President-elect Trump indicated that work on his wall would start as soon as possible and that federal funds will be used pay for the wall. However before bids can be put forth to private contractors the following steps must be completed. The route of the wall must be identified, the route will have to be surveyed, and the land not presently under either federal or state ownership purchased, and also designs and specifications for the wall finalised.

It is difficult to believe that these tasks can be completed in less than a year’s time. Also Congress will have to appropriate the funds necessary to fund the contracts. Only after all of these steps have been completed can the contracting process begin. The procurement process includes the request for proposal cycle which usually allows 90 days-120 days for bidders to submit their bids and another 60 days for the government to complete evaluation of the bids and background checks of the contractors. Once the contracts have been awarded, contractors must be allowed time to purchase the materials required to build the wall, move them to the construction site, and recruit a work force. This will add another 60-90 days before work can start. One needs not to be either a rocket scientist or a brain surgeon to see that actual construction of the wall could not possibility start prior to the summer of 2018.

George D Lewis

Northamptonshire

Hate speech

I welcome the news that the police have recorded Home Secretary Amber Rudd’s speech at the last Tory conference as a “hate incident”. In that speech Rudd made the proposal – since withdrawn – that UK’s firms should keep lists of their foreign workers.

Academic Joshua Silver reported her speech to the police explaining, “I felt politicians have been using hate speech to turn Britons against foreigners, and I thought that is probably not lawful.”

I feel that Silvers was correct to report Rudd’s xenophobic speech. But it begs the question why the laws against hate crime aren’t being raised in relation to similar speeches from other politicians and political commentators.

Sasha Simic

London

If you want a first-class service, you have to pay for it

On the surface I am inclined to agree with Theresa May’s assertion that the Red Cross saying that the NHS is facing a “humanitarian crisis” is “irresponsible and overblown”. A closer look at the accepted definition of a humanitarian crisis as “a singular event or a series of events that are threatening in terms of health, safety or well-being of a community or large group of people”, then they are in fact spot on.

We may agree that the NHS has been woefully underfunded in recent years and is no longer fit for purpose in its current form, but we have all been complicit in this. It is not rocket science to expect that treating many more people for longer, with more complex illnesses, requiring higher levels of expertise and costly equipment will in the end bust the budget.

The bleating refrain of low wages and long hours is tiresome. Staff are not press-ganged into selecting the NHS as an organisation in which to work, and whilst I do have some sympathy, there are many of us in other industries also having to work our socks off in less than satisfactory working environments. As sad as it may seem, it is a common ailment of modern-day life.

There is clearly a huge gap between what we expect and what the NHS can afford to provide. To blame the Government is to take too simplistic a view of the situation. Contrary to the belief of some, money does not grow on trees. If we, the general public, users of the NHS, want to a have a first-class service then we will just have to pay for it, it is as simple as that.

Linda Piggott-Vijeh

Address supplied

Your pet is colder than it looks

Since freezing Arctic blasts are threatening England this week, it’s important that guardians know how to take care of their animals during adverse weather conditions. Although dogs, cats, and other animals have fur coats, they can still suffer from deadly frostbite and exposure, which is why it's critical to keep animals – and especially puppies and kittens – indoors. (Short-haired animals will also benefit from wearing a warm jumper or coat on walks.) Cats shouldn’t be allowed to roam freely outdoors because during winter, they sometimes climb under the bonnets of cars to be near warm engines and are badly injured or killed when the vehicle is started. (To help prevent this, bang loudly on the bonnet before starting the engine.) Keep an eye out for strays, and take unidentified animals inside until you can find their guardians or get them to an animal shelter. If strays are skittish or otherwise unapproachable, provide food and water and call the RSPCA for assistance with trapping them and getting them indoors. If snow is on the ground, be sure to wipe off your dogs’ or cats’ legs, feet, and stomach after they come inside, as salt and other chemicals can make your animals sick if they ingest them.

Jennifer White

London

If you don’t like strikes, maybe you also don’t like having civil liberties?

Each time there is a Southern rail strike or an underground strike, I keep seeing letters in the press calling for the outlawing of strike action for “vital public services”, which I find rather unsettling. The trouble with the idea of passing a non-strike bill is that we would be taking away the basic right of individuals to withhold their labour – the last time I checked, bonded slavery had been abolished in the UK.

Emergency services and the armed forces generally never strike because they are looked after, treated well and made to feel valued and respected by the rest of society – for the time being, at least. How much longer that will last in the face of continuing dogma-driven cuts remains to be seen.

We cannot force people to work against their will and nor should we aspire to – unless, that is, we envisage turning this country into some kind of a military state and surrendering all of our hard-won human rights and civil liberties. Or do those who are inconvenienced by industrial action feel that, while they are free citizens in their own right, those who serve them are merely worker units who should have to accept whatever conditions are imposed upon them? “Be thankful that you have a job – at least you have an employer to oppress and exploit you!”

Perhaps we ought to put the freedom of our citizens to a referendum – after all, of late the UK has shown itself to be filled with turkeys who are both willing and eager to vote for Christmas.

Julian Self