Royal cars, indication and the right to assisted suicide | UK News

Does the Royal Family’s Audi 4×4 send the message to the world that the British car industry is strictly second best?

A reader has written in to say that the royals should be supporting British car manufacturing when travelling around, after noticing Queen Camilla collect King Charles III from hospital in a German Audi. What do you think?

Meanwhile, today’s MetroTalk discussions range from turn signal habits, to the metamorphosis of Glasgow, the subtler concerns overshadowing the threat of war, Elon Musk’s brain chips and a heartfelt account of a father’s advocacy for the right to die.

Share your thoughts in the comments.

There’s no indication that you’re indicating

Is it only me who is observing this? Of late, I see more and more drivers not bothering to use their indicator when taking a left turn at roundabouts.

Seeing no indicator, I wait in my car on the road to their left, thinking that they will go straight, only to realise that they have turned left (and when I could have comfortably gone ahead if they had indicated in time).

I know using the indicator doesn’t help them in any way but it helps the other drivers and – more importantly – the pedestrians waiting to cross the road they are turning into.

As they say, a little help (sticking to the rules) goes a long way. Jag, Wallington

A reader shares how Glasgow changed its reputation for violence

When I was a wean in Glasgow, it was commonly believed that if you got caught carrying a knife it carried a five-year minimum sentence with one year extra for every inch above (basically an eight-inch blade would get you eight years, etc).

At around this time, Glasgow was the murder capital of Europe so it obviously wasn’t working.

The Scottish authorities created the violence reduction unit. A small team of police officers and analysts tasked with reducing the epidemic levels of knife crime and homicide, they used a mix of direct intervention, policy lobbying and practical influence, and promoted principles of prevention and education over policing and justice as well as advocating for a broader ‘public health’ approach to violence reduction.

Glasgow is now listed on a lot of ‘best cities to visit’ lists. There’s still a way to go for it but it’s going in the right direction.

Sadly, Glasgow, like a lot of other cities nowadays (London in particular) is suffering badly from extreme government cuts to all the services that used to help bring youth crime and antisocial behaviour down.

Until those cuts are reversed, things are just going to get worse. Kantami, via Metro.co.uk

Are some kids just unruly?

Jade (MetroTalk, Wed) talks about young people turning to knife crime in part because of cuts to youth services and a lack of early intervention at mainstream schools. I could not agree more. There is a ‘however’, though, which is simply that some kids are just unruly (and from 
good homes).

The abolition of ‘discipline’ in schools in the 1990s is also a contributory factor. Geoff Hall, Croydon

Norfolk MP George Freeman quit as science minister because his salary of £118,000 didn’t cover the cost of 
his £2,000 a month mortgage.

Welcome to the real world, where so many of us have to spend at least half of our salary on rent/mortgage – but 
without a free second home, car with driver, subsidised meals and drinks 
and expenses! Tom Pattyn, Ashington

Metro readers share their thoughts on going to war

Regarding the MetroTalk debate about war and conscription, the reality is that there is a long-term strategy being carried out to deny Europe access to food, energy and natural resources rather than start an outright war. Ted, Reading

Russia would never go to war against us. They consider us to be a small and unimportant company.

We certainly wouldn’t use nuclear weapons. We have about 300 nuclear missiles, whereas Russia has 6,000.

How well do you think that would work out for us? Owen, London.

Better to have an army and not need 
it, than to need an army and not have it. Far better. Andrew, Essex

Brain chips, salty posh coffee, degrees in panto and rail strikes

Elon Musk reckons his new Neuralink device, called Telepathy, can allow people to control their phones with a mere thought once it is implanted in their brain (Metro, Wed).

Fair enough, but what about intrusive thoughts, the ones that pop into our heads without warning or want?

It might make board meetings awkward when a browser pops up on screen and suddenly googles that co-worker you fancy. Jay, via email

Coffee Lover (MetroTalk, Tue) talks about putting a pinch of salt in their coffee (as opposed to their tea, as recommended by a US scientist). In 1959, aged 12, I was allowed to go to a posh cafe was most surprised to see my grandma putting salt in her coffee, so it’s not new! GJ, Conisbrough

I congratulate Jefferson Parlett on his world-first pantomime degree (Metro, Wed) but I can’t help feeling it is making a mockery of education. Freedom, Edenbridge

Perhaps the Just Stop Oil idiots should target rail drivers union Aslef, as they are causing more climate problems with people taking to cars as these train strikes continue. James Bradshaw, via email

‘My father would have supported these calls for assisted dying, he did it himself as a GP’

My late father, a GP in south-east London until his retirement in the 1960s, would have been right behind, and probably at the forefront of Dame Esther Rantzen’s right to die campaign to make assisted dying legal for the terminally ill.

He confided in me that he had, on more than a few occasions, ‘assisted’ patients who were in so much pain that they begged him to put them out of their misery.

Of course, he had to explain that if he did so he would be breaking the law and render himself liable to prosecution and in all probability be struck off the medical register – losing his right to practice – and even face criminal prosecution.

However, he would prescribe them a painkiller or sleeping medication making it crystal clear that if they were to take too many, say six instead of one or two tablets, they would fall asleep and not wake up again.

Invariably a day or so later, he would receive a call from the sufferer’s family informing them that he/she had died in their sleep.

It has never ceased to amaze me how people will allow a vet to put a suffering animal out of its misery but throw up their hands in horror, citing ‘the sanctity of life’, and happily (I make no apology for using the word) stand by and allow people to suffer days, weeks, months and even years of physical and mental pain – just because the law forbids them being granted release from their pain.

There is so much talk of human rights these days – yet the ultimate human right, that of deciding when they wish to ‘shuffle off this mortal coil’, is denied to people in almost every country in the world. Bob Readman, Sevenoaks

MORE : My wife and son were given terminal diagnoses – she chose assisted dying but he didn’t

MORE : Elon Musk’s brain chips could be brilliant – or a Black Mirror nightmare

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