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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Letters

Gen Z finds democracy dull because it knows so little about history

A polling station in Soho, central London, on 2 May 2024.
A polling station in Soho, central London, on 2 May 2024. Photograph: Guy Bell/REX/Shutterstock

I was heartened and terrified to read David Mitchell’s article (“Here’s a shock, gen Z: democracy isn’t perfect”, New Review). What made his article resonate particularly was the sentence, “Did nobody tell them about Stalin?”

As a history A-level student, it serves as a reminder of one of the many reasons I chose to study it: having even a vague awareness of the past horrors of authoritarianism can help fight its present stirrings.

I am not arguing for GCSE history to become compulsory, but for a low-stakes study of some of the most important events in history in regards to democracy, taught in the style of personal, social, health and economic education.

It is peculiar that in a world where Donald Trump and Elon Musk seem to reign supreme, the British government mandates a religious education up to age 16, but not a history education. If Keir Starmer remembers his own history education, he would remember that the Nazis used their education curriculum to turn the youth of Germany towards fascism. He must now use ours to turn the youth of this country in the opposite direction and hold democracy high – for it is all we have got.
Ed Haines, aged 16
Colchester, Essex

Generation Z’s bleak lot in life is due to bad government, blinkered ideology and bad faith, not an overdose of democracy. While lamenting the wrongheadedness of the young, we should consider how often they will have heard their elders bewailing – without qualification or explanation – the absence of “a strong leader”.

We should consider the effect of the media-indulged presidential style adopted by prime ministers since Tony Blair; note the power-shifting erosion of cabinet government since David Cameron’s premiership and consider the personality cult that endlessly excused the moral vacuum of Boris Johnson’s tenure. We ought, especially, to consider the corrosive effect of a skewed electoral system rendering the votes of huge swathes of the population redundant. While not excusing the apparent embrace of despotism or diminishing the poisonous influence of online zealots, older generations must bear responsibility for some of the distortions with which the young shape their reality.
Paul McGilchrist
Cromer, Norfolk

Art lovers must pay their way

I agree with Catherine Bennett that we should be asking visitors from abroad to pay an entry fee to our national museums and galleries (“Macron’s got a point: why shouldn’t we charge tourists to see our treasures?”, Comment). On a recent visit to Paris, there’s an acceptance that you are paying for the continued accessibility to and preservation of these collections. I was also struck by the level of costly security employed by these institutions. We should be paying decent wages to staff and on the security measures that help safeguard the future of our national treasures.
Jo Davidson
Cambridge

Mandelson’s change of heart

Rather than changing his mind, Peter Mandelson should have stuck to his guns about the appalling prospect of a Donald Trump presidency and refused to become the UK’s ambassador to America (“Peter Mandelson’s U-turn on Donald Trump: it’s easy to mock, but that’s diplomacy”, Editorial). That would have been the honourable thing to do. How can anyone now believe what he says?
Mick Beeby
Bristol

Housing crisis solutions

Thank you, Rowan Moore, for your excellent survey of ways to speed up the construction of the millions of homes that the UK urgently needs, particularly for poorer sectors of the population (“Peace, permanence and affordable prices: six ways to solve Britain’s housing crisis”, Focus).

Leaving aside the crucial issues of a chronic shortage of skilled builders and materials, there is the fact that major developers have no interest in solving the housing crisis. They profit massively from property shortages and ever-higher prices.

One favourite tactic is land banking, buying up prime construction sites wholesale and exercising their freedom not to build on them until it suits them. They don’t even need to build on the land because once they have planning permission, they can sell it at several times its original price. The government must get a grip on developers’ practices or there are never going to be enough properties built. One way would be to put a tax on developer-owned land, which would increase, say, every six months if construction is delayed; another might be to decree that if the land is sold on, with or without planning permission, it must be sold at the original purchase price. There may be other methods but, currently, a timid Labour government is only targeting the planning system and local objectors.
Carl Gardner
London EC1

Drama at the BBC

Kate Maltby, writing on the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain (WGGB) and sister unions’ campaign, Save Audio Drama at the BBC, is correct to say that artists have had to face the challenges of new genres, new formats and new masters throughout history, yet omits a more subtle and important point (“Sorry, Dame Judi, BBC Radio’s job is to find listeners, not train playwrights”, Comment).

The WGGB works with the BBC and other employers in the best interest of its members. Unions are not dictatorial entities standing in the way of change, disembodied from their members. They are their members, and, as history has also shown, workers standing together collectively to safeguard their jobs, their pay and their working conditions is a precious thing and one that we must hold to.
Ellie Peers, General Secretary, Writers’ Guild of Great Britain
London SE1

Celebrating Sheila

Thank you for your interview with Sheila Hancock, who has had such a fantastic career and is still so full of energy, ideas, wit and opinions (“ ‘You name it, I did it’ ”, Magazine).

On Radio 4’s Just a Minute, she must have been a trailblazer as a woman on such a male-dominated show, first appearing in 1967. It can help change perceptions to read about what these distinguished and still dynamic figures have contributed to society, especially for a readership who might not have heard of them.
Sue Evans
Brussels, Belgium

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