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Mammon has won

It is possible that present British citizens are better educated than their grandparents, but the scope of their intelligence has been diverted by a wholly dishonest and bigoted media, and politics twisted from ideals, by some particularly unprincipled, ambitious celebrity personalities.

The consequence is that present adults think at the level of previous children, limited to superficial, pragmatic thinking about clever electronic devices, ignoring more menacing nuclear toys of megalomaniacs.

Such contemplation, the destiny of humankind, is wholly beyond them.

Ever since babyhood, their minds have been assailed by self-centred advertising, to possess more things, but ‘retail therapy’ will never cure the sickness from which they now suffer. A whole generation of adults is hysterical about hitting or kicking some balls about.

Populism, the victory of ignorance over education, is proudly rampant, from the death of the News of the World, now paraded by other gutter media, and further transferred into the brain of every obnoxious yob who uses Facebook or Twitter, to regurgitate and spread that same abuse of vulnerable targets.

Once, the BBC was the envy of the world, as a beacon of international Truth, but the very concept of ‘The Truth’ has been crippled by the operation of present economics, the ‘haves’ who cheat the ‘have nots’ of the fruits of the Earth, and fail to understand how that degrades themselves, most venal of all, because they are responsible for this economy, devoid of regulation and any ethical principles.

This is the triumph of Mammon, the love and worship of the power of money, the surrender of your mind to that perspective. This universe deserves better humans.

CN Westerman, Brynna, Mid Glamorgan

Prison is best deterrent

Justin Tomlinson suggests that a new law which increases the punishment tariff available to the judiciary will help reduce the number of attacks made on police officers. I fear he is misguided.

Attacks made on police officers generally fall into three categories: The deliberate, planned and targeted attack; the drunken lunge and the angry, red mist response to any form of authority. None of which are in any way acceptable.

However, while the new law doubles the possible maximum sentence from six to 12 months it should be borne in mind that magistrates and judges had not been minded to impose the previous maximum and there is no evidence that the new law will result in any significant change. What is needed is a change in the attitude of the judiciary where the starting point should always be - if you assault an emergency worker you go to prison.

Now that would be a real deterrent.

Des Morgan, Caraway Drive, Swindon