Letters: The case for ‘raves in the nave’

Reality check

Sir: While I share Mr Gove’s diagnosis of lodestar-less Starmerism (‘Cruel Labour’, 5 April), I cannot share the accompanying pearl-clutching.

For decades, politicians and voters have engaged in a mutually reinforcing entitlement spiral that took it as given that the civil service and welfare bill could expand ad infinitum, that working for a living was optional, and that our geopolitical enemies didn’t really mean what they said. This fantastical worldview was predicated on an equally fantastical delusion that cheap energy, low inflation and low interest rates were locked in rather than temporary historical blips. You can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.

Lee Jenkins

Bolton, Lancashire

Trust issues

Sir: When I heard of the National Trust’s proposal to leave Clandon Park as a ruin I was relieved that another pastiche as at Uppark was ruled out (Arts, 5 April). Reconstruction of badly damaged buildings is, I suppose, a way to soak up the insurance payout, but it is fake. There is no getting away from it. In other situations the Prince-Bishop’s Palace in Wurzburg is similarly a beautifully realised fake. So are the remains at Knossos: I was surprised at how much of the place Minoan builders had left until I found out how much reconstruction had been done by Arthur Evans and his team.

Why can’t they just leave things as they are? And, in the case of the National Trust, look after the place better. One all-consuming fire might be accounted a misfortune; two looks like carelessness.

Nicholas Wightwick

Rossett, Wrexham