Uncertain times

Sir: Kate Andrews’s article on the era of economic certainty (‘Crash test’, 18 March) is not the first article I have read – especially in the financial press – telling us that we live in uncertain times, as though at some stage in the past everyone knew exactly what was going to happen. I am unable to recall such a time.

I would argue that what we really should worry about is certainty. When people start talking about the end of history, claiming that there is a certain fortune to be made in buying cryptocurrencies or when ‘everybody’ knows the most important thing is to achieve net zero, that is the time to be worried. ‘Why did we not see it coming?’ the late Queen is reported to have asked about the 2008 banking crisis. Here is a simple answer: because no one can predict the future. The same is true of scientists, as we should have learned in the case of Covid.

We all know instinctively that humans cannot see the future, but as soon as experts start making predictions most people undergo a wilful suspension of disbelief. The more catastrophic the prediction, the more likely it is to be believed. In the past most believed the future was known to shaman, seers and the like; now many believe in experts.

John Murray
Guildford

Risky business

Sir: Kate Andrews writes that ‘no one, inside or outside government, had properly flagged that LDIs had left pension funds at the mercy of rates’. In fact Lord Wolfson, chairman of Next, wrote to the Bank of England in 2017 pointing out exactly this risk. Presumably the experts in the Bank and the Treasury felt they knew better.

Peter Fattorini
Conistone, North Yorks

Shore start

Sir: Unlike Matthew Parris (‘Why safe routes to asylum can’t work’, 11 March) we at the Refugee Council do not believe the government’s proposals on stopping Channel crossings are worth trying – because they are both unworkable and unprincipled. They won’t act as a deterrence. They will simply create yet more cost and chaos, stranding people in a state of illegal limbo facing destitution and detention. At the same time, as your editorial notes, it is an ‘indiscriminate approach’ that will see genuine refugees ‘kicked out’.

The global refugee challenge requires considered, intelligent, multilateral responses, not aggressive unilateralism that seeks to pull up the drawbridge on those less fortunate than us. We need to work with our European neighbours to share responsibility in the way we did for Ukrainian refugees and create other safe routes as well as a co-operative system of supported returns. At the same time, Europe needs to work with the UN to address the drivers behind refugee movements, focusing on increased foreign aid and improved conflict resolution.

We have a moral responsibility to refugees, however they reach our shores, to treat them with the humanity, compassion and fairness with which we would treat any person who knocks on our door in need of safety. Those are the values Britain has prided itself on and we must uphold them.

Enver Solomon
Chief executive, Refugee Council
London E15

The new prudery

Sir: Gus Carter’s report on the wave of neo-Victorian prudery sweeping the nation’s schools, including one Essex school which has banned any sort of physical contact between the sexes altogether, reminds us that time is a cycle (‘Boys in a bind’, 18 March). A century ago, to protect them from scandal, women were instructed to mind their language, button up their clothes, and avoid consorting with filthy men. Today, to protect them from objectification, women are instructed to mind their language, button up their clothes, and avoid consorting with filthy men. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Robert Frazer
Salford

Master notes

Sir: Regarding Philip Hensher’s excellent review of Masquerade: The Lives of Noël Coward (Books, 18 March), Coward’s character in The Italian Job, Mr Bridger, was not incarcerated in a Turin jail; rather he was detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure in the very British Wormwood Scrubs, for an unspecified crime. The real Wormwood Scrubs couldn’t be used for filming, so the interior scenes were shot at Kilmainham Gaol just outside of Dublin. I should have better things to do than nitpick, though it is one of the greatest British films about plucky Brits ever produced.

Simon A. Cuthbert
Halifax, West Yorkshire

Where’s the sherry?

Sir: I read with interest and amusement Charles Moore’s experience of the shop assistant asking: ‘What’s port?’ (Notes, 11 March). I was at the Palace Hotel, Buxton, last July when my companion desired a glass of sherry. I asked for a sweet sherry at the bar, to which the puzzled young lady said: ‘We don’t have sherry.’ I insisted that there must be some. She looked at the drinks shelf and said: ‘We do have Harvey’s Bristol Cream, will that do?’

Dr David Gill
Nottingham

Morse code

Sir: Tanya Gold speculates on the name Morse and so nearly gets the answer when discussing Dexter’s love of crosswords (Arts, 18 March). The names of the characters in the Morse series are actually all the winners of the Azed (the old Observer) crossword competition. Morse is actually Sir Jeremy Morse, formerly chairman of Lloyds bank and a great crossword solver.

James Noble
Lambourn, West Berks