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Sir: I support Scottish independence, though not the SNP, and share your despondency about the extent to which democracy has been besmirched (‘A democratic deficit’, 6 March). While I accept the democratic legitimacy of intervention by Westminster, which you recommend, I fear it will do more to stir the very grievance that has amplified support for the SNP. For the first time in a while, polls show the Scottish government’s response to sexual harassment allegations has stunted its ascent and a Holyrood majority, which seemed inevitable a few weeks ago, now hangs in the balance. As Nick Ruane highlighted (Letters, 6 March), the domestic failings and democratic defiance of the SNP are abundantly evident to the Scottish electorate. Therefore, I humbly submit that the best response is to leave the SNP to its own devices and instead allow the Scottish electorate to be the executioner in just seven weeks’ time.
Ewan GurrSir: In Craig Brown’s very entertaining review of Chips Channon’s Diaries (Chips Channon’s diaries can read like a drunken round of Consequences, 6 March), we learn how the new HM Edward VII jumped up at dinner, crying: ‘I want to pump shit.’ Since the subsequent royal event, shared by the keen diarist through an open door, consisted only of passing water, we must surmise that either Chips or his editor were ignorant of the urinary expression ‘pump ship’. It is still common among naval and yachting types. I suppose we should be grateful that the late temporary monarch didn’t say ‘point Percy at the porcelain’.
Libby PurvesSir: Further to Mary Wakefield’s article (‘Reinventing the wheel’, 6 March) on the attempted transformation of London into a cyclists’ paradise, the expansion of London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone this year accelerates the disposal of thousands of serviceable cars owned by inhabitants of the suburbs. This diktat takes no account of the increase in emissions from replacing existing vehicles with new, and the cost of replacement falls almost entirely on lower income households. Two other points: only 7 per cent of carbon emissions in Europe are from cars, and emissions during manufacture make an all-electric car carbon-neutral only after about 60,000 miles. Why do we put up with such gesture politics?
Peter HarrisonSir: I find it an irritation that the authorities who urge us to ‘get on our bikes’ never seem to consider that some of us cannot ride one, having never learned how. I cannot ride a bike. My father thought it was dangerous so he paid for riding lessons instead. After all, a pony has a leg at each corner.
Dr M.C. Moore
Sutton Heath, Suffolk
Sir: In her review of Luigi Rossi’s opera Il palazzo incanto (Astonishing, relentlessly pleasurable rediscovery – tantric opera, 6 March), Alexandra Coghlan refers to the 40-strong band employed for the Dijon Opera production as being ‘typical of its time’ (1642) in Roman opera. In fact the typical instrumental forces for Roman (and indeed Venetian) opera of the period — given in a palazzo, since Rome had no public opera house until the Teatro Tordidona opened in 1671 — was about a quarter of that number.
The truth is that Leonardo Garcia Alarcón, the conductor of the Dijon production, has long been notorious for his grotesquely inflated editions of Baroque operas and oratorios, versions that make Beecham’s colourful and liberally populated Messiah look positively restrained.
Brian Robins
East Knoyle, Wiltshire
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