Sajid Javid has proven himself a hypocrite on 'British values'

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Sajid Javid (right) (REUTERS)

In his first speech as Culture Secretary in April 2014, Sajid Javid said: “What we do in this country is great because, far from being ruled by central diktats, our culture is based on freedom and self-determination.”

Now, as Communities Secretary, the same Saijid Javid is proposing that every new recruit to the public sector swear a McCarthy-ite oath to something called “British values” – an oath no doubt drafted as a “central diktat”.

What a wonderful example he’s given to the world of one outstanding “British value”, hypocrisy.

Sasha Simic

London N16

People like my friend are being led to the slaughter by DWP

I have a friend of over 25 years who I see nearly every day.

Sixteen years ago, following a stressful phone conversation, he suffered a massive brain haemorrhage. He was rushed to hospital by ambulance.

He almost died and I said my goodbyes several times, but a special coil was fitted internally and he survived. After rehabilitation, he was warned by medical staff that from then on, he must avoid stress and exertion. He was put on sickness benefit and told not to work.

Since then a new aneurysm has grown next to the site of the original bleed, which is cause for concern. On top of this he has sporadic rheumatoid arthritis which sometimes causes flare-ups requiring hospitalisation (again, stress seems to be the trigger for these events.)

He has worked all his adult life prior to the haemorrhage. He is not young and he struggles financially, but he still manages to hold on to some dignity and quality of life.

Despite the DWP previously accepting his medical professionals' opinions and placing him in the 'Limited Capability' group, he has been summoned to attend a face-to-face "assessment" with the Health Assessment Advisory Service.

They cannot look inside his head and they have all the information they need. So the assessment, with its two-way mirrors, secret cameras and target-driven staff, is unnecessary and I suspect part of the process of removing him off ESA.

If he gets thrown off ESA and moved on to JSA instead, there is a chance that the resulting stress could induce another haemorrhage. He is proud, vulnerable and middle-aged, and in my heart of hearts I wonder if he will be strong enough to cope in today's job market.

He has no friends that he sees, only me. We live away from family. He is not the edifice of strength that some people think he is.

A few years ago, a DWP error caused his benefits to be accidentally stopped, leaving him with no money. He became suicidal and I remember the desperate exchange of texts and the phone calls to the emergency services in the early hours of the morning.

I have looked up 'Work Capability Assessments' on the internet and I'm shocked to see numerous sites linking the WCA process to the deaths of thousands of other people.

The DWP knew that the process was causing people to die but it didn't stop the tests and review procedures. According to calumslist.org approximately 4,000 people have already died from the stress induced by this WCA test. The figure may even be as high as 81,000.

My friend can function in daily life (with limitations: no stress, no heavy lifting, and so on) but because of the potential time-bomb that resides behind his forehead, he is more vulnerable to stress than most.

Stress is his enemy. I can still vividly remember the day he suffered his haemorrhage, sitting with him in the ambulance while he vomited uncontrollably into a cardboard tray.

So it confuses me to know that he is being deliberately sent down this path that has already killed thousands before him. I am looking around, desperate and shouting for help to protect my friend – but no one is listening. Meanwhile, he is becoming depressed, losing his appetite and looking after himself less.

I have contacted anyone I can think of to try and help: support groups, my local MP, the Citizens' Advice Bureau, but the advice is the same: he has to attend.

All my desperate communications feel like a eulogy in preparation. I have a lifetime of shared memories with him: holidays, jokes, arguments, laughter, kindness... all of which could be reduced to a statistic.

He can walk and go about his daily life, but this is not the issue. The issue is that he needs protecting from emotional stress and this very process.

Jobseeking on its own, with its spurious sanctions and food banks, is brutal enough, as illustrated by the recent suicide of a 19-year-old man who felt belittled by the DWP.

My friend is being led to the slaughter and I want to confront those responsible for this humiliation and shout: "Leave him alone!" And if my friend should die like the others, then part of me shall die too. I have no words.

Tears flow and I feel a profound sense of emptiness. This country does not care about its people.

