Letters | 17 March 2016

More things to ban

Sir: In the light of Mick Hume’s piece about politically correct students (‘The left will eat itself’, 12 March), should not Cambridge University be taking immediate steps to remove the works of Cicero from its classics curriculum? After all, like George Washington, he owned slaves.

I would only add that, as a former member of Jesus College, I was utterly appalled at its abject surrender to adolescent bigotry and ignorance by the removal of the Benin cockerel. The totalitarian impulse is alive and well.
Chris Arthur
Durham

Scotland and the EU

Sir: In half a dozen articles now, your writers have stated that a vote to leave the EU would precipitate Scotland voting to leave the Union. It is sad to see that they have bought this canard propagated by the SNP and its ‘Scotland is different’ argument. In 1975, the worry was the same but in reverse: that Scotland would vote to leave and England stay.

In the end, as in most things, Scotland voted the same way England did. I have no doubt it will be the same this time, whether that means in or out.
Jonathan Lafferty
London N5

Wykehamist outsiders

Sir: James Delingpole (‘Want to leave the EU? You must be an oik like me’, 12 March) cites John Whittingdale, a Wykehamist, as an unusual example of a posh ‘leaver’. But Winchester College does not tend to produce natural insiders. Mrs Thatcher relied on Willie Whitelaw, Ian Gow, and, when it mattered, Geoffrey Howe, in her battles with Etonians. John Whittingdale himself was her political secretary. Most eminent 20th-century Wykehamical politicians — Gaitskell, Crossman and various Jays — were Labour. Now there’s Seumas Milne. Perhaps it goes back to Sydney Smith, the greatest of all Old Wykehamists, who observed that ‘minorities are nearly always right’.
Anthony Thompson
Bodenham, Herefordshire

Help them remember

Sir: Rod Liddle is right to remind us (‘Bordering on insanity’, 12 March) of those unfortunates who, having lost all recollection of their countries of origin and burned their passports, are condemned to remain in the UK. The Home Office is nonplussed. We should help by building a patient-staffed Memory Recovery Centre on, say, the outermost Shetland island, with no distractions.

The Department for International Development should administer the centre, as some manipulation of international aid budgets may be needed to ensure consulates’ co-operation in providing new identity documentation. Concerned activists and lawyers should be advised that memory and sense of identity are among our foremost human rights and that the centre will provide the world’s leading programme for their restoration.
Tim Ambler
Cley next the Sea, Norfolk

In defence of wildfowling

Sir: If Simon Barnes is worried about disturbance on our estuaries (‘Of geese and men’, 5 March), wildfowling should be the least of his concerns. Having spent many hours contemplating the Essex estuary where my club shoots, I would argue that our widely spaced shots cause significantly less disturbance than planes, kite surfers or speedboats — or even, to judge by the response of the birds, walkers along the sea wall. All the current activity, however, must be as nothing to that in recent history when the estuary was much busier with shipping, fishermen and dozens of professional punt gunners.

Since those times large portions of this and many other estuaries have been protected and conserved. Indeed my wildfowling club manages a significant non-shooting reserve alongside the salt marshes where we shoot. It is strange then that Mr Barnes informs us that the particular problem with wildfowling is the disturbance it causes which ‘leads to the exhaustion and death’ of estuary birds. My contemplation suggests something different: that Mr Barnes has a particular problem with wildfowling.
Tim Bonner
Chief executive, Countryside Alliance
London SE11

At the sign of the swastika

Sir: Finding myself unexpectedly and illegally in the border town of Myawaddy a couple of years ago, I presented myself to Myanmar immigration. They enabled me to stay overnight at the Love the Swastika Hotel (Mind your language, 12 March).
Stephen Barker
Dawei Peninsula, Myanmar

Boy in a dress

Sir: Toby Young need not worry about having dressed up his son Ludo as Goldilocks (Status anxiety, 12 March). My mother sent me aged six to a party wearing swirling white skirts and dressed as a fairy. Nobody seemed to notice anything amiss aside from asking: ‘Whose little girl is she?’
Peter Fineman
Barrow Street, Wiltshire

Stay in and ski cheaper

Sir: I am a golden oldie and have just returned from a most enjoyable skiing holiday in Les Arcs, where thanks to cross-European pensioner benefits I enjoyed the privilege of a free ski-lift pass. Buying one had previously been quite an expense. Vote Brexit and lose my privilege? Never!
David Snow
Colby, Norfolk
 
CLARIFICATION: A leading article of 16 January 2016 referred to junior doctors not in the first two years of training being paid an average of £53,000. This referred to total, rather than basic, pay.