Europe’s guilty men
Sir: What exactly do Peter Oborne and Frances Weaver (‘The great euro swindle’, 24 September) think the pro-euro camp must be called to account for? Apparently for being on the losing side in a debate which they never showed much sign of winning anyway, not least because the Chancellor of the Exchequer set conditions for entry which he knew would not be met. The Financial Times and the BBC may well have lacked even-handedness in their presentation, but their influence was balanced by the solid euroscepticism of many newspapers.
In truth, many Eurosceptics were their cause’s worst enemies. Nicholas Ridley’s comparison of Helmut Kohl to Adolf Hitler was unusual only in that it was made by a serving minister. There was never any difficulty in finding Eurosceptic journalists and Conservative backbenchers willing to denounce not merely the euro but the entire European project in terms which sometimes teetered on the edge of irrationality. This did the anti-euro cause a serious disservice in that it allowed the BBC to underplay the real arguments against a common currency. Perhaps these intemperate Eurosceptics should be called to account.
Ian Stevens
Leamington Spa
Sir: Peter Oborne is mistaken in his comment that ‘about 25 years ago something went very wrong with the FT’. The FT has been a propagandist for ‘Europe’ for over 50 years. In 1958 Robert Schuman took its then editor, Sir Gordon Newton, on one of the European Commission’s regular promotional guided tours. Like many others, Newton was ‘converted’ by this so-called ‘Father of Europe’. Of the carefully chosen individuals taken on tailored goodwill trips to Brussels and Strasbourg, about a third were British. Clearly that paid off handsomely when Britain joined the EEC.
Lindsay Jenkins
London W14
Sir: The people and institutions who wanted us to join the euro are the same as those who believe in man-made global warming. They are using the same method of denigrating anyone who doesn’t buy their theories as mad, bad and misinformed. And the cost of cutting carbon emissions will be even greater than that of the euro.
Geoff Butcher
Farnham, Surrey
Motherhood and apple pie
Sir: One wonders what personal issues Tanya Gold (Food, 17 September) has with her mother or mother-in-law to trigger such a spiteful attack on older Jewish women, of all things in the guise of a restaurant review. Please can I record, on behalf of Jewish mothers, some facts. We like being taken out for dinner on our birthdays by our families. Do others not? We are, most of us, very, very good cooks. Our grandchildren remember, years later, food cooked with skill and love. We are not responsible for the colour of restaurant tablecloths. We are not excited by lobster in the kitchen.
Jo Wagerman
President Emeritus, Board of Deputies of British Jews
London NW3
Heavy metal hipsters
Sir: I admire Brendan O’Neill for standing up for heavy metal against the ‘rock snobs’ (‘Metal head’, 24 September). It’s true that, for a long time, the trendies sneered at long-haired, leather-wearing metal heads such as me. But I fear Brendan might be behind the curve. These days, all sorts of hipsters are turning up at concerts, dressing like us and pretending they’ve always loved metal. Which leaves me wondering if the only way now to rebel is to become a goth. Even that seems to be fashionably ironic.
Hugo Sabin
Birmingham
Presidents at prayer
Sir: It is a little eccentric for Patrick M. Allitt (‘Preaching to the converted’, 17 September) to posit that religious candidates ‘represent the Republicans’ best chance of losing to Obama’. Evangelical Christians have been getting elected to every high office in the US since at least 1789. But the real gap in Professor Allitt’s argument is the even more recent history of the ‘weird’ religious affiliations of President Obama, who was a noted parishioner for 22 years at a sort of outlier Christian church run by an over-the-top pastor who specialised in anti-American screeds and dabbled in anti-Semitism.
Leonard Toboroff
France
Frightening the horses
Sir: I have very much enjoyed the to-ing and fro-ing between Philip Hensher and my friend Peregrine Worsthorne (‘Are explicit sex scenes OK?’, 17 September). I would like to point out the main difference between humans and animals is that humans tend to prefer their sex in privacy. This goes back a long way. The first couple to run off into the bushes lest they be observed in the act were Adam and Eve.
Edwina Sandys
New York
In denial
Sir: It’s one thing being ignorant and it’s another to revel in that ignorance. Carol Sarler (‘Feel the pain’, 17 September) succeeds on both counts. The aim of pre-emptive psychological screening for all children is to pick up the early signs of crippling illnesses like anorexia nervosa or childhood depression and severe anxiety — very few qualified therapists believe that their role is to allay the pain and disappointment that everyone experiences in life.
Anthony Berman
London NW3
Step outside and say that
Sir: I wonder if Rod Liddle (24 September) would tell the England rugby team to their faces that he thinks they are a bunch of middle-class latent homosexuals?
Peter Waring
Shropshire
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