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New Statesman
07-05-2025
- Politics
- New Statesman
Letter of the week: Roundabout responsibilities
Photo by Xavier Cervera/Millennium Images William Davies's excellent article 'Bonfire of the bureaucrats' (Cover Story, 2 May) misses one key point: Britain's centralised state. One example will suffice. Lawnswood in Leeds is famous for two reasons. Alan Bennett went to Lawnswood School – and it has one of the most dangerous roundabouts in the city. In the past, Leeds Council's highly qualified engineers drew up plans to improve the roundabout and sent them to the government as part of their annual transport bid. Unbelievably, the Leeds engineers now have to send the plans to the West Yorkshire mayor's office who examine them, and send them on to London, and the circus continues. Can you imagine Chicago sending plans for a roundabout to Washington, or Lille to Paris? This process is replicated across council departments. Until Westminster devolves powers to local government, it will be necessary to employ thousands of civil services in London to mark local authorities' homework. David Kennedy, Ilkley, West Yorkshire Digitise It Yourself The eternal debate about the size and efficiency of taxpayer-funded bureaucracies needs to be broadened from a focus on civil servants to include the wider public service, which, thanks to a combination of austerity and digitisation (and now AI), is undergoing a process of what I would describe as 'libraryfication'. This refers to the increasing use of volunteers to run public services that otherwise might disappear. It increasingly includes DIY services where it is assumed that everybody should go online to do tasks previously performed by paid staff. 'Bureaucrats' may disappear, but the cybersecurity industry will continue to grow exponentially. And of course we will all have the opportunity to provide 'feedback' – even if there's no one left to read it. Colin Challen, Scarborough Changing the narrative Andrew Marr is wrong to suggest 'curbing migration' is one of the four essentials for Starmer to win the next election (Politics, 2 May). The Home Office's steps to reduce or offshore asylum claims and to limit legal migration numbers only serve to reinforce the legitimacy of the even more extreme and inhumane policies of Reform. Labour must reframe this narrative. It is absurd that potential overseas NHS staff, care workers, students and researchers are discouraged from coming to the UK because of counterproductive restrictions on family members and very high costs. Yes, Marr is right that Starmer must finally 'find his voice and move decisively'. But he needs to do more with it than sing Farage's tune. Gideon Ben-Tovim OBE, University of Liverpool Young historians While I endorse Richard J Evans's praise for Tim Bouverie's Allies at War (The Critics, 2 May), I want to query his ageist comment that the subject was 'a formidable challenge for any historian, let alone one still in his thirties'. There are numerous precedents for British historians under 40 making impressive contributions to German history. Think of Alan Bullock's Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, AJP Taylor's The Course of German History and Hugh Trevor Roper's The Last Days of Hitler. From America, there is the young Daniel Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners. There is no doubt in my mind that Tim Bouverie's is the most formidable – at least until the next 30-year-old historian publishes their magnum opus. Colin Richards, Spark Bridge, Cumbria Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Music to my ears I found Kate Mossman's review of Alice Vincent's Hark: How Women Listen (The Critics, 2 May) profoundly interesting. Yes, I may be a man, but I have never once perceived aural perception as gendered: indeed, as a cellist, I have most often found my deepest connections with others when I have been the only male in a quartet. Perhaps now is the time to reassess why music can deliver? Robert Grosseteste was (perhaps) the first to suggest, in the 13th century, that music can salve the deranged mind and so order knowledge. Vincent and Mossman point to an intriguing idea, that music is universal and, therefore, cannot be retrospectively gendered. Rather, it is simply human, existing above and yet within our temporal lives. A letter sent with greatest thanks to both! Dr Owain Gardner, University of Glasgow I read with interest Kate Mossman's review of Alice Vincent's Hark. I enjoyed it as I do much of Mossman's work. But I think she's on shaky ground to say that the first 'music fan(atic)s' were female Beatles fans. Frank Sinatra and Johnnie Ray can claim earlier female fan worship than the Fab Four. (So can Franz Liszt, for that matter. Lisztomania and its transcendent effects could be seen as the prototype for Beatlemania.) Mossman has spent time a lot of time interviewing rock stars. I'm prepared to bet that they, like countless other men, were inspired to pick up a guitar or write a song because of the Beatles. And the Beatles' impact on fashion was on men's haircuts and suits rather than female fashion. So on that, I'm with Mossman: music is not 'gendered'. Pete Goodrum, Norwich Sister film Simran Hans's review of the new Georgian film on abortion, April, is moving and important. She mentions in her opening sentence the book Happening, where the award-winning author Annie Ernaux vividly describes her illegal abortion in 1960s France. Hans later describes the acclaimed theatre adaptation of Ernaux's The Years, in which the abortion scene from Happening is staged. But she omits any reference to the film adaptation of Happening, which won the Golden Lion award for best film at the Venice Film Festival in 2021. 'On-screen portraits of abortionists are rare,' writes Hans, which is why Audrey Diwan's memorable and powerful film of the above should be highlighted. Julia Edwards , Winchester Brewhaha Reading Andrew Jefford's take on the greatness and glorious savoury taste of fine British ales (Drink, 25 April) made me smile in agreement but also feel quite sad that my favourite, Newcastle Brown Ale, is now a product of Holland. It has been the best of the beverages I have known since I saw Helen Mirren serving it to Alan Price in O Lucky Man!. I tried some in a bottle with a new yellow label and it just wasn't the same. Surely it wasn't my imagination. Gary Sweet, Lancaster, Texas We reserve the right to edit letters [See also: The war to end all peace] Related
BBC News
18-03-2025
- Automotive
- BBC News
Speed limit cut plan for busy stretch of Leeds ring road
Speed limits are to be cut on a stretch of a busy ring road as part of a £13m scheme aimed at improving the safety of a major roundabout and cutting delays. The current 70mph (112km/h) speed limit on the A6120 Leeds ring road, between the Lawnswood roundabout and King Lane junction, is to be reduced on one stretch to 50mph (80km/h) and to 40mph (64km/h) on crossings, traffic signals and cycle lanes have also been proposed as part of the Lawnswood Roundabout Improvement roundabout, where the ring road meets Otley Road, had a long-standing poor safety record, according to a Leeds City Council report. The report stated the proximity of the roundabout to Lawnswood School "lends particular weight to the importance of providing safe crossing facilities in this location".According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, designs had already been drawn up for the roundabout scheme, with the construction phase subject to separate approval by the report said development and delivery of the scheme did "not require use of Leeds City Council funds", with funding instead provided by the West Yorkshire Combined Authority and central scheme should reduce people's dependence on cars by making walking, cycling and bus use easier, the report council planned to publish legal notices required to implement the project and public objections to the Traffic Regulation Orders would have to be considered by the council's chief highways officer, it orders would allow for parking and loading restrictions at the roundabout, along with a bus lane extension. Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.
