• YET again Councillor Adam Harrison should be cheered for his rhetoric: “We have opened the first climate citizen’s assembly” he says, “we have put the [climate] emergency at the heart of the council’s work” while “keeping people safe and cutting air pollution”, (On climate change we must take grass-roots action, April 14).

As I write this, after yet another sleepless night in Coram Street, where trucks, delivery vans and taxis keep their engines and, in many cases, refrigerated lorries running throughout the night; where I was woken up by the stench of exhaust fumes wafting through my bedroom window at 3am, and where, at 5.30am, Camden’s garbage trucks clanged away in Herbrand Street to rouse an entire neighbourhood, I have to wonder: is this what Cllr Harrison means by “environmental justice”?

And as I look across the street to the homeless woman crouched in a foetal position under a tree, who has been sleeping rough there for weeks, I also ask: is this what Cllr Harrison and Camden Labour mean by “delivering housing for local people” and “supporting residents with the cost of living crisis”? For these are facts, not compositional techniques.

The Labour Party would do well to remember that many of us, especially those who have studied philosophy, know very well the meaning of rhetoric – as words designed to impress but which lack both sincerity and meaningful content.

DR ECCY DE JONGE
Coram Street, WC1