As a boy, some working-class lore was passed down to me: wages were to put a roof over your head, food in your belly, clothes on your back and coal on the fire and, if you had anything left over, you could have a pint at the weekend in the pub. The important message being that for the household budget, the essential, needful expenses take precedence over optional indulgences.

If world economic growth has to slow considerably for the sake of the planet and our own survival upon it, as some ecologists are suggesting, we will have to find new equitable ways of living and working together besides redistribution of wealth. One such way would be to focus on economic activity that should matter most to people and results in a real improvement in their living conditions, and to downgrade discretionary superfluous production and pastimes.

Geoff Naylor

Winchester

Decisions, decisions

Imagine you are giving your children a treat – a day out. You give them a choice, beach or zoo? They “vote” for the beach. On the day of the trip there is a howling gale, 10-foot waves and coastguard warnings to stay away from the beach. Where do you take them? Explain why.

Richard Greenwood

Bewdley

Is Michael Gove sentient?

Michael Gove appears to respond to external stimuli, especially criticism, but is this just nociception (the sensory nervous system’s response to potentially harmful stimuli) without the experience of pain?

As far as I am aware, there have been no scientific experiments to prove that Gove experiences pain or is capable of doing so.

Contrast this with the many experiments involving crustaceans such as crabs and lobsters. Professor Bob Elwood, a world expert in the field of animal pain research, has done extensive research into whether crabs can experience pain. He showed that crabs not only experience pain but can remember this pain over significant periods of time.

The Animal Welfare Act offers some protection to vertebrates. But no protection is offered to lobsters and crabs. For this reason, these animals are subjected to dreadful cruelty including being boiled alive.

The Shellfish Network has sent references to large numbers of scientific studies to Defra ministers, including Gove, which show that lobsters and crabs experience pain. However all this evidence, including evidence from the EU Scientific Panel on Animal Health and Welfare, has clearly been ignored.

There is provision in the Animal Welfare Act to extend the protections of the act to non-vertebrate groups of animals, if it can be proved that they are capable of experiencing pain. It is time the extreme cruelty meted out to crabs, lobsters, and other crustaceans and shellfish was made illegal.

Peter Tutt – Shellfish Network

Oxford

Officials are in shock after learning Brexit means we’re leaving the EU

European cities. These are, by the relevant definition, members of the EU. It is worrying that large numbers of senior officials did not realise that, by leaving the EU, we would not be eligible for the benefits of membership.

When we cannot work out such things is it any wonder that our productivity and growth prospects are so low? We will soon be hearing that we are surprised that relatively poor Third World countries do not want, or cannot afford, the products and services that we will no longer be able to sell into the EU. The donkey will soon be our emblem, not the lion.

Michael Mann

Shrewsbury

The public’s still waiting

On 7 November it was reported that the Speaker of the House had told the Government to publish the secret Brexit reports by the following Tuesday. It is now 23 November and there is a silence on this issue. Another move by the Government to deny the public information they have a right to know?

Name and address supplied

Young house buyers deserve a foot up

In the late Seventies, having been married in 1974 and with a young daughter, we were living in a council house and very pleased to have such a place. We had no viable way of getting on the housing ladder because with rent and living expenses there was no chance of raising the money for a deposit. There are many people in this country who find themselves in the position of being able to pay a mortgage, but can’t cobble together the cash for the deposit.

I was put in touch, by a friend at work, with a building society, National and Provincial, long since swallowed up by others. They gave us a no deposit and 100 per cent mortgage, and we bought our own place. Why is it that this doesn’t happen now? Forget the stamp duty – the deposit is the stumbling block.

Come on building societies... give people a chance!!!!