Abortion, An election ruled by politics of fear and others

Admit it: abortion is used as contraceptive method of choice

Admit it: abortion is used as contraceptive method of choice

Sir: Your leading article on abortion (16 March) states: "Information about birth control should be more widely published ... Abortion is never the contraceptive method of choice." There may be a small minority of people in this country who aren't aware that contraception can prevent pregnancy. However it simply can't be true that the vast majority of people who get pregnant by mistake do so because they have never heard of contraception.

There were 181,600 abortions in 2003 compared with 621,469 live births. How many of those 181,600 women took proper precautions to be really sure that they wouldn't get pregnant, and how many of them took risks? Only 1 per cent of people will get pregnant if using contraception properly. I think the majority who had an abortion in 2003 knew about contraception and had used it in the past, but on the occasion they got pregnant they had sex when they knew they had forgotten to take a pill or didn't use a condom. They chose to take that risk, and therefore did choose to use abortion as contraception should they get pregnant.

If you are old enough to be having sex you are old enough to remember to use contraception. Excuses such as being drunk and getting carried away aren't good enough. We condemn people who kill by drink driving. We think that fox hunting is barbaric. Why is killing a foetus because you didn't act responsibly when having sex any better? Whether or not people are prepared to admit it, abortion is used every day as a method of contraception by people who know all the facts of life.

CLARE WRIGHT
London W12

Sir: I asked myself why, in a society awash with contraception and no longer trapped in sexual ignorance, there should be any non-medical demand for abortion at all. Then a friend's 15-year-old son supplied at least a partial answer: "We did it after a party. We'd been taking pills and were pissed."

JAMES SCOTT
Milton Keynes

An election ruled by the politics of fear

Sir: When taking my daily walk to work through Longsight, Manchester, on Friday, I noticed a new poster on behalf of the Conservative Party. It claimed that "It's not racist to impose controls on immigration".

When I took my walk past the same poster this morning, someone from the locality, one of the largest immigrant communities in the UK, had written their reply. Painted on a large sheet in resplendent green and white lettering, directly beneath the poster, it read: "Immigrants are welcome in Longsight, Tories are not." By the time I walked past it on my way home this afternoon, the sheet had gone, but someone had climbed up and painted a red cross over the word "not" in the Conservatives' message. One member of the community, surely better positioned than your average Conservative MP to judge the success or failure of immigration, had spoken.

Do the Tories realise that whilst still behind in the polls, and with a large majority to overturn at the election, slagging off large groups of voters, such as travellers, and alienating communities with insensitive poster campaigns is not exactly beneficial? Wouldn't it be a good idea for Conservatives to talk about people they like instead?

JAMIE BROWN
Manchester

Sir: With the popular press being given free rein to set the agenda, Government and official Opposition are vying to see who can dredge the lowest depths of the barrel in pursuit of the right-wing popular vote.

Recently we were treated to the bizarre spectacle of the Tories defending civil liberties against the totalitarian tendencies of a (New) Labour Home Secretary and his colleagues.

Now we have the official Opposition trying to win votes by threatening to overturn human rights legislation in the interests of pandering to popular prejudice against travellers.

The two parties are running neck and neck on the benefits of "regime-change" in places like Iraq, regardless of the mass killing of civilians, and there is little to choose between them in the race to foster xenophobia as the appropriate response to asylum and immigration.

A proposal to reintroduce the death penalty would be a sure-fire winner in this contest to see who can come up with the most retrogressive policy in the opportunistic scramble for the right-wing vote. There was a time when it would have been a safe bet that the Tories would think of that first.

Professor D MAUGHAN BROWN
York

Sir: Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson (Letters, 22 March) write: "The fear factor has finally worked for us ... we are going to have to vote for a man we believe to be the slipperiest, most profoundly disliked politician of our lifetime."

Labour's propaganda ministry will be proud. They've reeled another one in! The old drip feed of fear - "If you don't vote for Labour, the Tories will get in" - has worked again. Are we ever going to break away from the two-party hegemony if everyone is so susceptible to the main parties' propaganda?

How about if no one votes for anyone? Maybe they'll learn then that we don't actually like either of them. We've got to be firm and not give in to fear, or nothing will ever change.

C JACK
Weymouth, Dorset

British Press Awards

Sir: As chairman of the judges for the British Press Awards, I must correct some of Stephen Glover's ignorant and damaging remarks about them (Media Weekly, 21 April). The awards, he says, "are regarded by many journalists as corrupt", and clearly includes himself in that number by asserting that "they constituted a News International stitch-up" , referring in particular to the News of the World being named Newspaper of the Year.

He suggests the judging system should be "transparent" and "non-partisan". The judges in that category were "non-partisan", in that they are currently unconnected with any national title, and the system was "transparent" in the sense that their names were all published in the programme at the awards evening. Since Mr Glover wasn't present, I'll list them for the record and invite him to say which of them he considers "partisan" or "corrupt".

They were: Jonathan Grun, editor-in-chief of the Press Association; David Schlesinger, group managing editor at Reuters; Mark Damazer, head of Radio 4; Rosie Boycott, former editor of The Independent and the Daily Express; John Sergeant, formerly political editor at ITN and chief political correspondent of the BBC; Adam Boulton, political editor at Sky News; David Mannion, editor of ITN; Paul Horrocks, editor of the Manchester Evening News; Terry Manners, editor of the Western Daily Press; David Yelland, former editor of The Sun; and Jean Morgan, retired media correspondent of Press Gazette.

