Banning dog breeds is not the answer, punishing the owners is

Letters to the editor: our readers share their views. Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

We should judge dogs based on their behaviour rather than their genetics (Getty)

With the renewed debate over dangerous dogs providing more emotional stories from both sides of the argument, it got me thinking about how there could be a better way forward than simply trying to ban a certain “breed” of dog.

I can see a clear correlation between dog behaviour and human behaviour here, yet we as a society don’t seem to be able to make this association. In normal human life, it is not acceptable to bully or harass let alone attack someone. The severity of the offence is not determined by the perpetrator but by the victim or witnesses.

So why not apply the same rules to man’s best friend? A well-trained dog cared for by responsible owners is a delightful thing, on the other hand, an untrained dog even unwittingly can be a real menace. A dog jumping up at a child should be treated as an assault (both mental and physical) and the dog and potentially its owner should be punished accordingly in the same way as a human would be punished for doing the same thing.

This would go some way to negating the issue of having to determine what breed a dog is. They would be treated on their behaviour rather than their genetics, arguably a much fairer and likely easier-to-police way forward.

George Powell

Address supplied

How can France advocate for women’s rights, while censoring their liberty?

For decades, France has been grappling with the concept of hijab and loose clothing. Now, once again, this struggle has come to light.

It is unnerving to think that a form of clothing can cause such daunting obsessions to prevail within France. How can clothing – loose clothing – cause such hatred? Something that is synonymous with a long dress and is heavily rooted within culture, not just religion?

Quite frankly, it’s beyond belief.

As a British Muslim girl in education, I choose to dress in a certain way and have always found comfort in knowing how my peers and teachers respect my choices.

Imagine if one day someone stopped you from entering an education setting because they have an objection to your loose garment. How would it feel if the country you call “home” did this? In an environment where education is meant to thrive, what kind of education are such decisions promoting?

On the one hand, France advocates for women’s rights, yet on the other, it censors their liberty by dictating their dress code and shooting arrows of disapproval, subjugation, and suppression. If the French government is genuinely an emblem of freedom, then it should also consider the sentiments of Muslim women.

Only then can the French government indeed be considered to reflect its national motto of “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity”.

I stand with my French sisters, inviting you all to stand with them, too.

Rameen Masood

Leicester

No more Tory sticking plasters

So, we are told by Jeremy Hunt that pay growth has caught up with price rises.

This is nothing short of patronising nonsense to try and hide the true state of the Conservative Party and their true tax-raising agenda.

Workers in Britain already face the highest tax burden in seventy years thanks to 25 separate Tory tax rises since 2010.

What Britain needs is a proper new deal for UK workers as proposed by Labour’s Angela Rayner rather than more Tory sticking plasters.

A deal that will protect everyone rather than just the richest one per cent, one that will ban zero hour contracts, ban hire and fire, and protect everyone.

Geoffrey Brooking

Hampshire

Does the government have answers?

It is great that BMW is planning to convert its Oxford Mini factory to an electric car manufacturer. But in the phasing-out of petrol and diesel engine vehicles, has the government really thought through all the issues around battery charging? Will the nation’s power supply be able to cope with the enormous new demand for electricity to charge all these batteries?

How will houses and flats, with no driveways or other parking spaces, cope without their own overnight charging facilities? Will the availability of on-street charging be ready to meet the growing demand? Are drivers aware of the cost of installing at home the faster and more powerful 3-phase power supplies that many motorists may need, and will UK Power Networks have the capacity for installing 3-phase supplies possibly to millions of homes within a decade? Is there even a coherent government plan to answer all these and other questions raised by the increasing pace of electric vehicle adoption?

It is similar to the related issue of domestic boilers. Many town dwellers are dependent on gas, and rural houses have no choice but to use oil-fired boilers – the phasing out of which is not very far off. For many people, the proposed alternative of heat pumps can involve prohibitive installation costs, and will certainly not heat homes to the degree to which we have become accustomed. Does the government have answers?

Gavin Turner

Norfolk

Same old ‘socialist’ story

The claim from Liz Truss that US president Joe Biden is exporting socialism to Europe is simply preposterous.

It echoes the claims of Trump-supporting  Republicans who sought to wreck last year’s Inflation Reduction Act and from a previous era when Wall Street big business accused President Roosevelt’s New Deal of introducing Soviet-style socialism.

On the contrary, both Roosevelt then and Biden today are harnessing the full range of America’s enormous industrial potential to modernise and refocus to meet the new technological and today’s climate crisis challenges.

Perhaps Liz Truss should acknowledge that such ambitious programmes, like Biden’s resolute commitment to Ukraine, are intended to save not destroy capitalism and our liberal democracies.

Paul Dolan

Cheshire