Letters: The horse that brings hope for the future

Conservative approaches

Sir: Matthew Parris (‘My idea of a true Conservative’, 17 June) makes a reasonable case for small c conservatism, but he’s wrong about Brexit and he’s wrong about Trussonomics being clearly unconservative.  ‘Brexit come what may’ was the natural small-c reaction to the creation and evolution of an undemocratic EU superstate which (and we must take them at their word) was set upon ‘ever closer union’, the logical end state being a federal Europe and severe limitation of self-determination. No conservative would instinctively prefer foreign governance, even if it appeared at the outset to be benign. Trussonomics proposed short-term borrowing to fund tax cuts in order to recreate an enterprise economy; economic growth would allow the budget to become balanced and in due course reach surplus to allow national debt to be reduced. Rishinomics appears to have no such ambition.

Alasdair Ogilvy

Stedham, West Sussex

Shades of nationalism

Sir: Douglas Murray was wrong to cynically conflate various nationalisms (‘It’s been a bad week for former political leaders’, 17 June). British nationalism is – at least historically – associated with imperialism and oppression. Scottish and Irish nationalisms are, by contrast, framed by anti-imperialism and freedom from oppression. In each case the same term, ‘nationalism’, describes fundamentally different political outlooks, one profoundly conservative, the other distinctly liberal, on opposing sides of the same struggle. Semantics can be a slippery concept at the best of times, particularly in politics.

Adrian Fogarty 

London W4 

Betting the house

Sir: I’m sure Rory Sutherland’s piece on home ownership isn’t the first time his point has been made in print, but it’s the first time I’ve read it myself (Wiki Man, 17 June). So congratulations to Rory for hitting the nail squarely on the head. We are a nation besotted with ownership of land and property, which is fuelled by our taxation system, land-owning oligopolies, government incentives to home ownership, the lax monetary policies of our central bank and the rapacity of the banking system for which the ever-expanding mortgage books generate easy profits (and large bonuses for senior management).