Rich cabinet with no empathy for the poor

• The Guardian, Sunday 31 March 2013 16.00 EDT

I agree with every word in the letter (28 March) from 50 experts on thewelfare state. However, I think the appeal to civic values is misplaced. I work with high-risk offenders, and I see in this cabinet individuals who display identical deficiencies in empathy, and who have no consideration for the more disadvantaged or the consequences of their actions. It seems to me that appealing to their rationality and goodwill is a less appropriate way forward than understanding their psychopathology: the government is driven by a fear of impoverishment that is turned outwards into hostility to the poor, and a desire to extract as much wealth as they can by diverting public funds into private profit before the next election (while disguising their aims as austerity and wealth creation). So, if their empathic side is nonexistent, we have to do more than appeal to it or to engage them in rational discussion. The question, of course, is what.
Joanna Hughes
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

• The 50 professors are right to attack the demonisation of "shirkers", but they are in danger of sowing illusions about the nature of modern Britain. When did we ever have a "fair collection and redistribution of resources"? When was the "trust between different sections of society" which they seek to uphold? Instead of exhorting a government of millionaires to be fair and protect the poor, surely such renowned people should lay bare that fairness and protection is the last thing such a government will ever wish to achieve.
Gordon Teal
University of Leeds