For richer, for poorer?
Sir: Liza Mundy (‘The richer sex’, 8 September) concludes that ‘history has shown that human beings are above all adaptable’, and should therefore adapt to women earning more than men. Her article appears to be mostly about women who are already married and I think this is probably true of married couples — they will adapt. As for the ‘partner’ brigade, I think the inequality will prove to be just another excuse for an easy break-up.
Michael Holden
Lewes
Sir: As a 17-year-old girl, I’d like to congratulate Liza Mundy on her refreshing, well-balanced piece. I was heartened by the idea that more men will embrace a domestic role, wielding blowtorches for the crème brûlée and so on. If she’s right, and I hope she is, I look forward to living in a world where men make dessert.
Freya Rawling
London SE22
Sacrificing standards
Sir: Martin Vander Weyer wants us to treat foreign students as an export market (Any other business, 8 September). Many years ago, when visiting a wealthy American college while working for a shabby and rundown part of the British university system, I expressed to a professor my envy of his luxurious surroundings. I have never forgotten his reply: ‘Don’t envy us. You have something we don’t have. It’s called standards. Never become dependent on money from the students and their parents to pay your wages. If you do, low grades for idle pigs will become a distant memory and failure unknown.’ The dependence on fees means that, in effect, degrees are being sold by the majority of British universities. Some students now pass exams with work that would have been considered inadequate if written by the ten-year-olds my wife used to teach at a Surrey junior school.
Robert Walls
Camberley, Surrey
Pay the robot
Sir: I couldn’t agree more with Mark Palmer about automatic checkouts (‘Unexpected item’, 8 September). My local supermarket is now entirely automated. It’s so boring to have to do all the work oneself and it’s not as though Tesco passes on the money it saves on checkout staff to the customer. (Though customers can find ways to award themselves a discount, for instance by entering the Cox’s apples as Granny Smiths.) More to the point, these conglomerates could be aiding economic recovery by continuing to employ staff, so why are they culling jobs at such a rate? I propose a law that says each outlet in a large chain should have to employ a certain number of staff, proportionate to its size.
Jane Clark
London
Sir: As an everyday user of self-checkouts, I am completely mystified by arguments against them. No doubt, many if not most of the whingers and moaners are addicts of such 21st-century delights as Facebook and smartphones and texting and so on. Spare me. You queue if you want to. Queueing is silly. Oh, but all contributors to the Spectator shop at Waitrose. Don’t we?
Mr T.E. Hinde
Fareham, Surrey
Rebranding schools
Sir: Ross Clark (Guide to Independent Schools, 8 September) is quite right about independent schools’ success in public relations: not the least of it is that so many people have been persuaded to call them ‘independent’ as opposed to ‘private’. Admirers of local education authorities are attempting a similar piece of magic with comprehensives, which they prefer to call ‘community schools’. It remains to be seen whether the trick will work a second time.
Robin Peters
Nottingham
One to watch
Sir: Much coverage has been given to Barack Obama and Mitt Romney (‘All right now’, 8 September), but there will be three candidates on the ballot in all 50 states. Gary Johnson, former two-term Republican governor of New Mexico and current Libertarian party presidential candidate, offers a new and interesting choice for America. Governor Johnson has more executive experience than Obama and Romney, is the only candidate who would submit a balanced budget to Congress immediately, the only candidate who would end foreign interventions costly in lives and money, and the only candidate who would end America’s failed ‘war on drugs’. He gives hope to those who fear that, in politics, expediency has triumphed over principle. He merits close attention.
Councillor Nicholas Rogers
Conservative member for Culverden,
Tunbridge Wells Borough Council
The lovely French
Sir: Toby Young has a highly subjective and somewhat nasty view of the French (Status anxiety, 1 September). Allow me to be equally subjective but give an opinion based on living in Nice for a year. The French are some of the most polite, friendly and intelligent people one is likely to meet. Unlike Toby Young’s, my French is fluent so I do understand what is being said. Oh, and they also have very high standards of hygiene, often a good deal higher than ours.
Thomas Jones
Brighton
Smoke and mirrors
Sir: The hubris associated with tall buildings, identified by Clarissa Tan as a harbinger of financial woe (‘Faulty towers’, 1 September) works on other levels. Two of my clients expanded, moved into grander premises with smoked glass windows, and subsequently became insolvent. When a third client chose to surround himself with smoked glass, I demanded stricter terms of payment. I was wise to do so: he was bankrupt within the year.
Bill Angus
Cumbria
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