Letters

Letters: The Syria debate, plus Giles Milton on Andro Linklater

Syrian matters Sir: Though Syria (Leading article, 31 August) is certainly no laughing matter, the turmoil prevailing over a ‘punitive strike’ does bring to mind the little jingle of A.P. Herbert, during the Phony War of 1940. Some great minds were contemplating a ‘strike’ on the Soviet Union to punish it for its invasion of

Letters | 29 August 2013

Reasons to try a tyrant Sir: The premise of Douglas Murray’s otherwise compelling essay (‘Dictating terms’, 25 August) is mistaken. He doubts whether the conviction of malevolent dictators by the International Criminal Court acts as a deterrent to other wicked leaders. Of course it does not. Nothing will deter a monster from iniquity. The principal

Letters: GPs reply to J. Merion Thomas

Some doctors write Sir: Professor Meirion Thomas (‘Dangerous medicine’, 17 August) may be an excellent surgeon but he is uninformed about the nature of GPs’ work. For many older consultants in the NHS, it will have been decades since they last spent any time in a GP setting, if they have at all. He fails

Letters: James Whitaker’s widow answers Toby Young

Absent friends Sir: Alec Marsh (‘Welcome to Big Venice’, 10 August) accurately observes that Londoners are priced out of central London by largely foreign buyers of second homes. Wealthy foreigners not only buy, they also rent, often living in London for a few years, during which they frequently return to their first home for weeks

Letters: David Gower defends bats

In defence of bats Sir: I am saddened by the ‘us versus them’ stance taken by Melissa Kite (‘Bats vs people’, 3 August) when referring to bats. I might be better known for wielding a different sort of bat, but I am a strong supporter of the winged variety. These amazing creatures have lived alongside

Letters: How IQ is handed down

IQ and social mobility Sir: It seems not to have occurred to our leaders that ability is not evenly distributed across the social classes. In a meritocratic society, employers will try to recruit the most able candidates into the top positions. There, they meet other bright people, pair off and have children. As Professor Plomin’s

Letters: The EU diplomats hit back at Norman Lamont

EU diplomacy Sir: Lord Lamont’s article ‘The EU’s scandalous new army of overpaid diplomats’ (Politics, 20 July) revisits his oft-repeated views on the European Union. It also shows scant regard for the facts and for the reality of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy. The European External Action Service (EEAS) was created by unanimous agreement

Letters: The Met Office answers Rupert Darwall, and a defence of Bolívar

Wild weather Sir: Weather and climate science is not an emotional or political issue — even though emotions and politics run high around it, as illustrated in Rupert Darwall’s article (‘Bad weather’, 13 July). However, it is important that opinions are rooted in evidence, and the article contains numerous errors and misrepresentations about the Met Office

Letters: My cuts are real, says Francis Maude

We’ve only just begun Sir: In Ross Clark’s article ‘Cuts, what cuts?’ (22 June), he suggested that I was boasting about saving the taxpayer £5.5 billion. It’s true: I’m proud of my department’s Efficiency and Reform Group and the work of civil servants across Whitehall who have sliced out wasteful spending. But the figures he

Letters | 20 June 2013

Being good without God Sir: It is a rash person who tangles with the Chief Rabbi, but his piece on ‘Atheism and barbarism’ (15 June) shocked me. After championing until his last paragraph the old lie that religious belief is a necessary foundation for morality, he suddenly says he doesn’t believe ‘that you have to

Letters: The barristers strike back

Legal squabbles Sir: Harry Mount’s angry and unfocused polemic (‘Against the Law’, 8 June), demonstrates a fundamental ignorance of the British legal system. That is surprising from a former barrister, even if he never practised after pupillage. British justice is revered worldwide, and for good reason. Rather than deal with the disastrous effects the proposals

Letters: sheep pay for themselves

Why Ukip aren’t extremists Sir: I don’t wish to be rude to Matthew Parris (‘Why Ukip is a party of extremists’, 1 June), but he should think carefully before labelling civilised citizens as extremists. It’s a silly word to use given what real extremists get up to these days, but the important point is that

Letters | 30 May 2013

HS2 v broadband Sir: Rory Sutherland (The Wiki Man, 25 May) is rightly sceptical of HS2, but in limiting his remarks only to the transport of people, he is still too kind. Why spend 20 years building Victorian technology when the infrastructure of the future will be a broadband network of far greater capacity than exists

Letters | 23 May 2013

Stay Conservative Sir: Dr John Hyder-Wilson wrote (Letters, 11 May) of my calls to ‘shift Tory party policy rightward’ to meet a threat from Ukip, which he felt was inconsistent as he could not remember me advocating a leftward shift in response to a threat from the SDP/Alliance in the early 1980s. Of course he

Letters | 16 May 2013

The other side of fracking Sir: Peter Lilley’s article on fracking (‘The only way is shale’, 11 May) is right to outline the role that shale can play in addressing Britain’s energy crisis, creating jobs, and generating tax revenues. But he is guilty of several errors and omissions. First, he ignores the concerns of local

Letters | 9 May 2013

One-nation Toryism Sir: When my late father, John McKee, stood as Conservative candidate for South Shields in the 1970 general election he gained 19,960 votes, more even than David Miliband in the same constituency 40 years later. In last week’s by-election in the South Shields constituency, the Conservative candidate attracted only 2,857 votes. Many things

Letters | 2 May 2013

Goers and go-getters Sir: In her interesting article on the rising equality in the female world (‘Sex and success, 27 April), Alison Wolf states that A*/top-stream girls stay virgins until 20 ‘because they have more important things on their minds’. I am not sure about this. I certainly remember that this was not the case