London will become a ghost city if house prices keep rising like this

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Property prices in London and the South East of England have risen rapidly in the last 40 years (Pawel Libera)

Holly Baxter’s article on speculative property purchases by big investors (20 October) makes depressing but not surprising reading. It follows neatly on from Will Gore's piece two days earlier, regarding the increase in the price of the first flat he bought in 2005 that had risen by 135 per cent at current prices.

Inspired by Gore’s article, I also went on Zoopla to check on the current price of the house I owned (mortgaged) in 1976 and sold for £16,000 when I left London. My salary as a lecturer was slightly over £5,000 a year at the time so the house value was roughly three times my salary. According to Zoopla it was last sold in 1996 for £155,000 and entering the details in a house valuation website its current value is £1.1m. It's a nice semi-detached house in Hampton, not a mansion in Belgravia, so I assume its price increase mirrors what is happening throughout London and the South-east.

What I cannot get my head around is how London expects to function with property prices at these levels when essential but modestly paid infrastructure workers can no longer afford the housing and transport costs. No refuse collection, no one to work in the sewers, no barmen and women, waiters, teachers, social workers... I could go on. London could end up a ghost city with a lot of expensive property nobody can afford.

Patrick Cleary
Honiton, Devon

What’s the problem with a second vote on Brexit?

Given that the majority of Brexit voters (and probably many Remainers) in the EU referendum had little idea of the details of exactly what they were voting for – a stance obviously shared by many of the present Tory Government – I really do not see what is wrong in calling a second referendum once the precise details of our exit deal are confirmed. The Brexiteers will claim that “Brexit means Brexit”, but what have they to object to in a second vote? If the Brexit voters maintain their majority, then at least it will be on the basis of an informed decision. However if, on the basis that the precise implications of the Leave vote are fully understood, the majority switches to Remain then that is democracy in action and the wishes of the British public will have been maintained.

David J Williams
Colwyn Bay, Wales

For Europeans who happen to live in the UK, a silver lining has just hove into view amid the encircling gloomy clouds of Brexit. The horizon for a definitive decision, the tripwire if you will, is not two years or so away but early 2017, supposedly March. My intuition is that Article 50 will be triggered and subsequently the appalling reality will strike home for a sufficiently large proportion of the population for a retraction to be compelled. At that point the other members of the EU will close ranks and declare that the only route back in for the UK is to accept the whole EU package – every jot and tittle of regulation, no rebates, the euro, a regional foreign policy, regional armed forces, metrication – maybe even driving on the right. Is Cameron to be belatedly congratulated for giving the parochial isolationists enough rope to hang themselves?

Steve Ford
Haydon Bridge

I was surprised by Tory MP David Davies’s sudden interest in the dental care of the few young refugees who are at last being allowed to enter the UK from the Calais Jungle. While I’m sure that many of these youngsters would not be averse to a free dental check-up, he should be careful not to be seen to be promoting compulsory dentistry since human rights legislation could well class this as cruel and unusual punishment.

John Eoin Douglas
Edinburgh

Zambia has an answer to our prison crisis

Parliament has been discussing the future of prisons to meet the ever rising prison population, but the Government seems at a loss to know how to drastically cut the reoffending rate. Is Theresa May not aware that in Zambia the President managed to cut the reoffending rate by prisoners by 90 per cent? He authorised the running of the Alpha Course, a Christian study programme, in prisons and those prisoners who attended were changed characters. Rather than having to invest to increase prison capacity, would it not be wiser to invest a much smaller amount in a proven programme that will change the hearts and attitudes of prisoners? In the absence of any other programme that has had such a positive impact, is it not worth at least a pilot programme in the UK?

J Longstaff
Buxted

Propaganda machines

Matthew Turner’s article about the freezing of Russia Today bank accounts (Independent.co.uk,18 October) reminds us that no media is 100 per cent propaganda, even during a war: the Nazi radio was accurate about the Wehrmacht’s advance into Russia but everyone smelled a rat when it began repeating its news about Stalingrad’s surrender. Now the West is correct in identifying a Soviet Buk missile as the cause of the Malaysian Boeing crash but everyone smells a rat when the Dutch prosecutors refused to make public the radar data showing where it was launched from. If Russia Today is seen in the UK as a gratuitous thoroughgoing pro-Putin propaganda machine it should leave it alone and laugh at it, as the South Koreans laugh at TV broadcasts from North Korea.

Mergen Mongush
Moscow, Russia

Press watchdog is toothless

The press “watchdog” Ipsos's ruling that Kelvin McKenzie was “entitled” to express offensive views on Fatima Manji's wearing of a hijab while presenting Channel 4 News is perverse. It shows, once again, that the press industry is incapable of self-regulation and suggests our laws against hate crimes are worthless.

Sasha Simic
London N16

My manifesto

I think both John Rentoul and my colleague reader John Doherty are wrong. Manifestos are policy intentions. More often than not circumstances lead to parts of them being dropped. Not because a government doesn't wish to implement them, but because there are good reasons for doing otherwise. Ben Chu makes it clear why it could be in the British interest to either justifiably be more precise or abandon a project altogether.

Thomas van den Bergh
Address withheld

Hillary Clinton’s slick delivery doesn’t impress

I would vote for Donald Trump. I listened to the last debate on the radio and she won, no question. But so what? She is just a good lawyer. That isn’t anything to do with being president of the United States and all the job entails. It was just a debate.

America desperately needs change and it needs a strong, ruthless leader now. A president isn’t supposed to be popular; the opposite is true.

Name and address withheld

Let the train cause the strain

I just tried to take a train from Bedford to London. I failed. The car park was full before 9am. Sadly this is normal during the working week. So, to be on time for my meeting, I had to drive down the M1 to Luton Airport Parkway where I could be sure of a finding a parking space. I saw several other vehicles doing exactly the same; we were an informal convoy.

We all want to improve the environment by reducing car usage with its inherent pollution but we are unable to until government either culls the travelling population, which I am firmly against, or forces rail network operators to provide adequate car parking spaces. This is train science, not rocket science.

Kim Thonger
Rushden

Short-sighted on overseas students

The British Ambassador in Beijing was apoplectic in 1986 when the Thatcher Government increased university fees for overseas students. It is short-sighted. Students, who are not welcomed here, will go elsewhere and return home to make purchasing decisions placing lucrative import orders with their alma mater. The UK will loose exports and the boost to British jobs.

Christopher Hall
Banbury