Letters | 16 August 2018

Boris mishandled

Sir: Your editorial ‘Bravo Boris’ (11 August) suggests that the treatment meted out to Boris Johnson by the Prime Minister and the party chairman makes a leadership challenge more likely. That is correct. This duo have demonstrated a breathtaking lack of political sophistication. Not only have they promoted Boris Johnson’s chances of the leadership, but they have also diverted the media spotlight from the Labour party’s very real anti-Semitism to a fictitious Tory party Islamophobia.

Mr Johnson plainly argues a position that is more liberal than those of many European governments, including those of Denmark, France, Belgium and Germany. Despite this, the Prime Minister and the party chairman have allowed the left-wing press and the Labour party the opportunity to conflate Boris’s — perhaps rude, but certainly not hateful — remark about burkas with the most ugly prejudice to be aired by a group of British politicians since Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists marched through London.
David Soskin (Former advisor to John Major, No. 10 Policy Unit)

Petworth, West Sussex

The role of men

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James Tidmarsh

The African cardinal who terrifies Macron

Sir: I think Lara Prendergast’s observations on male vanity (‘The new narcissism’, 11 August) need a broader historical perspective. Like most civilisations of the past, ours has reached the peaceable mature stage in which men are no longer needed as protectors from the violent social environments of earlier centuries. Women can safely claim equality, and are able to do many things such as business, sport and so on, which used to be the exclusive source of men’s self-esteem.

While equality is undoubtedly a good thing, one consequence of this blurring of gender roles is that too many men feel devalued, surplus to requirements and self-obsessed. Their manly virtues will only become useful again when decadence provides opportunities for violent disruption and the social fabric is eroded.