The problem with SUVs (and EVs, which are also heavy vehicles) goes way further than your leader indicates (“SUVs are too big and too dangerous – their drivers should be made to pay”).
Tyre and, to a lesser extent, brake degradation is related to the weight of the vehicle: not in a linear way, but to the square of the weight, so doubling the weight increases wear and tear four times, other things being equal. Tyres are the main source of land-based microplastics entering our oceans, where they absorb and concentrate forever chemicals discharged by our environmentally reckless water and pharmaceutical industries.
This combination is then ingested by zooplankton such as krill, which die carrying their toxic load to the ocean floor. Plankton numbers are down 50% globally since the 60s, and are continuing to decline at 1% per annum. As phytoplankton produce 50% of the world’s oxygen, this could end very badly for every oxygen breathing creature on the planet, including of course the human race.
So why don’t we all accept that SUVs are an existential threat to human existence and consign them to the rubbish heap of history?
Dr Robin Russell-Jones, Scientific Advisor All Party Parliamentary Group on Air Pollution (2017-21)
Marlow, Buckinghamshire
You argue for increased levies on large SUVs because of their detrimental effects on safety, road condition and world climate. Until recently, cars were getting smaller but they’re now, especially SUVs, increasing in size.
It’s common to see vehicles the size of small buses used to pick up the shopping or run the kids to and from school. I fully support the idea of increased levies with one caveat: remember that a minority of individuals, especially the countryside, need vehicles with decent-sized engines and proper four-wheel drive for their work, to carry or pull heavy loads, often off road.
In Cornwall, this includes people working in farming, forestry, fencing and walling, fishing and the building trade. These people don’t own large SUVs for fun. So yes, introduce higher levies to discourage ownership of large SUVs but ensure there’s a discount arrangement for provable essential owners.
The countryside is not a museum. If future legislation on SUVs is insensitively rolled out, it runs the risk of infuriating a lot of working people.
Dr S P G Perry
Penzance, Cornwall
Vain men lack appeal
I can assure impressionable males wavering towards the “masculine” ideology peddled by certain influencers that worthy women are not interested in the vainglorious, but those who are considerate, good company and willing to put themselves out (“A benign, perfectly sculpted picture of vitality… or the palatable face of toxic masculinity?”, Comment).
I find the notion of a man who enjoys constantly gawping at himself in a mirror or through a lens quite repugnant. I have no need of feckless ornaments, but could entertain pursuits that genuinely showcase virile strength – such as digging up the pendulous sedge in my garden.
Mona Sood
Southend-on-Sea, Essex
Tighten church safeguards
It would seem that Youth With a Mission, like many other Christian organisations, needs to be subjected to much tighter legal control (“Christian missionary group accused of public shaming and rituals to ‘cure’ sexual sin”, News).
What we need is legislation to compel religious bodies to pass accusations of abuse and hurt to competent, independent agencies; the Charity Commission
to withdraw Gift Aid privileges from any organisation that does not show they have satisfactory safeguarding procedures; and engagement
by the churches and others with the new discipline of trauma theology.
Sadly, there is nothing new about religious leaders acting in a hurtful and abusive manner. The basic message of the gospel – of love and charity – needs to be what people associate with Christianity if it is to have a future.
Andrew McLuskey
Ashford, Surrey
Mental health issues
I would like to thank Martha Gill for highlighting the misuse of mental health labels by the police, military and justice system to blame victims of abuse and the most vulnerable members of society (“Mental ill-health is losing its stigma, but it’s still used to blame victims of abuse”, Comment). Our family includes a former victim of domestic violence, gaslighted by accusations of mental ill-health, and a middle-aged paranoid schizophrenic, who happens to be autistic.
We talk openly and have learnt that we are one of many similar families. Over the years, relatives, friends and the wider public have become more informed and understanding, bearing out Gill’s assessment that mental ill-health is losing its stigma although not in much of the media.
Fear is fuelled by reportage of psychotic violence, undeniably terrifying, without reference to the appalling lack of mental health care and supervision.
We are often asked if we are scared of our schizophrenic loved one. When suffering from a psychotic episode, he is a danger only to himself, suicidal or terrified of being killed. He is never fully well, never complains and is acknowledged by all who know him as a kind and caring individual.
Name and address supplied
Closing the attainment gap
Kenan Malik argues that white working-class children fail to become doctors or engineers because of an attainment gap and lack of social pathways compared with white middle-class children (“The white working class is nothing like what politicians think – or claim – it is”, Comment).
I grew up with white working-class children, attended school with them and now teach them. The national curriculum provides little access to traditional working-class subjects like metalwork, woodwork, graphic design, textiles and home economics.
This has switched them off education and the few that try to become doctors or engineers are hindered by a lack of resources, support and acceptance. If we want to narrow the attainment gap we need to abolish the snobbery of academic subjects over technical subjects.
Kartar Uppal
Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands
Thoroughly modern Lady
The Lady magazine didn’t fold because it appealed to “ladies” of a bygone age (“Women’s magazines still thriving despite closure of The Lady, the ‘journal for gentlewomen’ ”, News).
It continued to be a popular magazine and was bang up to date, stylish and fun. It is the “lavender and old lace” image that is way out of date. There was a lively letters page, a topical and sometimes controversial debate, plus fashion, interviews, reviews and columns by leading writers.
As to the title, why change it to something unfamiliar? How many readers of Good Housekeeping magazine, for instance, want to be good housekeepers? As a regular contributor to The Lady for 20 years, I always made sure my column addressed current issues, not those of concern to Victorian ladies.
Liz Hodgkinson
Oxford
