Spectator readers respond to recent articles
Thought crime, style crime
Sir: I welcome the new presentation of The Spectator, along with the continuing commitment to ‘elegance of expression and originality of thought’, and providing ‘a refuge from an
often censorious and humourless world’. These are the reasons why I subscribe, and I am seldom let down.
Yet I see with disappointment that Melanie Phillips has been quick to exercise her right to oppose Spectator doctrine (‘I think, therefore I’m guilty’, 18 September). While I
agree with the thrust of her argument, a less elegant, more censorious and humourless way of expressing it is difficult to imagine. Isn’t style crime just as bad as thought crime?
Ian Bentley
Essex
Sir: Can I congratulate you on a thoroughly helpful issue of the magazine this week (‘Don’t even think it!’). I particularly appreciated the article by Melanie Phillips on the new
intolerance. As someone who fits all her categories of being a ‘traditional white Christian male sceptical about global warming’, I imagine it will not be long before I meet the boys in
blue.
Revd Richard Fothergill
Bath
A writer’s evolution
Sir: Christopher Booker continues to go down in my estimation. His contribution to your latest issue (‘Scientists in hiding’, 18 September) annoyed and depressed me.
All the ‘gaps’ he talks about in the evolutionary record are not gaps at all. There are no inter-species fossils because of the way scientists categorise species — not because
there are no intermediate fossils. ‘Intermediate’ is a mischief word employed by creationists to throw doubt on the irrevocable, cast-iron evidence of evolution because they can’t
bear to admit that the nonsense they read in childhood isn’t true.
I used to be 100 per cent behind Booker on Europe. I was still with him on global warming.
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