We ban tobacco sponsorship of sport in the UK. Let’s stub it out in the arts, too
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Version 0 of 1. Smoking is a leading preventable cause of ill health and premature death, and a major contributor to health inequality. Current estimates are that the tobacco industry will kill one billion people in the 21st century. Tobacco advertising has now been banned, along with sponsorship of sport. However, tobacco companies continue to use sponsorship of some high-profile arts organisations to promote the spurious idea that they are responsible corporate citizens. We suspect that most members of the Royal Academy in London will be appalled to learn that Japan Tobacco International (JTI) has been a premier sponsor for its exhibitions. British American Tobacco is also a sponsor, a position it shares with, among others, the Marie Curie cancer charity and Bloomberg. The latter is of note given Michael Bloomberg’s passionate tobacco control stance while mayor of New York. These sponsorship arrangements are morally unacceptable and must be brought to an end. As healthcare professionals who deal daily with the harm caused by the tobacco industry, we call on arts, cultural and heritage organisations to sign the smoke-free arts declaration (smokefreearts.org.uk) to affirm that tobacco sponsorship is unacceptable. We also call on sponsors of the arts to undertake that they will no longer support organisations that accept tobacco sponsorship.Dr Nicholas Hopkinson Reader in respiratory medicine, Imperial College, London on behalf of 1,104 other healthcare professionals eBay should look after its sellers Your article “It’s seller beware on eBay as auction site’s buyer guarantee is exploited by scammers” (Cash, last week) was excellent and revealed eBay as a company with policies created to protect its own sales rather than the integrity of a buyer/seller transaction. One has to ask why the Office of Fair Trading has not acted. In the UK we are so reluctant to act against companies, and yet the public pay for these bodies (like Trading Standards) to do a job that they seldom seem to actually carry out.Martin SandaverHay-on-Wye Vietnam trades independently Vietnam is indeed “an ardent joiner of multinational organisations” but none of the groups Andrew Rawnsley (“Lessons from the east about what folly it would be to choose isolation”, last week) quoted have supranational ambitions comparable with the European Union. The prosperity Rawnsley witnessed in Vietnam was a product of the 1986 transition to a “socialist-oriented market economy”, in practice a combination of both market forces and economic protectionism similar to policies implemented by Japan and South Korea after 1945, and China from 1978. The rise of China has yet to persuade Vietnam or its neighbours to surrender control of their borders, currency, or economy to an EU-style union. If Vietnam can embrace modernity and international cooperation, yet retain its national independence while bordering 1.3 billion Chinese, why can’t Britain?John Butler-AllenKidderminster Hens’ lives are hardly ‘enriched’ The old “barren” cages, now banned, typically held four or five hens, with each bird allowed less than a sheet of A4 (shared) floor space of sloping wire “Most farmed chickens endure hideous lives…”, last week). Modern “enriched” cages hold 40-60 hens, with at least 750 sq cm (shared) floor space per hen – that is 150 sq cm larger than a sheet of A4 – and must include perches, small screened areas for egg laying and a scratching area. This “enrichment” still fails miserably to allow hens to carry out their natural behavioural patterns, thereby imposing on them lives of total frustration.Clare DruceHolmfirth, West Yorkshire UK did not welcome fleeing Jews Rowan Williams (“Tomorrow, we have a chance to stop the death of innocents”, last week) evokes the Kindertransport as an example of what should now be emulated in relation to amendments to the immigration bill. Yes, the then UK government did enact legislation to allow settlement of sorts. But the 10,000 Kindertransport children were the exception rather than the rule: many more millions perished. UK government attitudes to Jewish immigration 1932-48 were consistently hostile, with powers resting with successive home secretaries on who should and should not be granted entry, with the narrow economic argument that some Jewish adult immigration might be possible to help relieve a servant shortage. Bruce Ross-SmithOxford English skills are worth having So Kwame Kwei-Armah is “perturbed” by a restaurant notice saying “Waiters wanted – must speak immaculate English”, seeing this as a sign of “anti-immigrant feeling” (“London – the view from outside”, New Review, last week). But surely he is being at best condescending in assuming that “immaculate English” is spoken only by British-born white people? In fact, others – especially of Asian and African origin – speak and write some of the best English I’ve encountered. I see nothing wrong in public-facing organisations wishing to employ staff who can communicate well in English. Or in encouraging anyone from whatever background to increase their employment chances by becoming as fluent in the language as possible.Karen LaneIlford, Essex |