Spectator letters: A history of Stepford Students; Brendan Behan and Joan Littlewood; and the Army’s tour of Pakistan

Silencing students

Sir: The Stepford Students (22 November) are nothing new. The NUS-inspired ‘No Platform’ policy has been used to ban anything that student radicals don’t like since at least the 1970s — usually Christians, pro-life groups or Israel sympathisers.

It should not be in the power of the narrow-minded activists of the student union to prevent individual students or groups from exercising their right to free speech and freedom of association. All students should have equal access to university-funded facilities, regardless of their beliefs. The student union should be seen largely as a social club with no powers to ban anything unless there has been genuinely bad behaviour, at which point it is the role of the university disciplinary committee to step in.
John-Paul Marney

Glasgow

Joan and my father

Sir: I fear Richard Ingrams exaggerates when he claims that ‘no one would have heard of Brendan Behan if it weren’t for Joan Littlewood’ (Letters, 15 November).