Wales should not fear going independent

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/apr/26/wales-should-not-fear-going-independent

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Your report on the latest phone-hacking damages (Publisher of Mirror pays out to 44 hacked celebrities, 26 April) could give the impression that hacking was a weapon used by newspapers only or mainly against the famous and well-off. This is not the case. Where hackers’ records survive they show that about three-quarters of hacking targets were ordinary people – for example victims of newsworthy tragedies. The disappearance of records leaves such victims at a disadvantage in proving their cases,most will never see either a penny in damages or an apology.Professor Brian CathcartKingston University London

• This £30,000 fine is an outrageous attack on free speech (Greenpeace fined after refusing to obey controversial lobbying law, 19 April). It is also an attack on those who, like me, regularly give money to Greenpeace. Hundreds of people make donations because they know how vital it is to fight to save the planet, our common home. Yet the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014 has stolen the money that we have, in good faith, donated to a good cause. This might be expected in Putin’s Russia, but in “democratic” Britain, it is a disgrace.Sally BurchLondon

• I was disappointed to learn that some at the Women’s Summit booed Ivanka Trump (Report, 26 April). Having been invited by them, delegates should have been more gracious. Only by allowing her respect, and challenging her views in a cool way, can Ivanka eventually find the space within herself to reconsider the issues. Inclusion is the most effective form of subversion.Val MainwoodWivenhoe, Essex

• Continuing from Gruffydd Thomas’s letter (25 April) in response to the Guardian’s North of England correspondent covering the PM’s visit to Dolgellau (Report, 22 April), if Wales continues as it is, it may as well give up being a nation altogether and become an English province. Wales should not be afraid of independence. The alternative is to have our culture and language wither away and slowly be subsumed into our larger neighbours’ influence until there is no Wales left. “Cymru am byth” – not “Cymru am ychydig mwy yn unig.”Martyn B HuwsLondon

• I couldn’t agree more with Chris Rennard’s proposal to make national elections a public holiday (Letters, 25 April). Apart from anything, at the current rate we’ll have more holidays than Labour’s saints’ days suggestion affords, and that might cheer even Brenda from Bristol (Brenda’s broadside, 19 April).John LoweryLondon

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