Your article shows the way that depression will be treated worldwide in future (“A weight off our minds: how therapy got physical to beef up mental health”, News). Exercise as a treatment for depression has five massive advantages: it is free; it can be used in combination with other treatments; the benefits last; it confers other health benefits; and it empowers the individual to take positive action in fighting off depression.
The underlying science has little to do with release of endorphins: exercise has been proved to work more permanently by stimulating neuroplasticity (ie new circuits) in key parts of the brain that subserve mood, emotion and executive functioning. It works in the same way as all other treatments for depression, from placebo to talking therapy to medication to ECT, and is synergistic when combined with any of these. Those with seasonal affective disorder should start an exercise programme when the clocks go back. Exercise really is the new antidepressant.
Dr Jeremy Seymour
Sheffield
It is gratifying to see the link between mind and body being rediscovered yet again. Our heads are parts of our bodies, so mental health is continuous with physical wellbeing. We are not just brains. We have bodies, too. And souls.
Professor Brendan Kelly
Trinity College Dublin
Give Starmer his due
I was rather shocked to see such a devastating claim on the front page of the Observer (“Starmer lacks clear sense of purpose, says ex-policy chief”, News). Yes, there are aspects of policy where I would have been happier to see more focused direction, but Starmer has learned to be more measured in approach and he has many hurdles to negotiate to get Labour back into power.
It wasn’t until the penultimate paragraph that the words “honest”, “decent” and “principled” appeared. Those are the qualities I would look for before any others, especially after what we have been subjected to since 2010.
Jacqueline Simpson
Garforth, Leeds
Don’t ignore children’s rights
I am disappointed that you would choose a letter that has no input from educators or trans students (“Hold schools to account on gender”). I am disappointed that the letter references the interim Cass review, which on page 47 states that it has not explored the important role of schools. I am disappointed that this letter states girls are forced to use the same toilets as boys. I would happily invite these clinicians to my school to talk through what we have done for our LGBTQ+ students and why. Yet again, the rights of the child are ignored and the experience of all LGBTQ+ students is ignored.
Rebecca Knights
London SE15
Reform capital gains tax
Your leading article “Tory tax plans are a handout to the wealthy” failed to recognise that it’s not the wealthy who pay inheritance tax but rather the unprepared. It is also clear why it is unpopular with people wishing to leave a legacy for their families. The answer is simple but not obvious: reform capital gains tax so that it is charged at the same rates as income tax (including National Insurance) and it falls on residential property. This means that if I leave my house to my daughter in my will and she lives there with her family, there is no tax. However, if she sells the property she will need to pay CGT on the gain. We are told there is “no money left” to pay for the investment this country desperately needs but taxing unearned wealth would allow Labour to fill the coffers and also score a goal against the Tories by abolishing this unpopular inheritance tax.
Christopher Bowser
Holmer Green, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire
Green Paris? That’s a laugh
As a born and bred Parisienne, I was mystified by the idyllic description of Paris as supposedly transformed by the mayor (“Let the green Games commence…”, New Review).
Neverending roadworks, atrocious concrete blocks everywhere to create traffic jam-generating cycle lanes, dirty streets and unsafe Métro rides are more akin to the reality for Parisians who cannot ride a bicycle any more or spend their time jogging along the Seine.
It would be interesting to ask the numerous tourists who have been attacked near the Trocadero or around the cesspool of the Champs de Mars while admiring the Eiffel Tower if they feel the City of Light is such a good destination for a romantic holiday. Those of us who have visited London recently remember feeling much safer on the underground than the Métro. Here’s a thought to boost entente cordiale: how about London hosting the next Olympics? Surely your former prime minister could think of another stunt.
Dr Marie-Elisabeth Deroche-Miles
Paris
How to beat the doom loop
Will Hutton points to low investment in businesses as the major problem (“Britain is stuck in a doom loop: the system is rigged against growth”, Comment). He wants a weakening of protective legislation on pension funds so that they make more risky stock exchange investments, at the cost of less secure pensions for most workers. He identifies the right problem but has the wrong cure.
Higher investment would be good for business, good for wealth-holders and good for the well-paid fund managers and bankers who serve them. A small amount might filter down to highly skilled workers in a position to demand extra. The incomes of the rest would remain stagnant because most workers are in no position to bid up wages. All the evidence of the last sad decade is that the share of GDP growth (the surplus from business) going to workers has shrunk, while that going to capital has risen.
We need stronger trade unions, laws to guarantee the right to strike, workers’ representatives with voting power on boards of directors and serious government investment. This would be easy to finance if we taxed the dividends of the rich at the same rate as the incomes of the rest of us. Too much policy-making is based on the assumption that what is good for wealth-holders is good for the rest of us. It isn’t.
Professor Peter Taylor-Gooby
University of Kent, Canterbury
Banging history’s drum
As a retired history lecturer, I must congratulate Kenan Malik on an excellent explanation of Arno Mayer’s thesis on The Persistence of the old Regime (“The conflict between history and memory lies at the heart of today’s cultural divides”, Comment). Importantly, he stressed their relevance of Mayer’s ideas to modern political debates. Crucially, the issue of constructed memory in popular culture and political discourse, which is often cited as being history.
At last someone is banging the drum for academic history, something which my more eminent contemporaries seemed to have failed to do. History itself has been give a bad name in recent years. One would presume, for example, that issues of slavery and empire had been taught uncritically when debates have raged for many years. Simplistic generalisations of evil and goodness are more prominent in much public history and need challenging.
Dr Trevor Hopper
Lewes, East Sussex
We all need better role models
Admiration for someone’s talent can lead to a bias in favour of defending them but this bias is not just limited to the French (“Evoking genius to defend ‘dark stars’ like Gérard Depardieu looks terribly French – and it is”, Comment). We have many examples from different countries, unfortunately.
Celebrities can be given hero status and it can be difficult to associate our heroes with “bad actions”. However, we, as a society as a whole, need better role models. Let’s have a discussion around what makes someone worthy of hero status and good role models. Referring to the French in this way does not include a discussion around who inspires us and why. And it certainly does nothing to further discussions around misogyny in the film world, in any country, not just in France.
Beth Dawson
Paris, France
