The killer question for Donald Trump | Letters

January 17, 2018, 10:41 am

≫ Next: Welcome return of School Prints loan scheme | Letters

≪ Previous: #MeToo isn’t enough. Now women need to get ugly | Barbara Kingsolver

Lucy Mangan’s TV review (15 January) reminded me that Lesney, makers of Matchbox toys, marketed a scale model of the coronation coach, reusing one made for the 1951 Festival of Britain. Only once production was under way did they realise that the Queen would not be accompanied by her consort. The problem was solved by sawing off part of the mould. The Duke of Edinburgh’s disembodied legs, however, remained visible. I ascertained this in person at a design exhibition in Prague, where Matchbox toys were much prized in this era as an affordable source of knowledge about western design.
Colin Munro
Glasgow

• Good to see composer Gavin Bryars in Tuesday’s Birthdays as he marks his 75th birthday. But fellow composer Brian Ferneyhough, born on the same day as Mr Bryars, was unaccountably omitted.
Robin Chapman
Exeter

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Welcome return of School Prints loan scheme | Letters

January 17, 2018, 10:43 am

≫ Next: A divided Kosovo | Letters

≪ Previous: The killer question for Donald Trump | Letters

Memories from Professor Terry Gifford of the personal picture loan service run by Sheffield City Art Galleries

It is good to see that schools in Wakefield will benefit from a renewed School Prints loan scheme from the Hepworth Wakefield (Editorial, 15 January). As a secondary school teacher in Sheffield during the 1970s and 80s our classrooms and corridors were loaned brilliant visual resources by Sheffield City Art Galleries under the directorship of the late Frank Constantine. But more remarkable was the personal picture loan service whereby, on alternate Saturday mornings, I could take my two children to the Graves Art Gallery, where they could select pictures from transparencies, have the pictures brought from the store to view and select two to hang at home. This aspect of Frank Constantine’s legacy was overlooked in his Guardian obituary in 2014. Is such a loan scheme active, or even possible, now?
Professor Terry Gifford
Wookey, Somerset

• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com

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A divided Kosovo | Letters

January 17, 2018, 10:44 am

≫ Next: The BBC isn’t the only place where male egos and pay are overblown | Letters

≪ Previous: Welcome return of School Prints loan scheme | Letters

The outlook for Kosovo looks bleak, unless its peoples are allowed to go their separate ways, writes Dr Michael Pravica

The barbaric and terrorist killing of the Kosovo Serb politician Oliver Ivanović (Report, 17 January) must be condemned at the highest levels and demonstrates that Kosovo is not ready for statehood. It also demonstrates that, despite over 10 years of trying, the chances for any true reconciliation between Kosovo’s Albanian and non-Albanian populations are next to nil as deep mistrust and enmity pervades the region. The best solution for the unstable territory is to divide the former Serbian province into north and south pieces separated by the Ibar river and allow Kosovo’s constituent peoples to separate. Otherwise, the region will be plunged yet again into war in the near future.
Dr Michael Pravica
Henderson, Nevada

• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com

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The BBC isn’t the only place where male egos and pay are overblown | Letters

January 17, 2018, 10:47 am

≫ Next: The myth of Stoke’s Tory turnaround | Letters

≪ Previous: A divided Kosovo | Letters

Male presenters at the BBC need to learn some humility, says Jane Owen,while Noël Riley highlights pay disparity in medicine. Plus letters from Pam Laurance and Jeff Wallace

Thank goodness for Libby Purves and for her analysis of the BBC’s present difficulties in assessing the pay of their male and female presenters (BBC’s male presenters are vain and greedy, 16 January). Carrie Gracie’s careful and clear explanation of her position in regard to equality in the institution (or the lack of it) was compelling. How profoundly depressing that she should then be ridiculed in a leaked exchange between the septuagenarian John Humphrys and Jon Sopel as his sycophantic sidekick.

