Solidarity with the strikers
Sir: As a member of the English working class I write to express my approval of and agreement with Rod Liddle’s article (‘Would the working class vote Labour now?, 7 February). I would compare the action of the strikers with those of the shipyard workers of Gdansk in 1980 whose actions exposed to the world the falseness of the Polish Communist Party’s claim to protect the class it purported to represent. These strikers have shown up New Labour’s pretence that it cares about British workers. Peter Mandelson’s performance was eerily reminiscent of the party hacks who were wheeled out to attack Solidarity.
What must have sent a shiver through the ‘chattering classes’ and mortified Guardian readers was the sight of the strikers displaying the Union flag rather than banners in favour of ‘human rights, multi-culturalism and diversity’. New Labour always raises the issue of the BNP as this is the spectre that haunts them in the night — the fear that the working class will follow the example of the French workers, who now vote in large numbers for the Front National.
During the first free elections in Poland in 1989 the clergy were ordered not to get involved in the elections, so in the churches there was a simple slogan ‘Think what the Communist Party has done for you and vote accordingly’. English workers should apply the same maxim to New Labour.
J. Fairclough
Manchester
Suicide in the Depression
Sir: Matthew Lynn (Business, 31 January) takes J.K. Galbraith’s tale in his book The Great Crash, 1929 of window washers being mistaken for distraught brokers as proof that no newly poor moneymen hurled themselves from tall buildings. However, Winston Churchill was in New York City that week, and wrote that on 30 October ‘under (my) bedroom window a gentleman cast himself down fifteen storeys and was dashed to pieces, causing a wild commotion and the arrival of the fire brigade’.
Mike Smith
San Francisco, California
Evolving belief
Sir: Simon Hoggart, in his review of Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life (Television, 7 February), says that David Attenborough refuted, by implication, the claim that Darwin believed in a Supreme Being by pointing out that he ‘used to take his family to church, leave them there, and go for a thoughtful walk’. I saw the programme and don’t think that was Attenborough’s argument, but if it was it is easily answered. If not going to church means one is an atheist, Voltaire, Rousseau, Jefferson and Gibbon were atheists. But they were not even agnostics, they were devout deists.
David Watkins
Cardiff, Wales
Reality of overpopulation
Sir: I have tried for many years to tolerate the mindless papistry of your magazine for the sake of its otherwise excellent opinions, but this week tries my patience beyond endurance. We are used to the weekly rants from the hyper-intelligent ostrich Paul Johnson, but the utter blind folly of Toby Young and his obscene brood-size (Status anxiety, 7 February) cannot be ignored. Jonathan Porritt has the status and the clarity of mind to say the unsayable: that the catastrophes mankind is inflicting on the world cannot be cured individually without tackling their cause — human overpopulation. For everyone on earth to live a decent life there must be fewer of us. Anyone with any insight knew decades ago that responsible people should limit their offspring to replacement numbers; how can Young claim not to have been unaware of this, when Malthus knew it 200 years ago? I fear that natural selection will be imposing its inevitable consequences not only on our species but also on all others. It won’t be pleasant, especially for those who have dogmatically ignored the obvious. I hope Young’s children stick in his gullet.
Hedley Brown
North Yorkshire
Beyond belief
Sir: Deborah MacCoby writes (Letters, 7 February) that ‘though the Hamas Charter is indeed appallingly anti-Semitic, it played no part in Hamas’s election campaign’. Really? That doesn’t half take a bit of believing.
Rene Dale
Edenbridge, Kent
Stowe it
Sir: I am writing on behalf of my late wife, Judith, née Roxburgh, to protest at the misspelling of the name of her kinsman J.F. Roxburgh in the otherwise excellent review of Brian Rees’s Stowe, the History of a Public School (Books, 7 February). Not being an Old Stoic, I will not be buying the book, but nevertheless I hope the name is correctly spelled therein.
David Vaudrey
Doynton, South Gloucestershire
Throwing shoes
Sir: I must sabotage Hugo Rifkind’s theory of footwear throwing (Shared opinion, 7 February). A dictionary lately found in a Waterstone’s sale informs me that ‘sandal’ is not Persian for sandal. ‘Sandal’ is a type of tree. The conversion to footwear must go via clogs and pattens (which lack entries). Rifkind could certainly heft a clog, which enjoys an impact equal to a hob-nailed boot and a far higher rate of fire than anything with buckles, laces or Velcro.
P.G. Urben
Kenilworth, Warwickshire
Ours not to reason why
Sir: Paul Johnson (And another thing, 7 February) shows his ignorance when it comes to scientific matters. Johnson asks, ‘Why does natural selection lead to endless complexity?’ But Darwin was asking the question ‘How?’ and not ‘Why?’ in trying to understand the huge variation of species. Furthermore, he never writes about the purpose of natural selection. He was a proper scientist, who observed the natural world and proposed an explanation for how the variations came about. Evidence continues to support his thesis.
Professor C.B. Brown
Sheffield
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