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Training young workers
“Why are apprenticeships so rare?” in Britain, you ask (March 22nd). Too many firms use apprenticeships for existing staff rather than new employees, but resolving this conundrum is perhaps easier than you think. The plan for a “growth and skills levy” should fund three types of programmes: full apprenticeships in their current form; foundation apprenticeships, shorter and aimed at young people entering work in industries such as hospitality, retail and construction; and career-lift programmes, up to three-month bursts of on- and off-the-job training.
The good news is that the government is closer than it realises to finalising this plan and has a nascent body in place, Skills England, to oversee it. The Treasury can then with confidence release the £800m ($1bn) raised by the levy to spur momentum.
The final ingredient required is a sharpened set of incentives to tempt independent training providers and colleges to turn their attention back to small and medium-size firms and younger apprenticeship candidates. The twin goals of growth and opportunity are within our grasp.
Ben RowlandChief executiveAELP (Association of Employment and Learning Providers)Bristol
Taking charge of your health
Thank you for highlighting the importance of gut health (“Gut feelings”, March 22nd). However, describing people who sign up to ZOE, a personal-nutrition company, as the “worried well” suggests deep confusion about human health. Do you think those who brush their teeth daily and visit their dentist are also worried well? Are they wasting time, when they should just wait until they need a root canal?
Chronic diet-related conditions such as heart disease, type-2 diabetes and dementia are now the leading causes of death. Compelling scientific evidence shows that those on a healthier diet can enjoy a decade more of healthy years than those on a poor diet. Most dementia and heart disease may be avoidable with the right lifestyle changes.
To be clear, health anxiety is a genuine mental-health condition that requires psychological support. But those planning for the future are not the worried well. They are the “proactive well”, who wish to enjoy more energy and better moods in weeks, and be on track for many more healthy years in the future. ZOE focuses on the science of nutrition, health promotion and disease prevention. The word “worry” doesn’t come into it. It’s about good sense and living well.
We acknowledge that not everyone can afford ZOE, although our monthly cost has now dropped to £9.99 ($12.90) rather than the £25 quoted in your article.
Professor Tim SpectorCo-founder of ZOELondon
Cold-war thinking
Europe’s anxiety over America’s shifting position on defence suggests a new crisis of faith (“America’s new foreign policy”, March 15th). But Europe’s disillusionment with American steadfastness is hardly new. Robert McNamara as America’s defence secretary introduced a doctrine of “flexible response” during the Kennedy administration in 1961. The message was clear: massive nuclear retaliation against a Soviet attack was rejected and America would not trade Washington for Düsseldorf.
The elegant escalation ladders of that doctrine were drawn across real cities—Bonn, Amsterdam, Strasbourg—leaving European allies wondering in which zone their annihilation would be authorised. The transatlantic trust deficit began long before Donald Trump’s latest tariff tantrum. Today, some in Europe seek reassurance, others rearmament. But if history is any guide, they should be less surprised.
Even as Elon Musk plays Iago (from “Othello”) to Donald Trump’s Richard III, Europe remains the seasoned audience. Unimpressed by the theatrics, familiar with the script, and well aware that the play goes on, whether the lead actor knows his lines or not.
Zubin AibaraBülach, Switzerland
I enjoyed the well-informed and well-crafted obituary of Oleg Gordievsky (March 29th). There was one additional important point that his intelligence illuminated. This was that the Soviet leadership never believed that the Americans would launch a first-strike. Their aim was to stop the deployment of the Pershing II missiles, because if they did not, then the Soviet Union would be seen as unable to maintain the balance of power, would lose influence in the Warsaw Pact and the third world, and the arms race would continue and ruin the Soviet economy.
Gordon BarrassLondon
I read the informative and entertaining Gordievsky obituary with particular interest. The chronology and numbers got slightly scrambled. The Soviet intelligence officers were expelled after Gordievsky had been exfiltrated from the Soviet Union. There were two associated rounds of expulsions from London and Moscow, 25 and then six more in each direction. I know because I was a correspondent for Reuters expelled from Moscow in the second round.
Martin NesirkyVienna
An invite to share
I read Bartleby’s column on the “horrors” of shared documents with interest (March 22nd). The company I helped found enables a more open and transparent way of designing software, but was initially met with mixed reviews. It did not take us long to learn that values like collaboration, transparency and access were not as widely held as we had thought. When we launched in 2015 one person told us, “If this is the future of design, I’m changing careers.” Another quipped that a camel is a horse that has been drawn by a committee.
At first I didn’t understand these negative reactions. Were designers more attached to the siloed ways of working that had defined design for decades? Was there an unseen benefit to sending around large files as email attachments with names like “Draft_V3_FINAL_Draft_v27” that I had somehow missed?
I came to realise the power of shared workspaces was in the broader cultural change that they delivered and that this change can be uncomfortable. But as scary as it can be to open yourself to the critique and judgment of others, these shared spaces are, as Bartleby notes, much “better than what came before”. They allow us to tap into the creativity of others. They are non-hierarchical by default, inviting everyone to brainstorm, build and create together.
Sure, they are prone to the occasional errant comment reflecting a strong but loosely held opinion. But on balance, more open ways of working result in better outcomes, even if things can get a bit noisy.
Dylan FieldChief executive and co-founder FigmaSan Francisco
Sharing documents creates inefficiency and more work, as people who may have limited insight into the content are now given free liberty to edit to their heart’s desire. It often bottlenecks the timeline—“we need to wait for Sally to return from vacation so she can provide input”. And do we really need ten people to debate on what verb should be in a sentence? The final document may be completely altered from the original, yet still say the same thing.
Office politics play a role in determining the final product (if it ends up even being used) with many who provided the input left feeling discouraged to see their well thought-out comment ignored or edited out with no explanation. No wonder many people decline the request to peer review a document.
Denise PelletierCalgary, Canada
The iron rule I learned many years ago during my time at the Pentagon is that there is no urge so powerful as wanting to alter another’s man’s draft.
Robert HaffaNaples, Florida
Take two
Bartleby set out an impressive number of virtuous responses to counter someone who takes credit for your ideas or creations (March 8th). Another riposte comes from “The Red Shoes”, a film released in 1948.
When a young composer becomes distraught when he discovers that his professor has stolen his music for a new ballet he complains to Boris Lermontov, the producer of the ballet. Lermontov says “It is worth remembering, that it is much more disheartening to have to steal than to be stolen from. Hmmm?”
J.M. InnesAdelaide, Australia
Editor’s note Last week we mangled the text of the above letter from J.M. Innes, so we are running it again, correctly this time. Sorry.