Letters: Theresa May must not give in to the EU's arbitrary financial demands

Theresa May holds a press conference in Brussels
Theresa May holds a press conference in Brussels Credit: dan kitwood/getty images

SIR – You report that Emmanuel Macron has dismissed Theresa May’s offer of a €20 billion Brexit bill, and that Mrs May has not ruled out paying €60 billion.

Mrs May must not commit any of our money to the EU until we have seen an itemised bill. We should pay what we owe, but we shouldn’t casually give away money that could be spent on hospitals, education, care and defence. A hard bargainer is always respected – an appeaser never.

Brian Farmer
Chelmsford, Essex

 

SIR – Charles De Gaulle did not want us in and made it very difficult; now Mr Macron does not want us out.

Can one ever trust the French?

Desmond Mulvany
Shepperton, Middlesex

SIR – It’s clear that Germany and France are terrified by the prospect of “no deal”: it means they will have to stump up the funding gap for the other 25 EU members. What they know, however, is that if there is no deal then Britain can fall back on World Trade Organisation terms.

This puts us in a much stronger negotiating position than many people seem to appreciate. It also explains why the bloc wants the money aspect fixed first. We should not fall for that.

Lord Balfour
Arundel, West Sussex

 

SIR – You suggest that the threat of Boris Johnson as prime minister has both incensed EU politicians and persuaded them to negotiate, for fear that Mrs May can make no further concessions without losing her position. This is good news.

The EU may be realising that its behaviour with David Cameron caused Brexit and cost him his job. I welcome this first attempt at negotiation.

Tim Major
Haywards Heath, West Sussex

SIR – The EU has thrown Mrs May a few crumbs of comfort – not in an attempt to help negotiations but to extend the runaround period, with the bonus of creating an opportunity to accuse Britain of being unreasonable.

Simon Warde
Bognor Regis, West Sussex

 

SIR – The EU negotiators have managed a brilliant campaign.

At the start, they set the agenda. To speed up the process, we accepted their timetable. Throughout, we have desperately sought a breakthrough, culminating in poor Mrs May pleading for something she can put to her electorate. Now she is about to collapse, they have acknowledged some progress, but not quite enough: we just need to make a few more concessions before trade talks begin.

The EU needs Mrs May to survive the process, as her likely replacement could be a real negotiator who appreciates our strength. Now is the time to thank her for her contribution so she can retire. The alternative is too horrible to contemplate.

Peter Edwards
Lichfield, Staffordshire

 

Illogical visa rules

SIR – Following his letter (October 19) about his American wife’s difficulty in obtaining a UK visa, Commander Simon Rawlins will now be joined by her in Britain.

My brother’s Ugandan wife was refused an ordinary visitor’s visa to Britain earlier this year to attend her graduation ceremony and to help care for our ailing 91-year-old mother.

A Home Office official in Pretoria is apparently not convinced that she will return home to Uganda, where they both live. This is despite the fact that she was granted a student visa in 2016 to study for a masters (and returned home), and also that the Home Office had no objection to them getting married in Britain last year.

My brother has lived in Africa for over 30 years and, with his wife, is building a house in Entebbe. The Home Office’s excessive zeal to cut immigration sadly means that reasonable requests are being rejected for increasingly dubious reasons.

Jeremy Gould
Poleymieux-au-Mont-d’Or, France

 

SIR – As a former naval officer, I rejoice that Commander Rawlins and his wife have been reunited. This matter would not have been resolved so swiftly without the intervention of The Daily Telegraph. Let us also rejoice that we still have a free press: one of our great safeguards against injustice.

Michael Brotherton
Chippenham, Wiltshire

 

How the politics of peace can triumph in Syria

SIR – Local communities and civil society groups need to be recognised for the vital role they play in rebuilding society and preventing further conflict in Syria.

Following the occupation by forces of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, people are deeply traumatised and society is riven with suspicions. Peacebuilding efforts led by local people – and supported through international funding – are the only way to ensure that peace will have a chance of succeeding.

Yet without addressing the political situation at its core, the conflict will rumble on and millions of families will continue to face a daily struggle to survive.

Anne Street
Head of Humanitarian Policy, Cafod
London SE1

 

Graduate jobs

SIR – Your report, “Student social mobility on the rise”, quotes “experts” who “argue that there are now too many graduates, leading to a saturation in the jobs market and growing numbers being forced to take roles they are overqualified for”.

If this were true, one would expect the graduate earnings premium – the average cumulative additional earnings that graduates enjoy, compared with someone who has two A-levels – to have fallen. It hasn’t: it has remained stable at £100,000.

