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Congratulations on a resounding success
Dear Editor
A huge well done to you and your team on the Celebration of Dissent. I took along a couple of friends and met many more there.
So disappointing regarding Mark Dolan, what or who has got to GB News? I will be emailing them. Delingpole stepped in and did a great job.
I’m going to double my monthly donation, which is not a lot, but every little helps, someone once said.
Well done all.
David Ough
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Philanthropy is about making money, not giving it away
Dear Editor
Has the definition of ‘philanthropist’ changed? It used to be ‘for the welfare of others, especially by donating money to good causes’. In the past, very rich people, usually with inherited money, used to enjoy being ‘patrons’ of poor people who had talent in, say, art, gardening, literature, scientific research, simply for the reward of allowing or encouraging something worthwhile to be carried out ‘for the benefit of others’.
Since 1900 when the Rockefeller family got rich with new money and decided to rule the world, I believe the term has been degraded to have a new definition, perhaps something like ‘put your money into something which might be good, but will, at least bring you a good return financially’. Therefore, there is no valuable art (unless it has a shock response, which will arouse the critics), similarly with literature, and as for ‘scientific research’ . . .
I believe that, at present, there is NO genuine scientific research. Such activities are costly, and Governments are bankrupt. Inheritance tax has impoverished the families with ‘old money’. And the newly rich demand a return on any investment. There is no consideration for ‘welfare of others’. Any research currently being carried out is at the behest of the paymaster – and therefore is bound to be biased. This has serious implications for all academic institutions.
I have, as the Americans say, ‘skin in the game’. My son makes ‘chips’ in Silicon Valley. His firm were pursuing a really keen line of medical research to help diabetics. They were bought out by the money people who decided that the money was not going to come back fast enough. So they shut down his team and sacked him, closing down a promising lead for all Type 2s. How many other similar leads have been ‘terminated’?
Judith
N Yorks
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The value of Church literature
Dear Editor
I did appreciate Julian Mann’s article last Sunday, ‘Immortal, invisible . . . and too hard for children to sing?’
As a child in the late 40s-early 50s I was despatched every week by my parents to Sunday School (in the beautiful Pinner parish church dating from 1321). As a result I own three Bibles, each containing a certificate signed by the then vicar attesting to my diligent attendance.
Although I admit to no longer being a churchgoer, I fervently believe that the cornerstones of a nation are a common language and a common faith, in the case of the UK, Christianity.
Any cultivated Englishman must agree that both the C of E and the Catholic Church have bequeathed us a literary heritage of uncommon beauty. Julian Mann quotes one example. Despite not having attended a C of E service for decades now, the verses of a substantial chunk of the English Hymnal are etched into my brain. Even today, as I approach my 80th birthday, I find myself, in my lonelier moments, singing under my breath
Praise, my soul, the King of heaven,
to his feet thy tribute bring;
ransomed healed, restored, forgiven,
who like me his praise should sing?
Alleluia, alleluia,
praise the everlasting King.
Praise him for his grace and favour
to our fathers in distress;
praise him still the same for ever,
slow to chide and swift to bless:
Alleluia, alleluia,
glorious in his faithfulness.
Sometimes, when appropriate, I go to the Catholic liturgy for inspiration:
Libera me, Domine, de morte æterna, in die illa tremenda.
Quando cœli movendi sunt et terra.
Dum veneris iudicare sæculum per ignem.
I do hope that future generations be permitted to share this uncommonly wonderful literature.
Anthony Stone
Carlisle, Cumbria
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British Gas should follow the BBC payment model
Dear Editor
TCW readers may be aware of the British Gas scandal last week. The Times broke a story that debt collectors, working on behalf of British Gas, had broken into customers’ homes to fit prepayment energy meters. British Gas apologised as soon as they were aware: Chris O’Shea, CEO of Centrica (British Gas) stated: ‘This happened when people were acting on behalf of British Gas. There is nothing that can be said to excuse it.’ The firm will cease such installations.
The BBC covered this story with yards of disapproving coverage.
To prevent such embarrassment, and avoid future BBC criticism, Centrica must reinvent British Gas’s business model.
British Gas should simply charge every UK household £159 per year, whether they use energy from British Gas or not. Under this strategy British Gas need not install meters at homes at all! It might even be possible for British Gas to use the criminal justice system to prosecute those householders who can’t or won’t pay the £159, with jail for persistent offenders. That’s how the BBC works, anyway.
Peter Lucey
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The frontier of unfairness
Dear Editor
I’ve just read the article on David Cameron and the Same Sex Marriage Act, and how things have developed since then. I’m very pleased to see Laura Perrins making some observations that had occurred to me.
‘LGBT’ couples wanted their relationships to have the same legal standing as married couples had, for instance to have the same rights to be beneficiaries of an estate, or to be involved in decisions about a partner’s care. Civil partnerships seemed to provide that and be a satisfactory resolution of the problem.
However after a while we were told the situation was very unfair, because civil partnerships were a different kind of legal status from marriage and might be considered inferior. ‘LGBT’ couples needed to have exactly the same legal procedure as ‘straight’ couples, and the term ‘marriage’ needed to be redefined in order to bring it up to date, and take it away from the Christian understanding that was so familiar.
Therefore we had the Same Sex Marriage Act. That looked like the end of the process, as who else could want their relationships be on a legal par with conventional marriage. As Laura Perrins points out, and as I noticed at the time, even that liberalisation was not enough. Something else had to be really unfair, and suddenly (so it felt) we were told about the problems faced by transgender persons, whom I had hardly ever heard about before then.
I thought of the phrase ‘frontier of unfairness’ – whatever legislation came about, it would be followed by a new area of injustice to be addressed. What is extraordinary is the way ‘trans’ issues have caught the imagination of those who want to be in the forefront of ‘political correctness’, showing consideration for the feelings of certain groups who they think most need our sympathy.
Christopher Haines.
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Is the Covid vaccine causing CJD?
Dear Editor
Dozens of published papers have presented overwhelming evidence that a significant number of people around the world have been killed by the covid vaccine. The specific causes of death that I have seen so far in these papers are myocarditis/pericarditis, spontaneous abortion and thrombosis. Recently, another cause of death has come to my attention.
On January 12 2023 a French paper was published titled ‘Emergence of a new Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease (CJD): 26 Cases of the Human Version of Mad-Cow Disease, Days After a Covid-19 Injection’. (PDF)
It is lead-authored by Jean-Claude Perez. They looked at 26 cases of CJD, all diagnosed in 2021, with the first symptoms appearing on average 11.38 days after a Covid vaccine injection. They say this is a new form of CJD and develops much more rapidly than previous forms. By late 2021 20 of the 26 had died. By August 2022 only one was still alive.
CJD is a prion disease and it is interesting that a paper by J Bart Classen was published just after the vaccine rollout warning that the Covid vaccine may give rise to prion diseases like CJD and Alzheimer’s.
Perez et al note that previous studies suggest that possibly as few as 1 per cent of vaccine adverse events are reported. Also, the official method of diagnosing CJD is by autopsy, but this doesn’t happen in the vast majority of cases. And in Europe the best services performing autopsies have been prevented since July 2021 from analysing tissues with suspected prion disease.
Governments should declare a moratorium on the vaccine and initiate a full safety review.
Geoff Moore
Ross and Cromarty
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Tourism on a slippery slope
Dear Editor
As an expat living in Spain I was horrified to read this in the local British online newspaper.
I think this is the slippery slope we are all on now. If they get away with it, what next? We need to stop this in its tracks if we can.
Caroline Pringle
