Heavenly choir

Sir: Having just read Christopher Akehurst’s article on Pope Francis’ recent Road to Damascus-like conversion to Gaiaism, he doesn’t venture an opinion as to whether in his newly-found enthusiasm for (cue: angelic chorus song issuing from On High…) Sustainability. if are we to expect that the Pope will now sanction birth control as a means of preventing overpopulation; that, surely being one of the greatest threats to our continued (angelic chorus repeats…) Sustainability on this planet. So we are told, anyway.
David Gerber
East Lindfield, NSW

Myth built on myth

Sir: Nyunggai Warren Mundine’s article in The Spectator Australia of 27 June claims ‘British colonisation was built on the myth of terra nullius’. With respect to Mr Mundine, this is patent, but still popular, nonsense. Nobody had even heard the expression until just before World War Two when a US academic lawyer sought advice from an Australian historian as to whether ‘the concept of terra nullius had any relevance to the British annexation of Australia’ as the Americans had plans for claiming territory in Anarctica. The expression then appeared briefly in a small number of Australian academic journals and papers but sprang into public prominence in 1977 when a part-Aboriginal lawyer ‘tumbled terra nullius into his High Court case against the Commonwealth government claiming restitution and compensation for Aborigines.’ The quotes are from Australian historian Michael Connor’s 2005 book The Invention of Terra Nullius (Macleay Press, Sydney) which explains all, but the concept of terra nullius being the malign justification for European occupation of Australia since Captain Cook has seized the imagination of what many in this country deride as ‘the Aboriginal industry.’ And it even had our High Court scratching their heads as to precisely what it meant.
Bill Deane
Chapman, ACT

The case for Daesh

Sir: For once the admirable Rod Liddle has got it completely wrong (‘You can’t take the Islam out of Islamic State’, 4 July). We absolutely shouldn’t call the homoerotic, narcissistic death cult ‘Islamic State’ — not because it offends ordinary Muslims, nor because it has nothing to do with Islam (it has everything to do with Islam) but because it legitimises and validates the preposterous project. The media has a responsibility not to run terrorist propaganda unchallenged. Politicians, including the Prime Minister, are starting to wise up to this and should be applauded for doing so. We are in an information war with our enemies. Let us take our lead from the Arabs, who understand the Middle East rather better than we do, and call them Daesh — precisely because the terrorists don’t want to be called by this pejorative word. We don’t need to be doing the terrorists’ work for them.
Justin Marozzi
London NW3

Greece’s union problem

Sir: Interestingly, amid all the comment leading up to the Greek ‘No’ we heard a lot about large public-sector pensions, tax avoidance and so on in the condition of Greece, but nothing about the effect of the Greek trade unions on the Greek economy with their regular ferry, bus and rail strikes; and their protest strikes against selling off loss-making state-owned enterprises.
William Miller
Belfast

Navy cut

Sir: Winston Churchill, as First Lord of the Admiralty, was responsible for the preparation of the Royal Navy before the first world war and for its mobilisation and deployment 101 years ago on the eve of the war itself. In The World Crisis, he wrote: ‘More than a hundred years had passed since the British Navy had been called upon to face an emergency of the first magnitude. If a hundred years hence, in similar circumstances, it is found equally ready, we shall have no more reason to complain of our descendants than they will find, in the history of this convulsion, reason to complain of us.’ I fear that his descendants would disappoint him. David Cameron is treading in the steps of Baldwin and Chamberlain rather than in those of Churchill.
Donald Begg
Lymington, Hampshire

Knives out

Sir: There has not been a ‘25 per cent rise in youth knife crime in London’ (Barometer, 27 June). In fact, knife crime in London — which includes carrying knives as well as injuries caused — is at its lowest level in seven years and deaths have fallen by a third since 2008. Every single knife death is a tragedy, and there has been a recent rise in injuries caused by knife crime, which we are taking extremely seriously. The Met’s Trident Gang Command has supported a 30 per cent reduction in knife crime across the capital since it launched in 2012. In every borough, hotspots are targeted and hundreds of potentially dangerous weapons have been recovered. We also target those most at risk of becoming involved with gangs, and have successfully lobbied for tougher sentences for those found carrying knives.

This remains a top priority for both the Mayor’s Office and the Met. We are spending more than £6.8 million this year on prevention, focused deterrence and enforcement action to tackle the scourge of knife crime on the streets of London.
Stephen Greenhalgh Deputy Mayor for Policing And Crime
London SE1