Taxpayers may be outraged to find themselves picking up the bill of £224m because an arbitration tribunal found against the government in its dispute with Raytheon over an e-borders contract (Taxpayer to pick up £224m bill for fiasco of e-borders contract, 19 August). This sum will be peanuts compared to what we will be shelling out if the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) under negotiation between the EU and US includes the mechanism of investor state dispute settlement (ISDS). For example, the inclusion of ISDS in an agreement between the US and Ecuador allowed a trade tribunal to order the Ecuadorian government to pay a total of $2.3bn to the US company Occidental for cancelling their contract to produce oil in the Amazon.

Jan Savage

London

• Does the borders contract foreshadow the business practices proposed in TTIP? It is difficult to know, as TTIP appears to be a well-kept secret. To what is the body politic subscribing in this trade agreement? The Guardian article does not make it clear who or what is the tribunal that awarded the damages to Raytheon. You note in the article that Raytheon “remains committed to partnering with the UK government on key defence, national security and commercial pursuits”. As a UK taxpayer, I would urge the government to have nothing more to do with this company.

Meg Hitchcock

Exeter

• £224m of public funds and all that seems controversial about this news is which political party is to be blamed for the mess. This binding arbitration tribunal, whose ruling is taking us to the cleaners, wouldn’t be one of the ad hoc, commercially appointed, corporate-lawyer judged, secret tribunals of the investor-state dispute settlements kind, would it? The ones that TTIP will free up to deregulate all public services and allow corporations to demand punitive fines from a state that interferes with their profiteering? Isn’t that a tad more controversial and newsworthy than which party to blame?

The EU has received 150,000 submissions from citizens of 18 EU countries challenging TTIP and the aim is to raise 1 million from at least seven countries, which would then trigger a formal procedure requiring the European commission to address these concerns. Could this be what Adam Tooze meant by “the talks are in trouble” (Europe is not fixed, 18 August)? And isn’t it about time the Guardian got involved in this democratic movement?

John Airs

Liverpool

• We need a new way of presenting money spent or wasted by the government. A figure should be maintained that represents the average lifetime tax contribution of each member of the population, and government costs or losses should be expressed in units of individual lifetime tax contributions – ILTCs. This would put a personal element into the costs, such as “That’s 10 times my lifetime tax payments”.

The powers that be might be more careful if they were able to see the dwindling effective taxpayer base consequent on reckless expenditure. Incidentally, I estimate my own ILTC (at age 73) to be in the region of £250,000, making the total of the two figures above just under 1,000 ILTCs. A thousand people’s contributions binned.

Ian King

Westbury on Severn, Gloucestershire

• One approach to introducing new IT projects is to adopt the Pragmatic Autumn method. Begin (assuming Scotland remains in the UK) in the leastpopulated areas, Shetland and Orkney, and proceed south, ironing out the difficulties along the way. This allows the Scots and Northern Irish to benefit first from improvements in return for accepting a few glitches while it’s sorted out. By the time the project arrives at the English south coast and the Isles of Scilly, not only should all the systems work, but a great deal of expertise will have been created, thus containing a lot of learning costs.

John Starbuck

Huddersfield, West Yorkshire

• We have just had a great time at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The IT organisation was fast, efficient and user-friendly – no mean feat with 3,000-plus shows at more than 400 venues. How about the government asking the organisers for help to rescue its IT fiascos?

Elaine Yeo

Enfield, Middlesex

• Yet another example of the efficiency of the private sector trumping that of the public sector, in this instance by £224m, even when the former fails to deliver. Why did I ever doubt David Cameron’s perspicacity?

Martin Morse

Bristol