May’s migrant dilemma
Well, that seals it, said Gavin Mairs in The Daily Telegraph. With an emphatic 28-17 victory over Clermont in the Champions Cup final on Saturday, Saracens have “cemented their place as one of the greatest English club sides of the professional era”. This was the North London side’s 18th game without defeat – the longest unbeaten run in the history of Europe’s premier competition: they now join Leicester, Leinster and Toulon as “the only clubs [to] have won back-toback European Cup titles” (though Toulon, it should be noted, went on to win a third). And Mark Mccall’s men aren’t done yet. With a Premiership semifinal against Exeter this Saturday, they remain on course for a “remarkable” double-double.
Sarries are only going to get better, said Robert Kitson in The Observer. Sure, they’ll miss Toulon-bound Chris Ashton, whose try on Saturday made him Europe’s all-time record try-scorer. But the core of this squad – European Player of the Year Owen Farrell, the Vunipola brothers, Maro Itoje and Jamie George – are “still in their early- or mid-20s”. Spare a thought for Clermont, said James Standley on BBC Sport online. With just one win from 15 toptier French and European finals, the French side are “the nearly men of European rugby”.
It was a very different story for Stade Français, France’s other perennial bridesmaids, said Owen Slot in The Times. After a run of four European finals without a win, the Paris side beat Gloucester 25-17 last Friday to lift the European Challenge Cup. It was an “extraordinary” achievement for Stade, whose season had been rocked in March by their owner’s “hugely controversial” proposal for a merger with fellow Parisian club, Racing 92. That plan has since been abandoned, following protests from players and fans, but Stade’s future remains unclear. “If this is to be an end to an unfortunate chapter in their long history, it is certainly a proud one.”
To The Daily Telegraph
Theresa May has confirmed that a future Conservative government will remain committed to a net migration target of “tens of thousands”.
This is a mistake: first, because it will not be achieved. A second reason the target is mistaken is because it confuses numbers for impact. Voters have genuine concerns about the impact of migration on public services. However, reducing the numbers of migrants may not lead to shorter queues at A&E – especially when migrants are more likely to be doctors than patients. Migrants are not all the same. Some are wealthy entrepreneurs and many are in professional employment, while others are here as students or spouses. Lumping them together makes planning more difficult. The short- to medium-term impact of 1,000 foreign university students is very different from 1,000 foreign university lecturers.
Finally, net migration should be dropped because it’s counterproductive. In counting everyone coming or going as a “migrant”, British citizens are included. If the only way to reduce net migration is by getting more of us to leave or not return, we need a new way to count immigration. Professor Thom Brooks, head of Durham Law School
NHS “collapse” is a myth To the New Statesman
Peter Wilby recently said that “the NHS is close to collapse”. I went to medical school in 1979 and have been told this for 38 years. From my angle, it seems to be working for most people, most of the time.
In 2017, despite population growth, longevity and the increasing costs of new drugs and technology, the following is true for most people: 1. They can see a GP on the day, if their problem is urgent. 2. If they go to a hospital A&E, more than 85% will be seen by a doctor and admitted (or discharged) within four hours. 3. About 95% of people with suspected cancer will see an appropriate specialist, with the major tests already done, within two weeks.
4. If you have a heart attack or stroke, you will see a specialist, and have life- or brain-saving therapy within hours.
Cost-wise, it’s OK, too. At £110bn a year, it costs roughly £1,500 per person a year (£30 a month), compared to the £1,000 spent per person a year on alcohol. Dr Andrew Stein, consultant nephrologist, University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire (Coventry)
Farming’s flawed future To The Times
There’s a flaw in your argument that driverless tractors are the “future of agriculture”. It’s not that a robot won’t know how to stop for a lost walker, or avoid machinery-wrecking bits of electricity pylon left behind by maintenance teams, or rescue a seagull trapped in the plough
furrow by a large clod. The truth is less idyllic: my farm is monitored almost daily by white vans whose drivers make their living by relieving us of batteries, tools, diesel and farm machinery. If I were to send out a driverless automated tractor, it would vanish on the back of a lowloader by lunchtime. Charlie Flindt, Hampshire
Labour’s plans To The Guardian
The press already claims Labour’s policies will bankrupt the country. But Germany, a rich and thriving country, has a railway that is run by a state-owned company (DB). And as of 2014, universities no longer charge tuition fees for undergraduate courses. Linda Buchanan, Nantwich, Cheshire
No winners in cyberwars To The Guardian
The blame for the NHS cyberattacks can be laid squarely at the door of the US National Security Agency (NSA). It identified the weakness in Microsoft Windows that was exploited by the attack. But instead of telling Microsoft about it, so the vulnerability could be fixed, it appears the agency kept it secret to use it for its own espionage activities. When the details became public after a large cache of NSA documents was posted on the internet, it was inevitable that criminals would make use of it. Spying organisations such as the NSA and our own GCHQ suffer a fundamental conflict of interest, between their duty to defend their own populations against cyberattack and practising their own attacks against perceived enemies.
Because of the pervasive and instantaneous nature of the internet, if your attack method leaks out, it can be used immediately against you. It is the same with encryption: if you once try to weaken it so that security services can break into private data, you eventually weaken it for everyone, and everything becomes vulnerable, including the safety of online payment systems.
Therefore the hoarding of software vulnerabilities by the agencies must cease. They should concentrate solely on defending systems from attack. Indeed, this was one feature of Microsoft’s recent proposal of a digital Geneva Convention to tone down the cyber arms race and make the net a safer place. Ron Mitchell, Coventry