Carrie Gracie sends wonderful reports from China to BBC news services, working across two languages to explain to us a vast and important nation that we hardly know but desperately need to understand better. Her talent for explanation and expression was easily seen in her letter to the corporation, where she emphasised her position as someone who wants equality, not more money. As Purves says, many overweening news presenters need to realise that it is the BBC itself which is the star and propels them to the top of their pay grade. They should check their male, middle-class and egoistical privilege.
Jane Owen
Petersfield, Hampshire

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The myth of Stoke’s Tory turnaround | Letters

January 17, 2018, 10:50 am

≫ Next: At the sharp end of the Carillion supply chain | Letters

≪ Previous: The BBC isn’t the only place where male egos and pay are overblown | Letters

The claim that Stoke-on-Trent is better off under the Tories is rejected by Cllr Mohammed Pervez and the Labour peer Jeremy Beecham

I think the Stoke-on-Trent South MP Jack Brereton was rather misleading in his dig at the Guardian (Letters, 15 January) for not mentioning that the recent so-called turnaround in the city was down to his Tory party locally and nationally. He neglected to mention that he was the cabinet member who oversaw deep cuts to Stoke-on-Trent’s local services, including our children’s centres, social care and homelessness support. It is the current Conservative administration that has wasted tens of millions of pounds of council reserves to the detriment of the city’s long-term financial security.

Much of what Mr Brereton cited as improvements to the city are the legacy of Labour’s actions in power, including the creation of the central business district and cultural quarter, the district heating network, the relocation of Staffordshire University and the drive for better housing and jobs in the city.

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At the sharp end of the Carillion supply chain | Letters

January 17, 2018, 10:53 am

≫ Next: Are there any fashion photographers not accused of sexual harassment?

≪ Previous: The myth of Stoke’s Tory turnaround | Letters

Readers on the fallout from the collapse of Carillion. Letters from Mary Mellor, Ian Lovegrove, Prof Joe Sim, Peter Kunzlik, Dr Valerie Lipman and Ian McIlwee

Andrew Adonis is right to see Carillion as another Lehman (Report, 17 January). In the same way as letting Lehman fail undermined the whole banking sector, the failure of Carillion will infect the whole supply chain and threaten all companies that have the same flawed model of using high levels of debt to give the illusion of profitability. Like the banks, some form of state rescue will be needed. However, the state should not repeat the error of using public money to put Humpty Dumpty back on the wall.

As Aditya Chakrabortty says (It’s time to take on the zombies, 17 January), the nonsense of neoliberalism must be challenged. Stratospheric executive pay, prioritising shareholder value and stock market froth do not reflect market efficiency. Nor are states households that must be disciplined by austerity. As I argue in my book Debt or Democracy, public money is an independent force, as the bank rescue showed. The private sector needs a vibrant public economy able to use all its powers to sustain overall economic wellbeing (wellth). The private sector is only as strong as its weakest link. When that fails, the only grownup in the room is the public economy. In the face of market failure, states need to plug the gap with surplus expenditure, that is, deficit spending, funded by quantitative easing not borrowing. When the crisis is over, if necessary, this spending can be reclaimed through taxation.
Mary Mellor
Newcastle upon Tyne

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Are there any fashion photographers not accused of sexual harassment?

January 17, 2018, 9:00 am

≫ Next: Outsourcing and the Carillion collapse – Politics Weekly podcast

≪ Previous: At the sharp end of the Carillion supply chain | Letters

The suspension of Bruce Weber and Mario Testino, along with Terry Richardson, after multiple accusations, means Vogue has to find some new snappers

Now that Mario Testino and Bruce Weber are suspended from Condé Nast following allegations of sexual exploitation, who the heck is left to take photos for Vogue?
Vanessa by email

Zac the intern using his iPhone? I jest, obviously (all Vogue interns are called things like Lady Charlotte Aristo de Money and Kate Moss’s Daughter). But it’s certainly true that the biggest photographers in the industry seem to be falling like skittles, what with Terry Richardson suspended last year, and now Weber and Testino, felled by allegations of sexual misconduct and abuse of male models and assistants. All deny the allegations, but Condé Nast, to its credit, suspended the photographers as soon as the story was published in the New York Times last weekend, suggesting reaction times have improved of late. After all, Condé Nast International didn’t drop Richardson until – hmmmm, let me check my diary – October last year, even though some of us were writing about the multiple allegations against him five years ago. I guess suspending accused molesters just wasn’t in fashion back then.

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Outsourcing and the Carillion collapse – Politics Weekly podcast

January 17, 2018, 10:02 am

≫ Next: The right has a quasi-mystical belief that the poor are inferior – sterilisation is the logical next step

≪ Previous: Are there any fashion photographers not accused of sexual harassment?

