Letters

18 July 2009

Spectator readers respond to recent articles

Taki’s flippancy

Sir: I am disappointed that the Spectator can publish the sentence, written with evident approval: ‘Patton admired the Wehrmacht because of its fighting spirit and gallantry’ (‘High Life’, 4 July). This is preceded earlier in Taki’s column by his nostalgic view of the Wehrmacht and its ‘tall, blond German officers who were billeted in our house in Kolonaki’.

Perhaps he’d like to share his nostalgia for German uniforms and approval of German gallantry with the descendants and friends of the estimated 300,000 Greeks who died from famine and persecution during the Nazi occupation of Greece? As someone who regularly walks past the former Nazi headquarters in Kolonaki in central Athens, I find Taki’s flippancy regarding the suffering of the Greek people at this time arrogantly dismissive and extremely offensive.

Richard Walker
Athens, Greece

Spying on Facebook

Sir: Does it not occur to Hugo Rifkind (Shared Opinion, 11 July) that not all Facebook entries are to be taken at face value? I suspect that the offending entry attributed to the family of the new head of MI6 is a spoof, or subtle disinformation designed to throw eager beavers off the scent: the be-Speedoed beach figure does not even look much like the John Sawers I know.

Rifkind is also incorrect in stating that John Scarlett was the first head of MI6 ‘to be officially photographed’. The Atticus column in the Sunday Times, 7 November 1982, contained the official photograph of Mrs Thatcher’s Number 10 dinner to mark our victory in the Falkands war. Atticus names the then ‘C’, Colin Figures, as among those in the published photograph. I can vouch personally for the latter’s presence on that occasion.

John Weston
Richmond, Middlesex

Ample precedents

Sir: Anyone who heeds Charles Moore’s call for a challenge to Mr New Speaker Bercow (The Spectator’s Notes, 11 July) need have no fear that he or she would be breaching a principle that ‘the Speaker’s seat is uncontested at each general election’. All Speakers who sought re-election between 1945 and Margaret Thatcher’s last campaign were opposed, usually by candidates from the main parties. In 1987 official Labour and SDP/Liberal Alliance candidates stood against Speaker Weatherill. A candidate in Buckingham would be able to invoke ample precedents.

Alistair Cooke
London SW1

Older than thou

Sir: My husband was born in 1915 (Letters, 11 July). He remembers meeting an aged lady relative aged 104 when he was three years old. Her grandfather used to drive a stagecoach from Dover to London in about 1780. He was born in about 1740. Beat that.

Patricia Martin
Brierley Hill, Dudley

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JohnAnt

July 16th, 2009 10:56pm Report this comment

"You are missing the chance to make the very changes that would make us as a people happier."
Such as paying £250 more per year for energy on top of already inflated fuel prices? Such as paying an extra £250 (in tax) because the state's benefit recpients don't feel like coughing up? Such as paying through the nose to fly? Councillor Read is presumably among the 'happy few' - wealthy enough to absorb all those costs, or politically well-connected enough to have them subsidised by the rest of us.

Russell Seitz

July 20th, 2009 2:35am Report this comment

What a load of antipodean codswallop!

As it seems unlikely that this journal will stoop to acquiring an science editor anytime soon, given the spectacular disconnect between atmospheric physics and the gospel according to Plimer, it might be a more sporting proposition for The Spectator to hold a cricket test to decide the fate of the Earth.

Viscount Monckton can captain Professor Plimer's side if Zac Goldsmith of the Ecologist can rustle up his brother in law to bat for the Gaia eleven.

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