Letters to the Editor | 4 March 2006

Genghis was a leftie

From Daniel Hannan, MEP
Sir: Paul Johnson demolishes the ludicrous expression ‘to the right of Genghis Khan’ and wonders what the Mongol leader’s true politics might have been (And another thing, 25 February). I’d have thought Genghis was a clear-cut leftie. His tactic, on conquering a tribe, was to liquidate the aristocracy and elevate the lower orders. He was a proto-Europhile, mingling his subject clans so as to prevent the development of a sense of national identity. Where modern socialists want to use the education system to cut high achievers down to size, the Khan was more literal, forcing his vassals to walk under a yoke and decapitating those who were too tall. He was even an early metricator, organising his soldiers according to a decimal system. Genghis can be considered right-wing only in the BBC sense, as a synonym for ‘baddie’.
Daniel Hannan
Brussels, Belgium

Make ‘localism’ a reality

From Henry Smith
Sir: Alasdair Palmer’s piece (‘Local villains’, 25 February) regarding the unresponsiveness and intransigence of local authorities is, I am sure, wearily familiar to just about any reader.