Anushka Asthana is joined by Andrew Adonis, Polly Toynbee, John Crace and Laura Parker to discuss the collapse of Carillion and the changes to Labour’s national executive committee. Plus James Murray, the deputy mayor of London, on getting to grips with the city’s housing crisis

The collapse of Carillion, one of Britain’s biggest outsourcing firms, has left thousands at risk of unemployment, roads and hospitals partially built and a pension fund half empty.

At the weekend, the company was said to be too big to fail. By Monday, it was in liquidation. So what does it say about public-private partnerships? And where does the blame lie?

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The right has a quasi-mystical belief that the poor are inferior – sterilisation is the logical next step

January 17, 2018, 8:22 am

≫ Next: Steve Bell on Theresa May and Carillion's collapse – cartoon

≪ Previous: Outsourcing and the Carillion collapse – Politics Weekly podcast

What to make of Tory vice-chair Ben Bradley’s 2012 blog calling for the unemployed to have vasectomies? Plus: Trump’s problem with bad plumbing and advice from Greater Good magazine

Eugenics gets a bad rap because of its unfortunate Nazi heritage and antiquated, confusing language – “purity”, “bloodlines” – where you can never immediately tell whether they are talking about people or horses. The more commonplace eugenicist, who merely wants poor people to stop breeding, barely gets a look in. Yet they can ascend quite high, quite fast, up the ranks of the party of government.

Ben Bradley, vice-chair of the Conservative party, fretted in 2012 that the nation was “drowning in a sea of unemployed wasters” – metaphors from the natural world (floods, seas, insects, tides, swarms) are an absolute staple of the eugenics diet, as they are for racists. It is always hard to conjure a proper, full-blooded hatred for other people on a case-by-case basis. You have to transform them into a vast force, united by a shared, destructive agenda. Conundrum: wasters, presumably, have no agenda. But tolerate enough wasting, and soon there is a sea of it.

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Steve Bell on Theresa May and Carillion's collapse – cartoon

January 17, 2018, 11:15 am

≫ Next: The Guardian view on China’s spreading influence: look in the gift horse’s mouth | Editorial

≪ Previous: The right has a quasi-mystical belief that the poor are inferior – sterilisation is the logical next step

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The Guardian view on China’s spreading influence: look in the gift horse’s mouth | Editorial

January 17, 2018, 10:20 am

≫ Next: The Guardian view on Anglo-French relations: Brexit’s entente cordiale | Editorial

≪ Previous: Steve Bell on Theresa May and Carillion's collapse – cartoon

There is growing concern about Beijing’s attempts to shape the thinking of politicians and the public overseas

The arrest of a former CIA agent this week is the stuff of a classic murky spy tale. Though he is charged with unlawfully retaining national defence information, the US reportedly suspects that he leaked the names of informants. An earlier report alleged that China imprisoned or killed multiple US sources between 2010 and 2012. Both countries have plans for tackling espionage. But analysts, intelligence agencies and politicians are now debating how to handle the subtler challenge of Chinese influence activities: a “magic weapon” neither cloak-and-dagger nor transparent.

China says it does not interfere in other countries’ domestic affairs. Yet all nations seek to sway foreign governments and citizens towards their own priorities, interests and perspectives. The question is how they do so, and how far they go. (No one should pretend that western nations always act above board.)

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The Guardian view on Anglo-French relations: Brexit’s entente cordiale | Editorial

January 17, 2018, 10:26 am

≫ Next: Does the answer to Britain’s rise in teenage killings lie in Hong Kong? | Dev Maitra

≪ Previous: The Guardian view on China’s spreading influence: look in the gift horse’s mouth | Editorial

A weakened British prime minister and a dynamic French president may not see eye to eye over everything, but they can learn from one another

The recent history of relations between British prime ministers and French presidents is characterised by a gap in affection bridged by recognition of common interest. David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher had complex, sometimes tense alliances with François Hollande, Nicolas Sarkozy, Jacques Chirac and François Mitterrand. None lost sight of the need to manage an ancient rivalry with professional cordiality. In that spirit, on the eve of a summit meeting with Theresa May, Emmanuel Macron has approved a plan for the Bayeux tapestry to be displayed in the UK. This is a demonstration of Mr Macron’s fluency in gesture, pointing to two nations’ shared cultural ancestry. But their two leaders are far from kindred spirits.

