Readers' letters - January 2

Apparently Victoria Beckham will be awarded an OBE. True, she is famous and famous people get awards, the more famous they are, the bigger the award – that is why Rod Stewart is now Sir Rod thanks to being born with a fine singing voice and becoming famous.

Do these celebrities not get enough recognition and riches for doing their job?

However, I am genuinely pleased for all those ordinary people who are awarded for going the extra mile for others, whether fundraising or volunteering, especially when these people are not well off themselves.

These people justly deserve their honour.

But giving honours to political cronies and celebrities devalues the system and is an insult to those who deserve such rewards. I guess if we take ‘Sir Philip Green’ as an example then maybe it is time to say goodbye to the honours system. Or at the very least, give it a complete overhaul, why not make it deserving candidates only?

Jane

via email

conflict

Another 
Cold War?

How many readers saw “The Coming War on China” the other week on TV? (one of the most interesting and frightening films).

The first part shows how the US forcibly removed the inhabitants of Bikini Island in the Pacific Marshall Islands, who were then used as human guinea pigs in hundreds of nuclear experiments on Bikini.

Shown next was the growth of China over many decades and the demonisation of the Chinese.

Clearly the US was not, and is not, prepared to share world power and has spent many trillions on building hundreds of nuclear armed bases all around the Pacific and right up to China’s borders.

The comments of both US and Chinese officials were most revealing.

I feel we are in another cold war and am reminded of the terror of the Cuban missile crisis, when we were so very nearly obliterated by nuclear war.

How many here and in the US realise what our Governments are up to?

At the United Nations recently, 123 countries voted for negotiations on a global nuclear ban, to begin in

2017. The US and Britain would not sign.

Philippa Lloyd

Address supplied

current affairs

Horrible not surreal year

Well, what a year.

Apparently, the most commonly used word in one survey is “surreal”. I can think of other words to describe 2016. Trump. Brexit and its attendant nastiness by certain groups. Terrorist attacks in Europe. The continued lack of interest in certain sections of the media regarding Aleppo whilst printing lies about migrants.

At home, the continued destruction by stealth of the NHS, the continued bullying of vulnerable people, the political hypocrisy.

The deaths of so many musicians of whom Bowie, Prince and Cohen were most covered by the media. Surreal is not the word, horrible is a better word.

T Maunder

Address supplied

MONEY

Let’s have

a 99p coin

Is it not about time the Royal Mint considered producing and circulating coins valued at 99p?

Mr Ruthven Urquhart

Address supplied