“We continue to push VW to take action to compensate the UK consumer,” says the Department for Transport (Report, 12 December). But why is it that comment on the “dieselgate” scandal focuses on compensation to owners? It is city residents in general that suffer the health impacts, and it is the NHS that bears the costs of caring for them. VW should make payments that reflect these costs, and city leaders (including London’s mayor) should be holding Chris Grayling to account for achieving this.
Alan Wenban-Smith
Board member, Transport Planning Society, and former chairman of Birmingham Health Authority
• “Whatever happened to convalescent homes?” asks Mary Conn (Letters, 7 December). First we need to ask “Whatever happened to the concept of ‘convalescence’?” I haven’t heard this word used in decades. Perhaps there’s been the odd PhD about its demise; if not there ought to be. Its bizarre disappearance coincides to some extent with the ever-increasing brutality (and short-term stupidity) of government policies and practices that oblige people to function fully before they are recovered (whether being prematurely discharged home before they are ready, and/or prematurely forced back to work).
Jill Rakusen
Leeds
• I am a wheelchair user who has been very impressed by the help provided by platform staff and train guards. They help me board the train, show me to the right seat, and phone ahead to advise staff at my destination that I will need help leaving the train. If guards are abolished (Q&A: Why Southern rail passengers are facing such travel misery, 14 December), who will provide this service – or will I no longer be able to travel by train?
Sarah Benton
London
• So there is to be a leadership election in Unite (McCluskey rival attacks focus on Labour, 14 December). I’m not a Unite member myself; but I wonder if I would be allowed to register as a “supporter” and vote for Gerard Coyne?
Simon Elliott
Brighton
• A self-sown Helleborus x hybridus has been in flower since September. One giant leap for plantkind (Letters, 13 December)?
Margaret Waddy
Cambridge
• “Antwerp passes London as cocaine capital” (15 December). Is this another unforeseen Brexit effect?
Anders Clausager
Birmingham
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Getting better all the time? Not any more… | Brief letters
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