From Mr David Guinness Sir: Tony Blair should tread warily over the railway sell-off Privatisation schemes

From Mr David Guinness

Sir: Tony Blair should tread warily over the railway sell-off Privatisation schemes have a hidden purpose. On the contrary, Yigal Amir is a religious Jew who says he acted on the orders of God; whereas Yitzhak Rabin, like Theodore Herzl himself, was a secular Jew who had no religion. Anyway, there are plenty of murders in Jewish scripture and Jewish history.
Yours faithfully,Arthur FreemanLondon, E16 November. From Mr Arthur Freeman

Sir: Deborah Pritchett and Jonathan Regal, writing about the assassination of the Prime Minister of Israel (Letters, 6 November), claim that a Jew who acts against his own laws in this way must be “a Jew who has no religion”. By contrast, politicians have fallen 18 per cent to 14 per cent, but then judges had further to fall. In percentage terms, there has been a 12 per cent drop in trust in judges while politicians generally have fallen 22 per cent.But then, journalists have taken the biggest fall of all, some 47 per cent. Nineteen per cent of the public trusted journalists to tell the truth in 1983 but it was only 10 per cent in our most recent measure.Respectfully,Robert WorcesterChairmanMORI: Market & OpinionResearch InternationalLondon, SW16 November.

Worcester

Sir: Stephen Ward’s interesting “Judges vs the Government” (News Analysis, 3 November) cites judges against politicians on seven criteria: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. His conclusion is that judges score 38 (out of 70!) against politicians’ 30, but the public see it somewhat differently.
When asked how the two sides compare on veracity, telling us whether they generally trust them to tell the truth or not, we find judges six times more trusted than government ministers, 68 per cent to 11 per cent, and five times more trusted than politicians generally (14 per cent).In comparing trust in them over the decade, judges have tumbled nine points, from 77 per cent in 1983 to 68 per cent last year in a MORI survey for the Times. From Mr Robert M. The Bill then had an unopposed report and third reading, and today returns, vastly improved, to the House of Commons, exactly 15 days after it reached the Lords.Again the Lords has demonstrated that common sense and a desire to reach consensus serve animal welfare infinitely better than Mr Morley’s high- handed and aggressive tactics.Yours sincerely,MancroftHouse of LordsLondon, SW13 November. Having languished in the House of Commons for almost four months, while neither John McFall, the Bill’s sponsor, nor Elliot Morley himself made any attempt to reach agreement with the Bill’s opponents, changes were finally agreed in the last 48 hours before the Bill went into committee, without the benefit of legal advice, in a haphazard and unsatisfactory way.Thus when the Bill arrived in the House of Lords, although it received unanimous support in principle, all those who spoke, including the Bill’s sponsor, Lady Nicol, and Labour’s front-bench spokesperson, Lady Mallalieu, agreed that it would need substantial amendment in order to render it remotely workable.Amendments were consequently agreed by all parties concerned, which were passed unanimously at committee stage. From Lord Mancroft

Sir: In his letter of 3 November, Elliot Morley’s contributions to the hunting debate are so facile and transparent that they only invite questions as to his suitability to be Labour’s spokesperson on animal welfare, an area of policy where a serious approach and the search for consensus brings immediate benefits, but where controversy and conceit have no place.
However, his comments relating to the Wild Mammals (Protection) Bill need answering.

You cannot, nor should you wish to, put a price on spirituality. Stonehenge was designed as a meeting place for like-minded people at the four calendar events, a great seasonal clock and a place to celebrate the changes in the year.We should not look to Stonehenge and think we can make it more attractive so that we can make more money out of it, but we should think how it could enrich our lives spiritually.Once we have done this we will see what is best for the stones, and be able to continue in the spirit of those who first conceived of and erected them.As someone who cares about spirituality, I am obviously disheartened at any proposals that put profit above sacred and religious observances.The writer is the Honoured Pendragon of the Glastonbury Order of Druids and the Official Swordbearer of the Secular Order of Druids.. A far more natural environment would be to return it to the people, which works so well at nearby Avebury.Stonehenge is still regarded by people of many different faiths as a place of worship and of spirit. Many people will remember when Stonehenge meant little more than a few ancient stones standing in the middle of Salisbury plain. It should have been left like that.In recent times it has changed from a place of spirit to a place of confrontation over freedom of access for religious observances at the solstices and equinoxes.While so much has been said about returning Stonehenge to its natural environment, I see nothing natural about franchising out catering to multinational hamburger companies or tunnelling under the stones Nor is it natural to surround it with fences and security. The need for a visitors’ centre has been brought about in recent times by the way English Heritage has marketed it so aggressively both at home and abroad. The fact that it is still a place of reverence to certain beliefs shows an unequalled continuity of faith in what was once and still could be the Isle of the Mighty.
Stonehenge was never a centre of commerce but of spirituality.

The logistics of such an operation, transporting the stones over such great distances through the many domains of different tribal chieftains and peoples, would have needed enormous diplomatic skills and co-operation. Scholars will argue over who built it and when, whether it was the proto- Druids or members of a very different faith, but one thing remains certain – it was people of great faith who erected the mighty stones. With English Heritage doing all it can to turn Stonehenge into a third-rate theme park with a visitors’ centre, cafe and all the other franchises and marketing practices that this entails, perhaps it is time to return to the true spirit of the place. Meanwhile, on the home front, it looks as if the newspapers have found another loophole in their own industry’s code of practice..

The exchange of information between police officers and newspaper reporters is part of the way both trades work. No one who knows either world doubts that in some instances, money changes hands.There is no evidence that this is what happened in the Somerville case, but the circumstances suggest that the Metropolitan Police should not be satisfied with a cursory denial. It is a disciplinary offence for police officers to “without proper authority communicate to any person any information which he has in his possession as a member of the police force”. It is up to the Met to eliminate their own officers from the inquiry in a more convincing style.Only by cracking down and making it clear that such breaches of discipline are not to be tolerated will the police reassure us that this will not happen again. But identifying the child in this case was not illegal, although the Press Complaints Commission code of practice forbids the identification of anyone below the age of 16 in cases involving sex.This is not the first time that the prime suspects for informing the press have been police officers. The matter would be beyond argument if photographs suggested evidence of a murder.