Laurence Fox has conveniently forgotten that one in six WWI soldiers was from the Indian subcontinent

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Actor and Old Harrovian Laurence Fox insists the appearance of a Sikh soldier in Sam Medes’s film 1917 is “forcing diversity” on viewers, which is, in his opinion, “institutionally racist”.

All that expensive education has been wasted on Fox, who clearly does not know that one soldier in every six in the British Army during the First World War was from the Indian sub-continent, with Sikh soldiers comprising one-fifth of Indian servicemen.

It’s been estimated that 74,187 Indian soldiers died fighting for the British between 1914 and 1918. Indians thought their service would be rewarded with self-governing dominion status within the British Empire after the war.

Instead, Britain “rewarded” the service of Indian soldiers with the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar on 13 April 1919, in which 400 innocent people were killed. The British ruling class forgot what they owed the Indian people just a year after the Great War finished, so it’s no surprise that over 100 years later, posh boy Fox doesn’t believe Sikh soldiers fought and died for Britain on the western front.

Sasha Simic
Stamford Hill, London

Keeping up with the Sussexes

With Harry and Meghan’s recent departure to Canada, there remains a question mark over the security arrangements for Harry and Meghan. If they are to become financially independent – and indeed it looks like their future earnings will run into the millions – then Harry and Meghan could well afford to pay for their security staff out of their own purse, not the public’s.

Janine Hyatt
Address supplied

As an American citizen you probably don’t think I have any right to voice my opinion – but as a human being I must say that Harry and Megan should be allowed to lead the family life they want without judgment.

I may not understand “royalty”, but I do understand “family”.

Let us not judge.

Arla E Baragar
Oregon

Scottish power

Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (GERS)’s annual report used to be lauded by nationalists, back in the days when oil revenues were high and the GERS showed Scotland in a favourable financial position. Yet now that the GERS shows unequivocally that a separate Scotland would be significantly worse off, the SNP is at pains to discredit it. The Growth Commission Report of 2018, meant to serve as a prospectus for another independence referendum, was quickly buried when it told a few unpalatable truths about the difficulties a separate Scotland would have to face.

When the GERS publishes its figures for 2020, finance minister Derek Mackay will inevitably publish a rival set of figures showing that Scotland would be better off out of the UK. The SNP’s desperation for another referendum is now such that it will produce not merely overoptimistic statements about the future in Scotland outside the UK, but what in the real world we call untruths.

Jill Stephenson
Edinburgh

Training days

I think the sensible thing to do is to call a halt to the HS2 project. To me it was always a vanity exercise.

Stopping it now would be the sensible thing to do before any more money is spent. If the line terminates at Birmingham it will only further reinforce the feeling in the north that only the south and midlands close to Birmingham are important.

Surely the money could be better spent on improving rail links in the north, say between major towns like Manchester and Leeds to take one example.

Valerie Crews
Beckenham

If London decides the future of HS2, let Manchester decide the future of Crossrail.

Dr John Doherty
Stratford-upon-Avon