Sagal Hassan and Dr Lisa Williams respond to the news that Wes Streeting has asked experts to investigate whether normal feelings have become ‘over-pathologised’

As a psychotherapist with child and adolescent mental health services, I welcome Wes Streeting’s change of heart on his comments about the “overdiagnosis” of mental health conditions, ADHD and autism ( I realise now that my view on mental health overdiagnosis was divisive. We all need better evidence, 4 December ). Political point-scoring has no place in public health.

By setting up this taskforce, Streeting acknowledges the complexity of the picture and that conversations must be led by research, where science and suffering can be held together.

Readers respond after another former Dulwich college pupil spoke out with allegations of racist behaviour by the Reform UK leader

Regarding Nigel Farage’s difficulty believing that people can remember schoolboy “banter” of more than four decades ago ( Former Dulwich pupil says Farage told him: ‘That’s the way back to Africa’, 5 December ), perhaps I can helpfully direct him to an African proverb: “The axe forgets, the tree never does.” This succinctly summarises the disparity in recollections of interactions between victims and perpetrators.
Juliet Winstone
Dorking, Surrey

• “Farage has suggested that it is simply inconceivable that anyone could recall such events of over four decades ago,” says Yinka Bankole in your article. Such events that hurt children or young people, whether words or actions, are remembered for the whole of a lifetime. I remember a similarly unpleasant event that happened to me at the age of 13 on 14 February 1964. I could go to the exact spot. That was more than six decades ago, not four.
Name and address supplied

Readers respond to an article by John Harris on how the budget has left middle-income families anxious and angry

John Harris’s stimulating article on the “squeezed middle” missed one area of concern for those of us trapped in it ( The ‘squeezed middle’ is back – and this time it could be Labour’s undoing, 30 November ). We knew that even if we’d paid our cheap mortgages off (lucky us), we would either have to downsize or have taken out our own pensions. We knew the state pension would never be enough.

So we did. And if we were lucky, it covered the cracks. Except that when we retired, we were taxed again on our pensions, having already been taxed on the funds we used to take them out in the first place.

A photographer’s legacy | Getting in the Christmas spirit | Crossword cat | New dictionary entry | Peace prize for Putin

Martin Parr’s photographs are full of wry humour and an affection for the quirkiness of life ( Martin Parr, photographer acclaimed for observations of British life, dies aged 73, 7 December ). He encouraged ordinary people to observe and celebrate the world around us. A few years ago, I had two photographs published on the Guardian’s letters pages, something that would never have happened to me in a million years had I not been inspired by Martin.
Toby Wood
Peterborough

• I enjoyed the article on getting into the Christmas spirit ( 2 December ). Please can Joel Snape provide a list of the 31 festive films he watches in December? For me, the festive feeling starts when I add the first house to my Marks & Spencer advent village bought in 1998 – and getting out my festive tea towels.
Cathy I’Anson
London

The answer to today’s engineering challenge

Earlier today I asked you to reinvent a component of the sixteenth century Dutch sawmill, which – according to a new book – was the world’s first industrial machine. You can read that post here, along with some great BTL discussion about the world’s greatest inventions. (Spoon or spear? Plough or spectacles? Transistor or trousers?)

Round and up

The minimum bet rule model is there in Australia for all to see and the Gambling Commission should act now

Racing enjoyed its biggest win for many years in last month’s budget. The threatened harmonisation of duty rates for betting and gaming was not simply seen off, but routed , with the differential between the two rates significantly increased. As an added bonus, meanwhile, racing was excluded from the small rise in the duty rate for bets on football and other sporting events.

Having celebrated the win, though, the next step is to ensure that the benefits are maximised. And since, in relative terms, racing has just become a more attractive product for bookmakers, what better moment could there be to address one of the major obstacles that many punters face when they want to bet on the horses?

Cyril Ramaphosa says theories, promoted by Donald Trump, ‘conveniently align with wider notions of white supremacy’

White supremacist ideology and false claims that South Africa’s Afrikaner minority is being racially persecuted pose a threat to the country’s sovereignty and national security, the country’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has warned.

Since taking office for his second US presidential term in January, Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed without evidence that South Africa’s government is seizing land and encouraging violence against white farmers .

The proposed acquisition would see yet more of Hollywood controlled by a tech company and one that doesn’t seem to care about the theatrical experience

Did Netflix just exacerbate a bunch of seasonal affective disorders in cinephiles? Timed to ruin holidays like a round of end-of-year layoffs, the streaming giant announced plans to buy Warner Bros, a movie and television studio with a full-century legacy. It’s possible that the acquisition won’t actually go through – and if it does, it won’t be for at least a year. But the news still looms over year-end awards and list-making, and it’s going to take more than a jingle-bell heist to steal back any holiday cheer for the entertainment industry, much less halt the march of corporate consolidation and monopolization. Even more depressing: the entity that seems most able to take action against this is … another attempted consolidation. Paramount has launched a bid for a hostile takeover of Warner Bros Discovery, which would bring two big studios under one extremely Trump-friendly umbrella. This would almost certainly further cull the number of wide-release movies released each year.

Depression might not seem like a rational response, especially for anyone who doesn’t actually work in said industry. (There are plenty of reasons that various unions are making their opposition to either sale known .) Yet the news last week had hundreds of film fans posting eulogies and defenses not just of Warner Bros as a studio – which on its own includes a vast history encompassing classics like Casablanca, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Departed, Bonnie and Clyde, The Searchers and The Matrix, among hundreds – but the very fabric of theatrical moviegoing.

Artist, whose real name is Justin Clarke-Samuel, pleads guilty at Old Bailey over hit-and-run death of Yubin Tamang, 20

The rapper Ghetts has pleaded guilty to causing the death of a student in a hit-and-run while driving dangerously.

The award-winning artist, whose real name is Justin Clarke-Samuel, appeared at the Old Bailey in London by video link from Pentonville prison and admitted causing the death of 20-year-old Nepali student Yubin Tamang on 18 October.