Powelled!
The letter of Enoch Powell reminded me of a time in the 1960s when the Communist Party in Wolverhampton was championing a group of Asian residents who were having trouble finding housing. At a meeting, via a microphone and with the aid of a translator, they confronted Powell, their MP. He listened patiently, then strolled over and in perfect Urdu began to talk to them. I still remember the transformation. All smiles, they crowded around him, and the meeting sponsors faded away.
David Housden, Cambs, in The Times
The More Brutal?
If the video of a prisoner being burned to death displays “a level of brutality shocking even by the standards” of Islamic State, how should we describe the actions of the US and UK around the world? According to a 2012 joint report from the NYU and Stanford University law schools on US drone strikes in Pakistan, “the missiles fired from drones kill or injure in several ways, including through incineration”. Similarly barbaric, in 2008 Sunday Times reported British forces were using Hellfire missiles in Afghanistan, creating “a pressure wave which sucks the air out of victims, shreds their internal organs and crushes their bodies”.
Ian Sinclair, London, in The Guardian
The world is rightly condemning the barbaric actions of ISIS. However, which national leaders have mourned all those beheaded under a dubious judicial system in Saudi Arabia?
Ingrid Dey, London, in The Sunday Times