The idea that there is a fixed number of graduate-level jobs doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. The UK Commission for Employment and Skills estimates that, between 2012 and 2022, the number of jobs in Britain will grow by 14.3 million, and more than half will be graduate-level. We can see evidence of this trend in the proportions of graduates moving into graduate-level jobs. Data from this year show that, for 2015/16 graduates, 71 per cent of those employed were in graduate-level work after six months. For 2012/13, graduates, 84 per cent of those in work were in professional employment three and a half years after graduation.

In order to compete economically we need more graduates, not fewer. Some of our competitors send 70‑80 per cent of young people to university, and they reap the benefits.

Bill Rammell
Vice Chancellor, University of Bedfordshire

 

Universal Credit

SIR – Fraser Nelson is right to highlight the moral case for Universal Credit. As I said in my party conference speech earlier this month, its aim is to help get anyone who can work get back into work, so they can reach their potential. The programme is succeeding in doing that – people are more likely to be in work, and to progress, than they were under the old system.

Yet there are misunderstandings about Universal Credit that need to be clarified, and none more so than the payment structure and the built-in safeguards in the programme.

Since its inception, Universal Credit has been based on monthly payments paid in arrears, as is the case with most people in work. The first payment has always been paid after a claimant’s income has been assessed over a month, plus some days for processing. It is true that some claimants have to wait seven days before they are eligible for Universal Credit, but this requirement does not apply to people who were on benefits before or other groups of more vulnerable people.

But no one who needs money during that five- or six-week wait has to actually wait, because they can get an advance payment upfront. That can be as much as 50 per cent of the first payment and is paid back over six months. For people who are changing to Universal Credit from the old system, it is paid back over 12 months.

When this expansion is complete, we expect 250,000 more people to be in work. That is a prize worth pursuing.

David Gauke MP (Con)
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
London SW1

 

Telewag trivia

SIR – In a letter featured in Did Anyone Else See That Coming ... ?, the latest collection of hitherto unpublished letters to The Telegraph, Richard Davies wonders why the paper was referred to by his late father, a veteran of the First World War, as The Telewag.

Before radio communication became the norm among fighting services, communication on land and at sea was by flag – initially using the semaphore alphabet and two flags; and, later, by Morse code using one. The dexterous communicators were called flag-waggers or wig-waggers. (In the Navy, they were bunting-tossers.)

There was even a chain of permanent wooden semaphore or telegraph towers between Portsmouth and the Admiralty in London at the time of the Battle of Trafalgar.

It is possible that, since The Telegraph was, like the optical telegraph before it, a sought-after means of exchanging news, those who benefited called it The Telewag.

Peter Collett
Chichester, West Sussex

 

The best way to banish dirt from your bath

Japanese macaques enjoy an onsen at a monkey park in Nagano Prefecture 
Deep clean: Japanese macaques enjoy an onsen at a monkey park in Nagano Prefecture  Credit: kazuhiro nogi/afp/getty images

SIR – Barbara Southward (Letters, October 20) may dislike baths, but they are no reason for “soaking in one’s own dirt”.

She could shower before bathing. A treat that I enjoyed on several visits to Japan was its onsen (extremely hot baths). Pre-bath showering was rigidly enforced.

I can testify to the relaxing effect on both mind and muscles.

Frank Wilkinson
Bolton, Lancashire

 

SIR – Hannah Betts’s article about early-morning baths reminded me of when my husband and I worked.

Before leaving at 6am, he would turn on the taps of the bath. I was then forced to get up to turn the taps off, slide into the bath and relax again. It is the perfect way to start the day for those of us who wake up slowly.

Jenny Tarrant
Winkfield, Berkshire

 

SIR – What a relief that I should no longer feel guilty about my lifetime habit of long morning soaks.

Apart from their relaxing aspect, I find that they are an invaluable way to plan the day ahead and go over the previous day’s events.

Doona Turner
Horsham, West Sussex

 

SIR – Professor Norman Morris, who taught obstetrics and gynaecology at Charing Cross Hospital Medical School, used to say: “Bath water is a dilute solution of faeces.”

Pamela Taor
Harrow on the Hill, Middlesex

 

SIR – It’s all very well for Hannah Betts (and Tim Loughton MP), but the time will surely come – as it has to many of us over 70 – when there’s no longer a choice. A bath is almost impossible to get into and completely impossible to get out of.

Bruce Parker
Appleshaw, Hampshire

 

Magical manners

SIR – Reading about Michael Deacon’s attempts to teach his young son manners, I was reminded of when, many years ago, my young son was given a present and I told him to “say the magic word”.

His response was to say proudly: “Abracadabra”.

Barbara Taylor
Alfrick, Worcestershire

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