Contrary to the culture
From Edward Nugee QC
Sir: I have in the past felt a little guilty in my belief that an Islamic faith school falls into a different category altogether from an Anglican or Roman Catholic, or even Jewish, faith school. Rod Liddle (‘We are what the English Bible has made us’, 16/23 December) has expressed the reasons supporting my belief well. It is not discriminatory to support schools in which the faith that is taught is the faith that has contributed so much to what it means to be English, and at the same time to oppose schools in which the faith that is taught is contrary to the culture of this country. Nor is it inconsistent with the tolerance that the English rightly show to Muslims who choose to make their home here and, over time, to absorb much, if not all, of English culture. It would in my view be quite wrong for public funds to be spent on financing schools whose aims and whose teachers are fundamentally opposed to our culture; and that, I regret, is likely to be the case in any Islamic faith school that lives up to its name.
Edward Nugee QC
Lincoln’s Inn, London WC2
Dawkins misunderstands
From Dr Robert O.J. Weinzier
Sir: Rod Liddle’s recent article ‘A man who believes in Darwin as fervently as he hates God’ (9 December) summarises very neatly one of the main problems concerning the current debate about Darwinism.
The theory of natural selection, explaining the evolution of different life forms from a common ancestor, provides a consistent conceptual framework that is no longer controversial in scientific circles. Contrary to Mr Liddle’s assertion, the theory of natural selection will not have to be amended beyond recognition (or discarded altogether), because it reflects a fundamental principle to which any replicating entities are subjected. Evolution is thus an inherent property of any form of life.
Many problems in the communication of biological insights to the general public arise because some scientists, like Richard Dawkins, ultimately fail to understand that the theory of evolution has absolutely no bearing on the existence of God. There are many areas, like the origin of the universe, the meaning of life etc., that are beyond the questions that can be addressed by scientific investigations in a meaningful manner. This space is the realm of religious belief. There are areas where science has nothing to say, and religion should not meddle with scientific theories about the reality accessible to our senses. The ultimate tragedy is, of course, that Richard Dawkins is ‘Professor of the Public Understanding of Science’. His failure to comprehend some of the most basic principles of science does no favour to efforts to explain evolution to the general public.
Robert Weinzier
Senior Lecturer, Imperial College, London SW7
From John Barrett
Sir: The most cogent comment that I have read about Richard Dawkins’s beliefs was on an internet forum: ‘Richard Dawkins gets to marry Lalla Ward and he still doesn’t believe there’s a God?’
John Barrett
Sandgate, Kent
Kerry Christmas
From Mary O’Keeffe
Sir: The ‘wren boys’ of Fergal Keane’s childhood Christmasses in Kerry (‘Ireland’s laureate of Christmas’, 16/23 December) still visit the pubs in Connemara, where we spend Christmas, the wren hopping around in its cage as the plate is passed about.
The wild flower guide from the local hotel quotes Patrick Kavanagh and his precocious joy in the Irish flora of his little Monaghan hills — he wrote that as a boy he was in love with them before he knew their names.
Does the Derby Tup of my childhood in south Yorkshire still make an appearance in the streets at Christmas-time, I wonder?
Mary O’Keeffe
London W13
A symbol of our identity
From John Papworth
Sir: Robert Stuart, reviewing a book on monarchy (Books, 16/23 December), says, ‘It survives as the fount of class pride and snobbery’, indicating that he understands little of either the monarchy or of the country which in name it governs. Our monarchy is the symbolic and immensely popular expression of our identity as a nation. If the monarchy were simply confined to the attributes he seeks to bestow on it, it would not have survived from one Christmas to another.
John Papworth
Purton, Wiltshire
Major and manners
From John Bone
Sir: I’ve only just seen Paul Johnson’s article on manners (And another thing, 2 December) and would like to bear belated witness to at least one act of considerable courtesy on the part of John Major. As chief secretary to the Treasury in the late 1980s, he held a meeting of officials at which I was the most junior present. He held the door open for us all and then, already knowing the others in the deputation by name, took the trouble to introduce himself to me and bade me sit down. I am confident that, in nearly 30 years of public service, I have never come across such politeness from any politician, let alone a Cabinet minister.
John Bone
London SW6
Going solo
From Rory Knight Bruce
Sir: Marcus Berkmann, for so long the most intelligent of pop critics, should not be shy in nominating his all-time favourite guitar solos (Arts, 23/30 December). Indeed, Spectator readers should send him their nominations so that he could make a book out of them. My own would be that of David ‘Clem’ Clempson from Colisseum on ‘Lost Angeles’, recorded live in Brighton in the early 1970s. When I last spoke to Clempson, he was playing pool in a roughhouse in Shepherd’s Bush and working on a ‘project’ — which I hope was true.
Rory Knight Bruce
Crediton, Devon
Forever plashy
From James Macdonald
Sir: James Young has visited impure sources (Letters, 23/30 December). On both occasions the first edition of Scoop gives ‘Feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole’; and reminds us once more of that impeccable style.
James Macdonald
By email
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