UN nuclear debate at iconic cathedral

THE picture taken in 1956 of work on constructing the Cathedral (Oct 5) reminded me of my first visit when this iconic building opened.

On Saturday, I paid my fourth visit to Coventry to attend a conference concerning the new United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Not many people have heard that the Church of England Synod has voted by 260 to 26 to urge HM Government to engage with this. Canon Sarah Hills addressed everyone and a message from Bishop Christopher was read out. The bishop’s message also decried the bad doctrine of nuclear deterrence.

The declaration of Pope Francis that the actual possession of nuclear weapons is wrong is not well known either, so the conference focused on how all these important facts can be conveyed to Christians and others. Michael Pulham East Sussex

No simple answer to bus problems

REGARDING ‘Bus service isn’t fit for a City of Culture’ (Sep 28).

Mark Heffernan is correct on a number of points he makes but he is very wrong on others.

The reason that buses run late and not to the published timetable is simply explained; they can’t leap over cars. The roads are so busy that traffic jams are the order of the day. On the days and times when the roads are not so busy, buses are on time with few exceptions.

I use a car but also use public transport, so I know from experience the cause of the problems. Either we reduce the number of cars on the road or accept the ensuing problems with public transport; there is no other simple answer. John Thompson Exhall

PM’s proposals are playing catch-up

THERESA May waltzed on to the stage and then spent the next hour dancing around the truth.

The PM sought to pretend the Tories had the answers to the austerity they created, that they were united around the Brexit plan, she claimed she led a decent and moderate party – news to anyone who saw the news.

Not so much the Iron Lady as the Irony Lady. The woman who created a hostile environment sang the praises of the Windrush generation; the women who attacked Labour for anti-Semitism when her own MPs refused to censor Hungarian PM Viktor Orban.

This speech was aimed primarily at her own party and the Brexiteer Ultras in particular. It also handed tribute to Jeremy Corbyn once she stripped away the gratuitous attack on the Labour leader – at the same time, decrying the poison in politics.

Almost every issue she raised – homes, buses, the railways, the cost of living and crony capitalism – read like belated answers to queries raised by Corbyn at PMQs. The PM is trying to play catch up with a few airy proposals of her own.

Voters are right to be sceptical of her promise of good times ahead, Having inflicted the wounds of Brexit and austerity, the Tories are now offering a lacerated patient some free plasters. Andy McDonald Tile Hill

The times changed and we voted again

WHILE I’m far from convinced that another referendum on Brexit would settle matters, I feel bound to ask Roy Frost (Oct 6) why another referendum would “make a mockery of democracy”.

After all, it can be argued that the referendum held in 2016 made a mockery of the 1975 vote, in that it reversed a decision taken then.

Needless to say, it could be argued, and no doubt Mr Frost will argue, that the 2016 vote was justified because the EU in 2016 was of a much different make-up that which the UK voted to join in 1975, and that in any case many of those who voted then were no longer around to regret their foolishness and that those who are deserve a chance to forswear their folly.

But what if the Brexit that is going to be delivered is very different from the one that many people voted for? What, for example, if they have come to realise that the key Brexit campaigners, including Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage, Michael Gove and their ilk, those who at the time of the referendum were all for UK’s ‘taking back control’, had in the interim shown that they were merely hectoring blowhards who cannot be trusted to run anything beyond the odd night with the boys?

Wouldn’t it then be to “make a mockery of democracy” not to have a second vote on Brexit? Kevin Cryan Radford