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We fight for security and pensions | Letters


Philip Inman gave a misleading account of the University and College Union’s campaigns to defend university pensions and fight for job security and a manageable workload (“Academics are fighting the wrong battle over pensions”, Business). It is not correct to suggest that we are focusing on the fight to save our pension scheme at the expense of seeking better working conditions and more secure contracts for university staff, especially junior staff. In fact, UCU and its predecessor unions have campaigned against the casualisation of higher education for more than three decades. We are running an industrial ballot covering this very issue as well as the work overload that so many university staff endure. One of our central demands is for the reduction in zero-hours contracts which Inman says the union should be asking for.

On pensions, Inman claims that UCU is dissenting from an industry orthodoxy that guaranteed, defined benefit pensions are not sustainable. In fact, our concerns about the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) valuation process were corroborated by an independent panel of seven pensions experts, which found that USS could be funded with a much lower level of contributions than that previously proposed by USS itself. We remain convinced that support for defined benefits from employers is a question of priorities rather than practicality. A decent pension in retirement should be the right of every worker, not just those represented by UCU.

Finally, Inman attributes UCU’s actions to me, the general secretary. To be clear, our decisions about campaigns are made by our members and their elected representatives. Our members value their pensions and are prepared to defend them, but we will stand up just as strongly for those in the sector who are overworked or victims of an employment model built on insecure work.
Jo Grady, UCU general secretary
London NW1

Give Locke a break

I was taken aback by David Beake’s onslaught on a hero of mine, John Locke (“Two philosophers but only one hero”, Letters). The butt of the attack was Locke’s writing in The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina on slavery. I share the view of Locke’s biographer, Maurice Cranston, who reminds us that Locke’s role was secretary to the Lords Proprietors Committee on the proper governance of the new colony, Carolina. The copy left to us is, naturally, in Locke’s hand.

But it was Locke’s intimate friend and mentor in political affairs, the Earl of Shaftesbury, who set up the committee and appointed him as its secretary. Locke might well have been under pressure to come up with the conclusion Shaftesbury desired. Commercial interests were certainly involved.

Still, I have to remind myself of Locke’s principle of charity: “It would become us to be charitable one to another in our Interpretations or Misunderstandings… in cases of Religion, Law, and Morality.”
Terence Moore
Cambridge

A question of thought

I greatly enjoyed your feature on Question Time (“As it hits 40, does Question Time need some new answers?”, New Review) and was delighted that you made reference to the short-lived period when “Schools Question Time Challenge” was a feature of the programme. Schools competed nationally to win a competition to assist in the production of the final episode and students at Whitby community college were successful for three consecutive years. I think that the concept was very much David Dimbleby’s and he was completely engaged in working alongside the students who represented the winning schools.

I remember on one occasion arriving at the pre-recording meeting at the Lowry, Manchester, looking for my students, and then realising that one was sitting at a table with him, deeply engrossed in a conversation about the nature of the programme under preparation. He was a genuine supporter of young people developing their citizenship skills through this competition.
Ian Ferguson
Thornton Dale, Pickering
North Yorkshire

Let sleeping snails lie

In an otherwise excellent paper, the article about Tiffany Francis-Baker, artist and poet, pictured squatting among the bracken with a dog, was a dagger to my heart (“A six-month search for inspiration in the trees”, News). The message was that human and canine access to and use of woodland is somehow compatible with the welfare of wildlife. The Heritage Lottery Fund is at this nonsense and now we see the Forestry Commission needs some populist love too – with a “writer in residence”.

If people wish to imbibe nature, they should let mould and moss and weeds overgrow their lawns and drives, learn to love our beautiful weeds and let snails and slugs slither freely on their slimy way.
Martin Ward
Scole, Diss, Norfolk

Of boyfriends and windbags

Nick Cohen (“To see how extremism has taken root in Britain, just look at Islington”, Comment) provides a useful analysis of just the kind of incorrigible poseur who once stole Harriet Sherwood’s heart (“How did my far left ex-boyfriend swing so far that he’s now in Farage’s party?”, Focus).

To me, Alaric Bamping is a narcissistic attention-seeker whose “look how unorthodox I am” shtick keeps him permanently on the outside pissing in. One is reminded of Tony Hancock in one of his windbaggier moments. Unfortunately, these professional contrarians are hogging more and more media time at the expense of more moderate voices.
Jim Trimmer
Kingston upon Thames

Has Swinson gone too far?

I read Andrew Rawnsley’s column with interest and he will now know that Jo Swinson’s gamble of revoking article 50 on day one received a resounding thumbs-up from the party faithful (“Against very familiar rivals, Jo Swinson will be the wild card of the election”, Comment). But like many others, including Norman Lamb, I am decidedly uneasy about this pledge and she may be going for broke in a kamikaze fashion.

It appears autocratic and undemocratic and goes against the Lib Dems’ fair-minded ethos. I appreciate that, as a new leader, she wants to appear strong and unambiguous about this divisive issue and her desire to be prime minister by the end of the year is perhaps more of a dream sequence than reality. Yes, as Rawnsley states, she will be a wild card for this election, but for the party to “go rogue” at this stage might alienate sympathisers of their core, democratic beliefs, who always felt that they were the moderate and ethical players on the political scene and may now render many floating voters politically homeless.
Judith A Daniels
Great Yarmouth, Norfolk

A taste of old China

Reading Observer Food Monthly just before Sunday lunch with a glass of chilled white rioja is a favourite monthly ritual. But I must take issue with the article on Chinese food and cooking in Britain (“The UK’s Chinese food revolution”). No recognition of Chinese regional cuisines in pre-2000 Britain? A shortage of Cantonese chefs and cooking in today’s Britain?

Fuchsia Dunlop ignores such a classic and beautiful offering as Margaret Leeming and May Huang Man-hui’s Chinese Regional Cooking (1983), in which recipes are offered from all over China, 30 pages from the south-west alone. North Chinese cuisine was widely renowned in the 1980s in Britain, even “up north” in the Leeds Chinese community. As for southern cooking, the existence of thousands of Cantonese-led family-owned restaurants across Britain should remind her that this culinary tradition lives on strongly.
Michael R Leeder
Brooke, Norwich



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