Letters: Innovation has been stifled in Britain for too long

The chance to fail

Sir: Matt Ridley’s article ‘Risky business’ (1 February) offers a variety of reasons why innovation has been stifled in Britain for too long. As an educator, I would like to add two factors that I encounter on a regular basis: the tremendously suffocating grip of insurance companies, which turns the safest idea into a discouraging risk-assessment exercise, and the desire of parents to protect their child from any failure. There are understandable reasons why insurance companies and parents act like this. However, in schools and at home it prevents necessary opportunities to test and try, fail, learn and improve, and try again. More importantly, it corrodes one of the most essential human traits that makes taking a risk and possible failure bearable: forgiveness.

Barbara van Abel

Cambridge

Doing the Continental

Sir: Ysenda Maxtone Graham’s piece on ‘Continental drift’ (1 February) revived a guilty memory. In 1981 Club Continental was the down-market cousin of Club 18-30 holidays.