Mr Macron styles himself as a crusading pro-EU centrist – a personified antidote to the ethos of Brexit that defines Mrs May’s leadership. There are other tensions, predating the UK’s decision to quit the EU but complicated by it, notably the migration bottleneck at Calais. Mr Macron has pledged to renegotiate the Le Touquet accord that allows UK border police to operate in France. Within France his handling of asylum and immigration – with humane rhetoric undone by callousness on the ground – has dismayed his political base. The Calais border is sure come up at Thursday’s summit, with reports suggesting the UK will pay more to prevent migrants crossing the Channel. There will be a show of Anglo-French cordiality, highlighting defence and security cooperation.

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Does the answer to Britain’s rise in teenage killings lie in Hong Kong? | Dev Maitra

January 17, 2018, 1:00 am

≫ Next: Why is my baby crying? You asked Google – here’s the answer | Nell Frizzell

≪ Previous: The Guardian view on Anglo-French relations: Brexit’s entente cordiale | Editorial

For a young person trying to stay off the streets, an all-night youth club could change their life – or even save it. Hong Kong understands this

It has been reported that 2017 was the worst year for knife deaths among young people since 2002. But such is the frequency of stabbings and shootings of predominantly young males in our inner cities, these incidents often fail to make the national news, as one murder is superseded by another in quick succession, at times due to “tit-for-tat” revenge killings.

Among the factors are the lack of investment in prisons and lack of activities for prisoners, which together lead to violence, gang warfare and little rehabilitation. Many of the prisoners I have worked with feel that by the time they are “through the gate”, they are already too far gone. Their lives have often been characterised by chaos, poor treatment in the care system, substandard schooling, father absenteeism, poverty and unemployment. So the problem is clear to see, but the question remains: what are the solutions?

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Why is my baby crying? You asked Google – here’s the answer | Nell Frizzell

January 17, 2018, 12:00 am

≫ Next: Creativity can be taught to anyone. So why are we leaving it to private schools? | Rufus Norris

≪ Previous: Does the answer to Britain’s rise in teenage killings lie in Hong Kong? | Dev Maitra

Every day millions of internet users ask Google life’s most difficult questions, big and small. Our writers answer some of the commonest queries

According to paediatrician Dr Caroline Fertleman: “A perfectly healthy baby can cry up to 12 hours, pretty much non-stop.” Just let that sink in for a moment. Let that twist through your shoulder muscles like concrete, let it wind around your heart like poison ivy, let it pour across your cheeks, heave across your chest and run through your blood like lead.

The cries of a baby, specifically of your baby, can tear you limb from limb without breaking your skin. They can undo your skeleton into a pile of twigs and plunge your heart into the darkest depths of despair. But the fact is that your baby will cry. It just will. You are not a bad parent. This isn’t your fault. It’s not their fault either. But all babies cry and all parents must suffer it.

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Creativity can be taught to anyone. So why are we leaving it to private schools? | Rufus Norris

January 16, 2018, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Migration targets are a form of calculated inhumanity | Nesrine Malik

≪ Previous: Why is my baby crying? You asked Google – here’s the answer | Nell Frizzell

The UK’s creative industries are world leading. Excluding state-educated people from the arts will throw that excellence away

The myth goes that the true artist is born, mysteriously fully formed in their own exceptional talent. A second myth holds that creativity thrives in adversity; a third that creative sorts are somehow morally wayward, something to be tolerated as long as the results are diverting, but not a model for citizenship. These three combine gloriously in the icon of a lascivious and poverty-stricken Mozart, writing sonatas while still in the womb.

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Migration targets are a form of calculated inhumanity | Nesrine Malik

January 16, 2018, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: May’s Brexit pledges have turned to ashes. Was she deluded or dishonest? | Hugo Dixon

≪ Previous: Creativity can be taught to anyone. So why are we leaving it to private schools? | Rufus Norris

Unlawful detention by the Home Office has reached a new level – and it’s being done on purpose

Buried on page 89 of the Home Office’s annual accounts for 2016-2017 is a seemingly anodyne entry under “special payments”. The line details that the Home Office, in a single year, paid £1.8m in legal compensation for 32 cases of unlawful detention. More bewildering than the number is the fact that there is no further explanation in the document.

