Lina Khatib was right to draw attention to the pivotal role that Russia could play in ending the Syrian war (“It was right to strike, but only bringing Russia to the table can end the conflict”, Comment). But to influence Russia may require a very different approach from the west and a better understanding of what drives Russia to act in the way it does.

While in no way wishing to defend or excuse the Russian support for Assad, it is perhaps understandable why Russia, a proud but economically weak country (GDP similar to Italy), should use every means to reassert its position as a “great power” capable of influencing the course of history in the 21st century. Is it unreasonable for Russia to want to maintain its naval base in Syria when the UK has a military airfield in Cyprus and France stations its warplanes in Jordan?

In a recent tweet, Donald Trump said the US would be prepared to help Russia to restore its economy. If America and the west could go further and assure President Putin that they genuinely pose no threat to Russia it might be the first step to bringing Russia back into greater cooperation in global issues. To seek a genuine rapprochement with Russia would require a statesman or woman with both vision and courage, but if we want to avoid the worsening of relations over issues such as Syria, someone has to do it.



Mick Penney

Dronfield, Derbyshire

Technology trumps all



John Naughton is right that dubious social media activity wasn’t the only factor in the Brexit and Trump election results (“Why we should stop panicking about robots stealing our jobs”, The Networker, New Review). Inequality and austerity were big drivers. But was it so “implausible that the technology was the key element”?

It depends what you mean by “key”. In each case, the winner just managed to get their nose in front – Trump didn’t even secure a majority of the votes. It’s in just such circumstances, where the result is extremely close but the winner takes all, that stratagems like those that were used can be so effective. From what we know now, thanks in large part to the Observer, it seems entirely plausible that, to adapt the now legendary Sun headline, “It’s Cambridge Analytica wot won it”.

Ron Glatter

Hemel Hempstead, Herts

Memories of cardboard city



Your archive photo brought back memories of my time with the City of London cleansing department during the hot summer of 1989 (“The cardboard city they called home”, Comment, last week). It was shortly before the service was privatised. I had recently finished college and was saving to go travelling. The job was basically sweeping the streets at night and was a real insight into how people lived on the streets.

The culture was very much Thatcherism, upward mobility and the accumulation of wealth by “yuppies”. What an eye-opener to go down into a subway to be confronted by 20 people lying on cardboard with an old blanket or sleeping bag. We would have to wake them and ask them to clear all their possessions before another team came to hose the area down. This happened nightly. I don’t remember anyone moaning at us too much; they would be lying back down on the floor of the subway still soaking.

Even sadder is the fact that today the situation seems just as bad. How can a country of our wealth accept this? There seems so little will to improve the lot of homeless people that I doubt anything will have changed in another 30 years’ time.



Bruce Wells

Haywards Heath, West Sussex

A good use for £1bn



I have a suggestion on how to deploy the unspent £1bn allocated to the failing National Citizen Service holiday programmes (‘‘Financial doubts over ‘big society’ flagship scheme’’, News). Allocate it to the country’s underfunded local youth work services, decimated since 2010. These could then provide young people with the facilities they routinely seek all year round: somewhere to meet, something interesting to do and a skilled adult to talk to about their hopes and fears.

Tom Wylie

Oxford

Powell has a lot to answer for



Michael Savage’s article (“Rivers of blood? The school that fought back against the rhetoric of Enoch Powell”, special report, last week) certainly resonated with me. In 1968, I was a trainee social worker in Sheffield, working among West Indian immigrants. One couple I was involved with had recently arrived from Grenada with their four children; I was helping them to settle into their strange new country. A fifth child was on the way.

A day after Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech, I called to see them. They had read the speech in the papers and listened to it on the radio. I can see now in my mind’s eye the look of bewilderment and hurt in their eyes. They had genuinely believed they were wanted in Britain and had been encouraged to leave their native island by the British government.

For the past half century, I have lived in rural Cumbria where there is only a small minority of people of colour. I firmly believe that prejudice is invariably based on ignorance: people who have always belonged to an all-white community inevitably harbour misconceptions about those of a different skin colour. Rightwing parties such as Ukip are adept at playing on this ignorance. Powell and his views on immigration were the precursor to Nigel Farage and his claims that immigrants, and foreigners in general, are largely bad news.

Alison Thompson



Thursby, Carlisle

Suffragette or suffragist?



Caroline Criado-Perez is undoubtedly a formidable advocate for women’s issues (“The feminist activist putting women in their proper place”, New Review). However, the campaign to put a statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square was not as smooth as presented.

Her petition was to put a statue of a suffragette in Parliament Square to mark 100 years of female suffrage. A total of 84,734 people signed it. However, the statue is not of a suffragette, but of the suffragist Fawcett. “Suffragettes”, members of the Pankhurst-led Women’s Social and Political Union, believed in direct action, even engaging in law-breaking from 1912. The “suffragists”, under Fawcett, adopted only constitutional, law-abiding tactics.

Did Criado-Perez not know the difference? Certainly many of those who signed her original petition did. Yet they were not consulted about her change of focus.

June Purvis

University of Portsmouth

Not so shrill, Will



Will Self complains that computers “have a continuous ultrasonic whine of some kind” (“Objects of desire – ‘This old typewriter used to belong to my mother’ ”, Magazine). If so, he would not hear it. “Ultrasonic” means beyond the range of human hearing (above 20kHz). At his age, he probably won’t hear anywhere near that high.

William Darlington

Stepps, Lanarkshire