers, combined with the fast food industry, should be highly taxed simply to pick up the bill for the NHS and our unhealthy eating habits. They may then pass on the cost to the consumer, making their products less attractive to buy. And although the supermarkets claim they supply what we demand, most of it wouldn’t be considered by consumers if it wasn’t waved under our noses in every aisle.

Try finding basic foodstuffs among the overwrapped, nutrition-free garbage with an endless shelf life in packaging that will still be stuck in a hedge/sea/landfill when your grandchildren are pushing up the daisies. Most of it also contains palm oil, which contributes to deforestation – and for what? So we can stuff ourselves silly with rubbish passing as food?

Lynn Brymer Ashford

Community questions

What on earth does Boris Johnson mean when he claims he is trying to restore residents’ sense of pride in their community? My, and anyone else’s, relationship with our communities are about us and our communities, be they rich, poor, friendly, unfriendly, well managed, badly managed, or any other set of possibilities you could imagine. The idea that a politician imagines he could impose a sense of pride from outside is so bizarre that it indicates he has absolutely no idea what a community actually is. But in this case, of course, that is no surprise.

David Buckton Linton, Cambridge

Gone without a trace

Am I alone in my astonishment that the trace part of test and trace has been abandoned. This from the government site: “Businesses are also encouraged to continue displaying QR codes for customers wishing to check in using the NHS Covid-19 app, or to continue collecting customer contact details to support NHS Test and Trace, however this will no longer be a legal requirement.”

Everything is now optional. We are now more poorly served by this government than we have been throughout the pandemic. Help.

Alan Pack Canterbury

The world just gets hotter

North America’s deadly heatwaves, with record-breaking temperatures of 54.4C (130F), are creating extreme droughts and raging wildfires that cost lives and overwhelm hospitals. This should be a wake-up call to the world.

The UK is already experiencing extreme weather conditions – heatwaves, storms, flooding and rising sea levels eroding coastlines – all effects of climate change with consequences on lives and livelihoods. The government’s own advisers on climate change have warned that the UK is less prepared for a climate catastrophe now than it was five years ago and Boris Johnson is failing to deliver on his promises of action.

At the UN Climate Change Conference (Cop26) world leaders must come together and agree on ambitious action. We need all countries to have emissions reduction targets and plans, reflecting their level of economic development, which aligns them with the target of limiting global heating to 1.5C. Polluting companies and countries must not be allowed to offset emissions and instead they should prioritise reducing fossil fuel emissions to zero while strongly protecting our forests and oceans. We need urgent action. Otherwise, expect climate change to get worse.

Will Boris Johnson commit to convert his promises into action or continue to wave his party manifesto on climate change, which he has done nothing about?

Jeannette Schael Tadley, Hants

Scottish football rules the world

The influence of Scots in developing the modern version of football is becoming increasingly well-known, but there is considerably less awareness of our nation’s role in the development of football around the world.

The recent Copa America final saw Argentina defeat Brazil, but few will be aware of the pivotal role played by Scots in the development of the beautiful game in these two nations. The so-called “father of Argentine football” was a Gorbals-born schoolteacher, Alexander Watson Hutton, who in 1891 established the Association Argentine Football League, the first football league outside the British Isles.

In Brazil it was also a Scot, Charles Miller, who is widely recognised as the “father of Brazilian football”. After bringing back a set of playing rules and footballs after his time at school in the UK, this led him in 1895 to organise a famous match between the Sao Paolo Railway Company and the Gas Company. Miller was also a founder of the football league, Liga Paulista.

The year prior to this match Thomas Donohoe, a textile worker from Busby, arrived in Rio de Janeiro. It is understood that he organised the first ever football match in the history of Brazilian football, a five-a-side game which took place before Miller’s match, previously recorded as the first in Brazil.

Donohoe was also involved in founding the Bagu Athletic Club in Rio, important as it was the first to allow black Brazilian footballers to join. Bagu has erected a statue of Donohoe in honour of his contribution to football in Brazil and there are plans to erect a statue of him in Busby.

Scots played a crucial role in the development of football in many countries around the world, and with a resurgent interest in the game in Scotland following Euro 2020 it provides the perfect opportunity to raise awareness of this.

Alex Orr Edinburgh

US must stay away from Cuba

A fundamental yet implicit axiom of political science is that when the government of a country is not imposed on it by a foreign power, the government and the associated society are just a reflection of the culture and genetics of the residents. By this axiom, the secular autocracy that has governed Cuba since the ousting of dictator Fulgencio Batista is precisely what the majority of Cubans have wanted for many decades.

If the majority of Cubans have undergone a change of heart and now want a western democratic government, then they will replace their autocracy with such a government. No intervention from Washington is necessary.

Washington is using European behavioural norms to predict Cuban behaviour. To use that prediction to guide American intervention in Cuba would be a mistake. This manner of prediction wrongly forecast that 1) the Chinese would build a democracy after they reached their present level of wealth and 2) the Iraqis would promptly build a western democracy after American troops removed the government of Saddam Hussein.

Dwight Sunada California