Re the delay in banning new petrol cars (Report, 20 September), is there any reason why car manufacturers cannot carry on with their plans to be all-electric by 2030? I don’t think there can be an obligation on a manufacturer to produce particular goods in a market economy, so if they stop producing petrol cars, we won’t be able to buy them.
Annabel Gibb
York
• Can you please stop referring to the “Truss era” (Junking green policies, junking investment: scorched-earth Conservatism is all Sunak offers now, 22 September). The word “era” describes a long period of time, when Liz Truss had the briefest of tenures as prime minister. The more accurate phrase is the “Truss error”.
David Edwards Hulme
Stockport, Greater Manchester
• Re the power of music (Letters, 21 September), for weeks I had been trying to engage with a deeply disturbed patient, only to be subjected to verbal abuse. One day, I played her a video recording of Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs that I had made from the Proms. The patient fell silent, then burst into tears and from that moment, the door had been opened to a valuable therapeutic relationship.
Dr Allan Dodds
Nottingham
• There has been plenty of discussion of the words but no reference to the tune of the UK national anthem (Letters, 22 September). It is dreary, boring, and without musical merit. To hear what a fine, stirring and uplifting national anthem tune can sound like, listen to La Marseillaise.
Mac Burnell
Leeds
• When signing off letters, I’ve always been fond of using “With all due respect”, leaving the possibility that no respect is due and therefore none is given (Letters, 17 September).
Luke Howard
London
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