Letters to the editor

PFI is working
Nick Cohen is right when he says PFI is complicated (Comment, last week). One reason for choosing this method of public finance is that the risk of overrun on time or money is transferred to the private sector. A report by the National Audit Office showed that before PFI, more than 70 per cent of public construction projects were late and over budget. Now, more than 75 per cent are on time and within budget. Compare this to the non-PFI Scottish parliament building, which is now 10 times over budget.

In PFI schools and hospitals, the public sector has tough remedies if services fall below standard - reducing or withholding payment or removing non-performing service providers.

PFI is delivering public services, reducing the cost of public service provision to the taxpayer, improving public sector infrastructure and facilitating the biggest investment in public services this country has ever seen: 500 new schools, more than 60 hospitals so far.
Lindsay Grist
Director, PPP Forum, London EC4

Whose Who?
Like Akin Ojumu (Review, last week), I attended The Who's return at The Forum. Unlike Ojumu I witnessed a triumphant homecoming to a sold-out audience of all ages at an intimate venue, and the world premiere of two terrific new songs.
Paul Lazarus
Ipswich, Suffolk

Town crying
Cristina Odone thinks countrysiders enjoy great PR (Comment, last week), but clearly not from her. However, this bumpkin is astounded that in urban areas everyone is nice and nobody gets drunk, shouts abuse or urinates in the street. City dwellers scorn fashion trends and home décor? How refreshing.

Is it true that no one blocks bus lanes, leaving a mounting queue of traffic behind them? And no one protests or complains in these zones of harmony?
David Fursdon, Deputy president, Country Land and Business Association (CLA), London SW1

Cristina Odone is an anagram of consideration. I just don't believe it.
Mike Ashton
Carnforth, Lancs

Husband houses
The principle of giving gay partners the same rights as those of heterosexuals is welcome and overdue (News, last week). However, would it not make more sense to abolish all property inheritance tax exemptions, regardless of sexual orientation? Not only would this be a valuable source of income for the Treasury, it would also mean that many of our large family houses currenty inhabited by one person would be put back on the market for families to buy. Houses would also be more affordable, and the need for building on green-field sites reduced.
Robert Saunders
West Sussex

Slaves laboured
Your article on American slave descendants preparing to sue Lloyds for compensation (News, last week) reminded me of a series of paintings done by J.M.W. Turner around 1840 showing black slaves being dumped into the ocean by slave ships being caught up in stormy weather en route to the Americas. Turner did these paintings after reading T. Clarkson's History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Turner was impressed by the story of the slave ship Zong in which the captain ordered all sick and dying slaves to be dumped overboard during an epidemic on the ship. The captain could only claim insurance if the slaves were lost at sea.
Alan Drewett
Cambridge

Israel's war
Avi Shlaim arranges facts to suit his argument (Focus, last week). He claims Israel's internal security services' chief opposed Sheikh Ahmad Yassin's elimination. In fact, he supported an all-out campaign against all levels of Hamas leadership, not just Yassin. He extols the pragmatic nature of Hamas, when the Gazan Hamas is much more militant than its West Bank counterpart, also due to its links to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

He claims the elimination of Yassin was a dangerous escalation bound to kill the peace process, when the peace process has been dead for the last three and a half years. And he ignores the Palestinian terror attack on the Ashdod port 10 days before Israel's operation against Yassin: that attack was meant to target a toxic waste deposit. Had it succeeded it would have killed hundreds, if not more.

As an indication of Hamas's pragmatism, Shlaim refers to self-imposed ceasefires, ignoring that recent times of quiet are more due to Israel's effectiveness in thwarting attacks: since April 2002 the number of attempted attacks have risen steeply, but the number of successful outrages has declined.

Shlaim is entitled to lay the blame at Israel's door. But it should not be based on discarding, ignoring or downplaying evidence to the contrary.
Dr Emanuele Ottolenghi
The Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Oxford University

Asylum flaws
Anushka Asthana's excellently researched piece (News, last week) showed how the highly charged media representation of asylum-seekers and refugees has undermined public understanding of the reasons why people leave their country.

Communities - from schools right through to local authorities - need to be encouraged to develop a more realistic understanding of asylum matters. Forced dispersal to areas that are ill-prepared to provide appropriate support has prompted, in some instances, hostile behaviour, racial tension and social unrest.

Where dispersal has been made to work through effective leadership and investment, it is more cost effective than centres for asylum-seekers, which are already generating hostility from nearby communities.

Supporting asylum-seekers in the community - rather than accommodating them in centres - should be the objective of the Government's asylum accommodation policy.

With regard to dispersal, asylum-seekers should have more choice over where they are accommodated.
Dr Kailash Chand
Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancs

Anushka Asthana's special investigation into asylum-seekers and the three case studies by Stella White showed the whole spectrum of the reasons people are driven to leave their homes and come here.

There is so little understanding and so much vilification that I despair of policy makers giving people the consideration humanity cries out for. This was ground-breaking journalism. I hope it is noticed by the policy makers.
Patrick McCabe,Maidstone, Kent

Fat cats taxed
There is a simple way to curb 'fat cat' pay (Leader, last week). It is called 'tax'.
Philip Adams
London N7