Rather than wasting time and money on “nudge units” to boost the take-up of heat pumps (Report, 1 January), the government just needs to order housebuilders to install them at the time of construction (ditto solar panels) – gaining cost benefits from economies of scale too. Sadly, MPs don’t seem to have any guts.
Norman Miller
Brighton, East Sussex
• Re the existential threat of nuclear war (Editorial, 27 December), have we all forgotten the acronym of the cold war era? It was Mad, short for mutual assured destruction. Can there be a more succinct argument for avoiding nuclear conflict?
Anne Maclennan
Cuguen, Brittany, France
• It beggars belief that Larry Elliott (At best, 2025 will be a year of slow economic recovery. As for the worst? Brace yourselves, 1 January) can review the UK’s economic climate in 2025 without mentioning the B-word. No, not Boris, but Brexit. To place all our woes on Covid-19 and not mention the drag-anchor effect that Brexit continues to have on our poor growth prospects is a huge sleight of hand.
Emeritus Professor David Hunter
Newcastle University
• Re Britain’s first abstract artist (Letters, 3 January), let me up the ante and point to Annie Besant and Charles Webster Leadbeater’s 1901 book Thought-Forms, which predates all your examples.
Anthony Ossa-Richardson
Associate professor in English Literature, University College London
• Máire Davies asks if AI is very scary, why do it? The simple answer is because some extremely rich and powerful men think it will make them even more rich and powerful.
Gordon Glassford
Corby, Northamptonshire
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