Actually, the 50s don't sound so bad to me after all

I'll take coal fires and walking over microwaved meals and traffic jams

I wasn't there in the 50s and 60s, so I'll have to take Catherine Bennett's word for what it was like ("Nostalgic for the 50s? Let me give you a history lesson", Comment). I can't say I found her description all that frightening, though: coal fires? Walking?

Set that against more noise; log-jammed roads; out-of-town shopping; climate change; working for nothing; abortion for people who don't want baby girls; rogue nuclear states; iPods; Facebook; X Factor; microwave ready meals; fracking and hacking; jogging and dogging. Given the choice, I'd take my chances on the 1950s.

Patrick Hanley


Give the boomers a break. Surely the relevant point is that people born after postwar austerity with the benefit of increased social, educational and career prospects found they could not buy themselves happiness in the days of plenty.

Graham Dimmock



Compassion's out of fashion

I am sure that Andrew Rawnsley is correct when he says that the government has lost support over the NHS reforms but not on welfare cuts ("The Tories have lost the public on health but not on welfare reform", Comment). Surely this is evidence that the "look after number one" dogma of the Thatcher era still dominates the political agenda.

Just about all of us will need the NHS one day and, as a consequence, there is universal support for comprehensive "free" healthcare. When it comes to benefits, a minority are likely to depend on welfare to survive. Sadly, compassion and caring for the less fortunate is deeply unfashionable.

Bill Geddes


That's quite enough about you

My thanks to Yvonne Roberts for her lucid, rational critique of the "strip-down, exhibit my scars, and those of everyone else unfortunate enough to be caught in the same exposé" school of confessional journalism. She answers the justifications for the genre presented by Lucy Cavendish well ("And this time it's too personal: have the confessional writers gone too far?", In Focus).

I write health self-help books and their editors require the case history as illustration. Invariably, I anonymise them. If writers cite themselves as case histories, anonymity is for the birds and with it the anonymity of all associated with them.

What justification can there be for exposing other people just for the sake of a juicy story, especially your own children, as Julie Myerson did? A single, first-person case history is of minimal help to those suffering the same illness or experience, as Lucy Cavendish claims. Research where the experience of many is collected and analysed or case history archives such as, where individual experiences of illness or trauma are collated by professionals with the express purpose of helping other sufferers, are much more likely to help.

Yvonne speaks of "narcissism" journalism. I would call it exhibitionism. Good journalism turns the spotlight outward and illuminates the world, rather than training a microscope upon the writer's navel.

Philippa Pigache


East Sussex

Stop this secrecy over oil

Your report ("Revealed: UK leads dash for oil in war-torn African state", News) highlights the resource curse faced by so many developing countries. Discoveries of oil should be a blessing, but often secrecy surrounds payments made by companies and citizens do not benefit from the profits.

Legislation being debated in Europe could put an end to this. It would require oil, gas and mining companies to disclose the payments they make to poor countries. Big companies are lobbying hard on both sides of the Atlantic to maintain the secrecy status quo.

If the UK is serious about supporting citizens of poor but resource-rich countries to pull themselves out of poverty, ministers must stand firm. A strong transparency law would help make any "secret high-stakes dash" for oil a thing of the past.

Adrian Lovett

Europe director, ONE,

London W1

There's a lesson to learn here

Defenders of the school academy programme suggest that "comparatively poor progress should be expected in academies populated by underachieving pupils in disadvantaged areas" ("New figures cast doubt on success of academy schools", News). Yet local authority schools with the same profiles and outcomes are forced to become academies and heads are sacked because of their "failure". Or am I missing something?

Keith Stapylton



A stage we're going through

On "How British theatre, once inventive and daring, lost sight of the avant garde" (In Focus). Theatre is all about timing. We are confronted, every day, with the ugly consequences of risk. The time for "risk-taking culture" might not be right.

Maurits Kalff

London SE1

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