Clemency suggests

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Letters

Wednesday, 23rd April 2008

Spectator readers respond to recent articles

Consequences of separation
Sir: While Fraser Nelson’s column (Politics, 19 April) provided an excellent political analysis regarding England and Scotland, it made no reference to the potential consequences of separation to the other two countries of the United Kingdom. The lobby for full independence has traditionally been weak in Wales, a country whose constituent parts of North and South are more connected with major English cities than they are with each other. But would a fear of becoming a mere adjunct to the ‘state of England’ drive the Welsh to a premature secession?

Gavin Bostock
St Albans, Herts

Ideological fanaticism
Sir: Igor Toronyi-Lalic (Arts, 19 April) correctly raises the question of fanaticism of some ideological movements. According to him, in the 1920s the USSR was advocating struggle against capitalists even in space. When the Red army in 1919 invaded Estonia, Lenin instructed them to execute all Estonian capitalists on the spot. On the question of who should be regarded as capitalists, he said: pharmacists, shopkeepers, lawyers, civil servants, librarians, policemen, teachers and similar.

Oleg Gordievsky
London WC1