I'M NO lover of those tabloid newspapers that concentrate on trivial celebrity gossip. However, they are so much worse when they compete to express our outrage over tragic events like Baby P's death. Thank goodness for John Sergeant when he swamped the front pages.

Once we are in a state of near hysteria publicity seekers will rush up to the moral high ground and bellow: "This must never happen again!" The naïve believe that it may never happen again. The cynical know that it almost inevitably will.

They know that the first lesson of history is that it will repeat itself. They know there has yet to be a war that ends wars. The problem is that human beings, while capable of doing a lot of good, are all to different degrees and at different times capable of stupid or bad behaviour and will make mistakes. They know nobody has solved that one.

When in a hole politicians turn to senior bureaucrats. The only way bureaucrats know how to solve a problem is to invent more bureaucracy. So we end up with risk assessments, over- the-top health and safety, policies, audit trails, position statements and the rest – all requiring more boxes to tick.

So social workers, police, doctors and others in the front line are not only confronted with a paperwork mountain but are also terrified of making mistakes. So they spend less time on the real job and more time covering their backsides – and another tragedy becomes more likely rather than less. Thus the vicious circle spins again.

I am not saying we cannot learn from our mistakes, but that's only possible if we would only look for commonsense solutions instead of reaching for the stars trying to prevent something almost inevitable from happening again.

Mass hysteria doesn't help either – and the best way out of that is trivia all over the tabloids. Maybe Posh and Becks, Ulrika and Sven or Russell and Jonathan are performing more of a public service than they have ever been given credit for.

Philip Kerridge

Bodmin

Sacrifice demeaned

I AM deeply angered by the November 21 letter from UKIP MEP Trevor Colman in which he writes that the Labour minister John Hutton insults the memory of "those who fought and died for this country" for recalling at the Whitehall remembrance service those "who fought… for the right to choose our own government".

This, Mr Colman says, is hypocrisy as "75 per cent of our laws are made in Brussels/Strasbourg and pass into UK law… without [UK] parliamentary scrutiny in the form of debate and vote".

Exactly who is Mr Colman to say for what reason people fought in the Second World War? Two members of my family fought in that war and one was subsequently a great enthusiast for the European project.

He was a child during the first war, in which his own relatives died, and flew with the RAF in the second. A single Europe, he believed, would make a third European war unlikely.

"Patriotism," it is said, "is the last refuge of the scoundrel". And Mr Colman is a political scoundrel in hijacking for his own petty, myopic, parochial and Blimpish political ends the sacrifices of those who fought.

An apology is needed.

Theo Hopkins

Lifton

Hunt offenders

THIS year's hunting season is in full swing, and while most of those who take part are following the law, we are already receiving allegations of illegal hunting activities.

The police must take a firm stance if the law is to be upheld. All too often they cite competing priorities and budgetary constraints when the issue of hunting enforcement is raised; this simply is not good enough.

The latest polls show 75 per cent of the population support the ban on foxhunting. The police work for us, the public, and we have made our wishes perfectly clear. The will of the people should not be ignored.

I urge readers to lobby their Police Authority to ensure steps are taken by local forces to stamp out illegal hunting and prevent a bloodthirsty, irresponsible minority from continuing to break the law.

Rachel Jay

League Against Cruel Sports

Tory recessions

WHAT a short memory your correspondent Peter Hancock has. Doesn't he know we have had recessions before, always under Conservative administrations? We had one under Mrs Thatcher and another with John Major, who left us with three million unemployed.

I can also remember the 1930s, which was one big recession. Why do you think the homecoming soldiers in 1945 threw the Tories out? They had seen their hero fathers come home after the First World War and spend 10 years or more on the dole under Tory rule.

Don't worry, Mr Hancock, we'll come out of this recession all right. It is only the very rich who are moaning that their profits are down a million or two.

By the way, referring to your mention of football, does Mr Cameron know it's played with a round ball?

A Deller

St Austell

Tax benefits

AT college and coming back from Lostwithiel the other day I heard people saying how to avoid taxation and the reluctance to pay VAT.

Quite simply taxes pay for a health service that is available to everybody and an education system that I hope is better than my experience of it. If we don't pay taxes then these essential services that make a country worth dying for can't exist.

Before people say I'm talking like a saint – well, I'm not, as my learning difficulty brain left dad's mobile on the train.

Christopher Burns

Torpoint

Virgin no more

YOU are a bit out of date with your reference to Virgin when criticising the inflation-busting increases in rail fares.

They lost the Cross Country franchise a year ago and no longer operate to the South West.

Barry J Lennox

Kingsteignton