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Letter of the week

Julian Le Grand's idea of an endowment of [pounds sterling]10,000 to everybody on their 18th birthday (Letters, 22 July) is attractive. But even grander would be for the state to make a gift much earlier--on the date of birth. This could make a major contribution to solving the future pension problem.

Suppose that a grant of [pounds sterling]10,000 were made to start a pension for every new baby. Interest would be credited at an index-linked 3 per cent, and compounded. By the age of 60, the fund would be worth around [pounds sterling]70,000-which would finance a pension of [pounds sterling]6,000 or so. This can be compared with the average "pot" now built up by those with their own private pension schemes of [pounds sterling]23,000-with 64 per cent actually below [pounds sterling]20,000, and half under [pounds sterling]12,500. The cost would be far from prohibitive. Over 60 years, the annual cost would build up to some [pounds sterling]28bn. But with GDP rising at a modest 2 per cent a year, this would represent only 2 per cent of future national income when the scheme fully matured in 60 years' time. On death before 60, the accumulated fund would be paid out to heirs. But it could not be drawn on otherwise.

We would then only have to deal with pensions for those already living.

Harvey R Cole

Winchester, H ants

Too much manure

John Gray ("When the forests go, shall we be alone?" 22 July) is right. The population will increase for the next 50 years, unless there is an unprecedented rate of death from war, famine or plague. More than two billion people will die unless food production is increased worldwide; in their attempts to grow food, people in Brazil and Indonesia will tear down the ancient forests and shatter biodiversity.

So we have no choice but to use every technological fix we can to increase productivity from existing land. Organic agriculture can't do this. The energy needed to plough fields contributes to greenhouse gases and animals required to produce manure for fertilisation are themselves huge creators of greenhouse gases. Adherents of organic agriculture will have to tell us which few billion people they want to sacrifice.

Alan Williams

Cambridge

Terrorism or resistance?

Amos Oz's latest comment (Observations, 22 July) on the situation in his homeland is placidly cynical. Oz establishes a moral equivalence between Israelis and Palestinians by portraying them as unruly children. However, Israelis are tightening the noose around the Palestinians ever harder-most of the West Bank Palestinian population is currently under curfew, there is more than 70 per cent unemployment, and so on. One can hardly suggest that to stop this torture, the Palestinians should forsake resistance (what Oz calls terrorism).

Paul de Rooij

London W4

Amos Oz rightly emphasises that Palestinian refugees need homes, jobs and an improved standard of living. The trouble is that they have no chance of achieving this under their current leadership. The Palestinian Authority draws financial support from all over the world, but none of these funds find their way to the most needy Palestinians, such as the refugees of Sabra and Shatila.

Alexander Miller

via e-mail

British jazz is thriving

Sholto Byrnes (The Back Half, 22 July) makes sweeping criticisms of British jazz. In fact, British jazz has its own character, which differs from American jazz yet avoids much of the more avantgarde playing that characterises much jazz in Continental Europe. Among the many examples of a thriving scene in Britain are Django Bates, who was awarded the Danish Jazzpar prize a few years ago; lain Ballamy, who has a strong and completely personal voice in both his playing and composing; Chris Bowden, whose combination of a bluesy alto-sax sound with electronics and club rhythms is unique; and Soweto Kinch, who has just won the International Saxophone Prize at the Montreux Jazz Festival.

Tony Dudley-Evans

Artistic director

Cheltenham International Jazz Festival

Since the late 1960s, British jazz has been considerably more interesting than American jazz. While the latter has turned in on itself, become museum music and ceased to innovate, British jazz has evolved into something quite fresh and dynamic. An unmatched body of work has been created by the likes of John Surman, Graham Collier, Mike Westbrook, Tony Coe and probably a dozen others. Yet the cultural establishment continues to ignore them: there was no jazz at the jubilee!

C Jones

Tunbridge Wells, Kent

Brown's boost

You suggest that Gordon Brown's [pounds sterling]60bn boost to public services signifies a return to social democratic principles and Keynesian economics (Leader, July 22). What you do not consider is how this money will be spent. Brown is still committed to PFI/PPP. As you rightly point out, the private sector has proved its ability to waste shareholders' money on a huge scale. Unless Brown questions the wisdom of the PFI/PPP model, the private sector may simply fritter away even more taxpayers' money, leaving us with the worst of both worlds.

G J Merrill

Marlborough, Wilts

Blame it on the taxis

Peter Collins on "the tyranny of the bike" (Letters, 22 July) made me smile. Pedestrians always fume at cyclists. Cyclists get irate at buses for cutting them up. Bus drivers get angry with car drivers in bus lanes. Cars curse motorcyclists for getting through traffic more quickly. But aren't the drivers, cyclists and bikers also the pedestrians? As a biker, I blame the taxis.

Tony Hills

Lancaster

More French drunks

Further to the letter from Katsy Blamont about French words for drunkenness (15 July) and Victoria Moore's reply (22 July), a look through Zola's L'Assommoir brought up "etre dans les brindezingues", to be completely drunk; "cheulard", a drunk; "se culorter" , to get drunk; "festonner", to be in such a state of inebriation as to be walking in zigzags; "feter la Saint-Lundi", to be quite, quite drunk; "poivre" , to be completely drunk; "avoir sa pointe" and "avoir un coup de soleil", to be half-drunk, like many of the characters in the story when they were not fully drunk. Incidentally, from the same source, "pisser a l'anglaise" is not what you may think but means leaving without warning, probably without paying your score, something I am sure Victoria would never do.

Peter Smee

Norwich

The voice of young blacks

Trevor Phillips's selection of Geoff Schumann as best young minority voice ("The Best of Young British", 22 July) was disappointing. Schumann has made his name as a comedian and it is only very recently that he has started to speak about issues regarding the black community, following the lead of pirate stations such as Genesis FM or Powerjam. Choice FM, where Schumann broadcasts, is a group of black capitalists with the same motivations as other global capitalists. Schumann is a reactionary, black bourgeois. My selection would be Dr X, whose Ghettology show on Genesis 91.6 FM every Saturday night has become the voice of us blacks who are of the lower socio-economic groups.

A L Thomas

Black Intercommunal Party

London

The not-so-good old days

Peregrine Worsthorne ("Noises off", 22 July) says that "the glorious physical grace of the young was put to high and noble purposes" when "directed by the superior experience of the old". Presumably, he refers to how they queued up to be slaughtered in their millions in two world wars.

Simon Draper

Eastbourne, Sussex

A very German mugging

"In Germany, some honest burgher would have jumped on the culprit," alleges Bettina von Hase ("A very English mugging", 15 July). Two weeks ago, a 48-year-old woman went to the aid of an 80-year-old woman being harassed by four youths at a subway station near Frankfurt, in full view of dozens of male and female commuters, and was then bashed with a skateboard and hospitalised for her trouble.

Adrian Coghlan

Frankfurt

Up in arms

Carl Robilliard (Letters, 15 July) says he has not been able to find a critique of the arms trade, so may I point him in the direction of my own The Politics of British Arms Sales Since 1964 (Manchester UP, 2000). In the meantime, I extend congratulations to a publication that boasts so many contributors who have been critical of Britain's role in the arms trade (John Pilger, Will Self, Nick Cohen et al), and which still managed to produce a 32-page supplement on the defence industry while keeping them all at a safe distance.

Dr Mark Phythian

University of Wolverhampton

Go by the book