Pete suggests

Email registration

Free weekly email update

Great products and special offers for Spectator readers

Click here for great value reader offers and events

Click here for the latest Spectator Wine Offers

Letters

Wednesday, 23rd April 2008

Spectator readers respond to recent articles

United State of Europe

Sir: Your musings (‘England Rides Again’, 19 April) upon the complexity of being English, Scottish or British have, I fear, the relevance of the archangels upon the proverbial pinhead. This is because we are all being ineluctibly subsumed into the coming United State of Europe.

This process will accelerate impressively after the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, aka the EU Constitution. That is the whole point of the exercise; if you do not believe me, read the text.

The rise and rise of the European State must be matched by the decline and decline of its natural and deadly foe, the Nation State; whether that be called Britain, England or Scotland. Before the good folk of Scotland vote for secession (please let us call it by its real name), the emblems of Britain, England and Scotland will have all the sovereignty of the insignia of Aragon and Bavaria.

If you are assailed by two wolves, one ten yards away and the other half a mile, it is wise to shoot the nearer first. For if you do not, by the time the second closes in it will find no more than a pile of bones.

This is the intended fate of the British nation/state and it is hard to see how it can possibly be stopped unless the British people are allowed to speak. That is why all three major parties are determined that they must not.

Frederick Forsyth
Hertford

An English characteristic

Sir: You may not have realised it, but asking Mohamed Al Fayed to contribute to your survey (‘So what is England?’, 19 April) showed an important English trait — kindliness. Such generosity of spirit is but one of the characteristics of the four Wind in the Willows protagonists who together typify the varied English character.

Ian Olson
Aberdeen

1 | 2 | 3 Next page