I have a long, rich history (and a still-unfolding present) with the Home Office, and am well acquainted with the dystopia in which the fate of so many people is now decided. Little surprises me any more. But the frequency and banal cruelty of unlawful detention has reached a new level of inhumanity. This isn’t incompetence or the sputtering of a system overburdened. Unlawful detention, often in poor conditions and in a vacuum of legal rights, has become the enforcement tool of a failing and punitive immigration policy. Detain first, ask questions later. These are not just mistakes: they are human rights abuses, and they are now such an integral part of the system that a home affairs select committee report said these and other errors are beginning to undermine the credibility of all immigration enforcement.

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May’s Brexit pledges have turned to ashes. Was she deluded or dishonest? | Hugo Dixon

January 17, 2018, 2:00 am

≫ Next: Britain is being stalked by a zombie elite – time to take them on | Aditya Chakrabortty

≪ Previous: Migration targets are a form of calculated inhumanity | Nesrine Malik

There was no plan behind the promises she made at Lancaster House a year ago – yet the prime minister still triggered article 50. Now we deserve some realism

One of the unanswered questions about the Brexit talks is whether Theresa May is deluded, dishonest or both.

Exactly one year ago, the prime minister stood in Lancaster House and gave a speech setting out her Brexit plan. Following an embarrassing series of flip-flops, it now reads like a long list of broken promises and empty threats.

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Britain is being stalked by a zombie elite – time to take them on | Aditya Chakrabortty

January 16, 2018, 9:38 pm

≫ Next: London’s museums should send more of their treasures north | Ian Blatchford

≪ Previous: May’s Brexit pledges have turned to ashes. Was she deluded or dishonest? | Hugo Dixon

What to do when our economy benefits only the few, but politicians seem powerless to change it? This new series, called the Alternatives, follows communities who are working out their own answers

This is the age of the zombie. The undead maraud around our popular culture. Stick on the telly, and they’re attacking Jon Snow in Game of Thrones. At the cinema, reanimated carcasses lurch through everything from Resident Evil to World War Z. The headlines might burst with blundering boastful strongmen, but our nightmares are full of blank-eyed walking corpses.

Unthinking, unquestioning, neither alive nor dead, the zombie is horrific. It is also us.

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London’s museums should send more of their treasures north | Ian Blatchford

January 17, 2018, 4:59 am

≫ Next: Neither the girthers nor a white knight will eject Trump. It’s down to democracy | Jonathan Freedland

≪ Previous: Britain is being stalked by a zombie elite – time to take them on | Aditya Chakrabortty

Stephenson’s Rocket and Tim Peake’s spacecraft are blasting out of the cultural comfort zone to inspire people all over the UK – and more should follow

• Ian Blatchford is director of the Science Museum Group

Without culture, Albert Camus wrote, society “is but a jungle”. As we navigate the tangle of issues that have grown around Donald Trump and Brexit we need culture’s ability to bring us together, but we should also be alive to the reality that it can be divisive: perceived as elitist, or resented as London-centric.

The UK museum world has long been a quietly successful exemplar of cultural collaboration – loaning thousands of objects and sharing major exhibitions every year. But it is rarer to see the nation’s most prized objects on the road. Last year the Bowes Museum in County Durham lent its star attraction, the Silver Swan of 1773, to the Science Museum in London – an act of great generosity, but also a reminder that national collections belong to the whole country and should have several “good” homes.

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Neither the girthers nor a white knight will eject Trump. It’s down to democracy | Jonathan Freedland

January 17, 2018, 3:56 am

≫ Next: The IMF has choked Tunisia. No wonder the people are protesting | Jihen Chandoul

≪ Previous: London’s museums should send more of their treasures north | Ian Blatchford

Online conspiracy theorists may question Trump’s doctor’s pronouncement that the president is fit for office. But Congress is the only route to end this nightmare

Behold, the girther movement. Like those “birthers” who followed Donald Trump’s lead in denying that Barack Obama was born in the United States, the girthers refuse to believe the official account – in this case, the readout supplied by the White House doctor on Tuesday who declared, following his first such examination of Trump, that the president weighs in at 239 pounds.

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