Normally the judging is by secret ballot after a long debate. This year no formal vote was needed in the end because the judges had all agreed on the News of the World - a remarkable unanimity I have never come across before.

I am not involved in organising or staging the event. Unlike Mr Glover, however, I was present, and I have to say that I recognise very little in his second-hand description of the evening. It was relatively quiet by recent standards and everybody seemed to be having a good time. Mr Glover's characterisation of Andrew Marr's presentation was woefully wide of the mark; it was as urbane and intelligent as one would expect. Geldof's language was perhaps unfortunate, but this cannot be blamed on Press Gazette, since they didn't invite him (he was a guest of The Sun). In any event, his worst excesses were provoked by heckling from rival journalists - a number of whom, I dare to suggest, use that sort of language all the time. It would be ridiculous if, after so many years, the British Press Awards - and with them, quite possibly, the future of Press Gazette - were to be determined by emotional over-reaction to off-the-cuff remarks by a rock star.

DONALD TRELFORD
London N1

Good-value NHS

Sir: Mark Doran bemoans the cost of the NHS (letter, 21 March), apparently failing to recognise that it has been providing health care on the cheap for decades and without suggesting an affordable alternative.

Only in the last two years have we had a commitment to approach the European average on health spending, and we still spend little over half that of the US as a proportion of GDP. The "bottomless pit" argument is regularly wheeled out by the right to suggest that state-funded health care is unsustainable, when evidence suggests that private provision costs significantly more - unless, which is the reality, it leads to rationing by bank balance rather than clinical need. If we accept that in a civilised society everyone should have access to adequate health care, we have to accept that personal provision can never meet this objective.

I have yet to come across anyone who "desires" a hip operation or triple heart by-pass in the way Mark Doran suggests. Health care is an essential service, not a luxury we can afford to do without.

CHARLES HOPKINS
Norwich

Dangerous dream

Sir: It is terrifying that so many of the world's leaders and opinion formers share the assumptions expressed by Bruce Anderson ("The world's poor can rejoice at this news", 21 March) in his enthusiasm for Paul Wolfowitz to head the World Bank.

This fundamentalist "flat-earth"' belief that it is possible for humanity, despite already numbering 6.5 billion and rising by 75 million a year, to aspire to the utterly unsustainable American way of life and levels of consumption if only the US can give them democracy and free-market economics is the most dangerous fantasy every invented.

The 5 per cent of humanity living in the US squanders 25 per cent of global energy and equally disproportionate quantities of water, topsoil and other resources plundered from across the planet, while producing totally unsustainable levels of pollution and waste.

Bruce Anderson's declaration that Wolfowitz is an intellectual and idealist who "believes that all mankind is entitled to the same opportunities as now enjoyed by the West" is indeed a noble and idealistic statement. But sadly it is no more intellectual, realistic or, most importantly, honest than claiming that everyone on earth can be kings and queens.

AIDAN HARRISON
Morpeth, Northumberland

Phantom candidate

Sir: Political spin has become deeply ingrained in the Labour Party and, as we the electorate become increasingly disillusioned, politicians no longer even try to make a distinction between spin and lies.

The Labour parliamentary candidate for Tooting has a flyer on which is printed the words: "Sorry you were out when I called round today." I was at home when such a one was delivered to me. Indeed I watched a man put it through my letter box, but he did not ring my doorbell. As well as not actually "calling" on me, this political postman was not the candidate, of whom there was no sign.

Perhaps I should not complain; doubtless Our Dear Leader knows best.

PETER MARTIN
London SW17

Blair and gays

Sir: There has been no administration for which gay men and women have more reason to be grateful than Labour in the last eight years ("Now the gay vote", 19 March). The age of sexual consent has been equalised, Section 28 has been abolished, we are free to get ourselves killed in the armed services, we are protected from discrimination, and same-sex civil partnership has, largely unreported, become law.

Practically all our demands and prayers having been answered, we can turn our attention to wider issues, and remind Mr Blair how many gays and lesbians joined the millions on our streets in protest against his and Bush's war, and that we are not obliged to forgive him for his subservience to a despised American President whose opposition to gay rights helped him get elected.

PETER FORSTER
London N4

Up and down

Sir: Miles Kington (21 March) claims that "It's up to you" and "It's down to you" mean exactly the same thing. The two expressions are similar in meaning, but of course there is a difference. The first means that it is your decision. The second means that it is your responsibility.

JOHN EVE
Woodford Bridge, Essex

Culling elephants

Sir: When are we humans to learn that placing large wildlife within small parks results in problems and culling elephants is like shooting the messenger? Jason Bell (letter, 19 March) is right when he says Kruger Park's policies are shortsighted, and that our own greed for ivory continues to drive demand and fuels local short-term reactions rather than sensible longer-term strategies. Considerably larger transfrontier parks and translocations are part of the latter - real, practical solutions - and can be paid for by sustainable tourism.

HENRICUS PETERS
Chesham, Buckinghamshire

Vietnam heroes

Sir: Congratulations to Pte Beharry for his well-earned Victoria Cross. However The Independent's statement that his is the first "living award" in 40 years is incorrect. In 1969, Warrant Officers K Payne and R S Simpson both earned this award while serving with the Australian Army in Vietnam and lived to tell the tale. Four VCs were awarded during the Vietnam war, two of them posthumously.

J J GOOLD
Mudgeeraba, Queensland
Australia

Turbines on the skyline

Sir: I agree with Andrew Turner (letter, 18 March) about wind farms. Surely better a blot on the landscape than no landscape at all?

MALCOLM D Y TREEN
Camberley, Surrey