Vanessa Smyth

North Shields, Tyne and Wear

Prison reform begins with drugs reform

The principal problem that the Criminal Justice System faces is overcrowding in prisons. Judges and magistrates imprison too many people despite being told not to by every Lord Chief Justice since 1997. They have plenty more effective options in community service.

Towering over all this is the necessity to start a legal, regulated supply system for drugs whose supply is made a crime by our laws. These also make all who meet the demand into criminals and remove any hope of control.

We do not keep records of drug related crime, only records of the offences of muggings, burglaries and so on that motivate these acquisitive crimes. In the US they do: 66 per cent of all their crime is drug-related. Offences against drug laws are few. It is estimated that this is the same here. If a safe, regulated supply system existed, convictions could reduce by perhaps 70 per cent.

We might only need 30 per cent of our prisons to house the incorrigibly violent, who must still be confined. We could then have safe, local, humane prisons that encourage reform and teach rehabilitation. Then we would be able to pay for a really efficient non-privatised probation system.

Mick Humphreys

Taunton

Donald Trump is making us do his dirty work

We all recognise the annoying child who prods and goads until he gets a reaction, and later, when ostracised, claims it's all the fault of other people. Maybe that's Donald Trump's deliberate tactic. He wants to build walls and create trade barriers, except that's difficult working from the inside out with your own people and organisations. So with a surprising degree of self-awareness and the liberal use of Twitter, he gets everyone else on the outside to do it for him.

Patrick Cosgrove

Shropshire

Definition of anti-Semitism should stand

Ben White complained bitterly in Monday’s Independent that the International Definition of Anti-Semitism adopted by the Prime Minister on Monday conflates anti-Semitism with criticism of Israel. But it is Ben White who seeks to conflate anti-Semitism and debate about Israel with his claim that Israel cannot be discussed properly without breaching that clear anti-Semitism definition.

All that Israel’s critics have to do is voice their opposition without calling Jews Nazis, claiming that Jews uniquely have no right to self-determination, accusing Jews of unpatriotic disloyalty or applying classical anti-Semitic slanders to Israelis or Israel as the Jew among nations, such as that Zionists control the banks or that Israel created Isis. Anybody who cannot do that thoroughly deserves to be called an anti-Semite.

Gideon Falter

Chairman, Campaign Against Anti-Semitism

London W1W

The real reason the high street is dying out

My wife and I and our cash-rich son went to Bournemouth to gift shop, he for perfume (girlfriend, not self) and I for a book. Result? We sat in the café of the bookshop and I ordered the book they did not have from Amazon and Giles ordered his perfume online (the people on the ground floor department stores had none).

Seemed ironic – I tried to support the shops but failed. Lesson learnt.

Bernard Piggott

Dorchester

Give actors a break

I was interested to read the discussion about actors picking up suitcases that should be heavy, but are obviously empty.

This does not add any authenticity to the scene.

Some years ago I was a pallbearer in a television drama.

When we pallbearers went to pick up the coffin for the first time we nearly dislocated our shoulders as the director had not told us he had placed blocks of concrete in the coffin. He said he was tired of seeing actors pick up an obviously heavy case with no obvious effort.

Fortunately for myself, but not the remaining three pallbearers, I was four inches shorter, which meant the coffin came nowhere near my shoulder and my colleagues had to carry the entire weight.

Once in real life when I was a pallbearer, the deceased's weight bore no resemblance to blocks of concrete.

Colin Bower

Sherwood, Nottingham

Orkney isn't what you think

As the population of Orkney was 21,670 in 2015, I am surprised that “Halifax findings” report only 27 souls in the archipelago in a “quality of life new survey”. Equally surprising is the survey’s claim of the islands being “about as far north as you can go in Great Britain”. Herma Ness, the northernmost point of Shetland is some 145km further north than Orkney.

Peter Kellett

Kinlochewe

An alternative Christmas dinner

I think Grace Dent has been spying on my family Christmases for about 20 years. Also, corned beef pie is a very nice Christmas dinner alternative.

Gillian Rowe

Penryn, Cornwall