In a dramatically changed world, defence, targeted aid and domestic priorities will need to be balanced to keep us secure, says Anthony Lawton. Plus letters from Tim Conway and Chris Jones

Your reporting (28 February) of the overseas aid cuts highlights a worrying myopia among aid NGOs about Britain’s evolving challenges. This generational moment demands more than the simplistic equation of aid spending with security. The 138 NGOs calling these cuts the single largest in history overlook profound shifts: Donald Trump’s return, Russia’s aggression and rising global instability. Britain’s security and diplomatic influence depend on robust military capabilities, especially when our alliance with the US becomes less certain.

The issue is not percentage targets (0.5% to 0.3%), it is how effective aid is. Now that significant aid funds are redirected to asylum and refugee support at home, we must reassess whether our approach meaningfully affects global development. Critics of these cuts ignore political reality. The “forgotten” people most vulnerable to populism want the government to focus on the NHS, education, the cost of living and border security. To present aid as sacrosanct while domestic services struggle widens the disconnect. David Lammy’s proposal to use frozen Russian assets for Ukraine shows creative thinking. This is far more relevant than clinging to outdated spending targets.

Far from exaggerating the violence of Italian fascism, it could be argued that Joe Wright’s series Mussolini: Son of the Century plays it down, writes John Foot

In her article about the TV series Mussolini: Son of the Century, about the rise to power of Benito Mussolini in Italy, Caroline Moorhead writes: “The March on Rome was, in fact, concluded not in widespread bloodshed, as the series suggests, but remarkably peacefully. In Milan, Turin and Parma, where opposition was expected, the fascists took control quietly and smoothly” (As the far right surges around the globe, what can a new TV series about Mussolini teach us?, 26 February).

Try telling that to the people of the neighbourhood of San Lorenzo in Rome, where numerous residents were killed by armed blackshirts during the March on Rome in October 1922. Argos Secondari was a well-known anti-fascist in Rome. He was attacked in his home by numerous fascists and savagely beaten, never recovering from his head injuries and ending his life in a psychiatric hospital. Giuseppe Lemmi, a communist, was kidnapped from the street by hundreds of blackshirts. His hair and beard were shaved, he was forced to drink castor oil, and he was paraded through the streets with humiliating signs around his neck. Many ordinary people were murdered in Rome and in other cities at that time, while private homes were raided and sacked.

Joël Le Scouarnec is accused of attacking 299 patients at a dozen hospitals between 1989 and 2014

A former French surgeon on trial for the sexual abuse of hundreds of patients has told the court he used his status as a doctor to attack children but still believed he was a good medical practitioner.

“I was a surgeon who benefited from my status to attack children, I don’t deny that,” Joël Le Scouarnec, 74, told a court in Vannes, Brittany, on Tuesday, in what is one of France’s largest ever child abuse cases.

Joël Le Scouarnec is accused of attacking 299 patients at a dozen hospitals between 1989 and 2014

A former French surgeon on trial for the sexual abuse of hundreds of patients has told the court he used his status as a doctor to attack children but still believed he was a good medical practitioner.

“I was a surgeon who benefited from my status to attack children, I don’t deny that,” Joël Le Scouarnec, 74, told a court in Vannes, Brittany, on Tuesday, in what is one of France’s largest ever child abuse cases.

Eight unpublished stories by the To Kill a Mockingbird author will be issued later this year as The Land of Sweet Forever

Never-before-seen short stories by Harper Lee will be published later this year, it has been announced.

Eight short stories written before the author started the novel that would become To Kill a Mockingbird were found in Lee’s New York City apartment after she died in 2016. They will be published in a collection titled The Land of Sweet Forever, alongside eight previously published non-fiction pieces by Lee, and an introduction by Casey Cep, author of Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee.

Eight unpublished stories by the To Kill a Mockingbird author will be issued later this year as The Land of Sweet Forever

Never-before-seen short stories by Harper Lee will be published later this year, it has been announced.

Eight short stories written before the author started the novel that would become To Kill a Mockingbird were found in Lee’s New York City apartment after she died in 2016. They will be published in a collection titled The Land of Sweet Forever, alongside eight previously published non-fiction pieces by Lee, and an introduction by Casey Cep, author of Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee.