The Spectator

Letters | 16 June 2012

Another country

Sir: Congratulations to Melissa Kite for her article ‘Paving paradise’ (2/9 June). She has perfectly expressed the view that we ‘country bumpkins’ have of the invidious invasion of the countryside by Fulham farmers in their Chelsea tractors.

Unfortunately, anyone with the wit to read her article will be nodding their head in agreement, whilst those she criticises will be turning the page in search of Armani and Ralph Lauren adverts. Or if they did actually manage to read it, they would probably not understand her point and certainly would not recognise themselves in her descriptions.

My enjoyment of the countryside is constantly undermined by these ‘incomers’ who demand that our precious rights of way are downgraded to footpaths or closed altogether — but that subject would fill several articles on its own.
Peter Fancourt
Sussex/Surrey border

Peace cry

Sir: Well said, Matthew Parris (‘I hope our Jubilee Queen, unlike the last, outlives a hopeless foreign war’, 2/9 June). It was hard to feel a full sense of national pride over the Jubilee weekend, when we know that our boys in the forces are still dying in an utterly futile conflict in Afghanistan — a fight that everybody knows is lost. On Sunday, as we celebrated the river pageant in the rain, Private Gregg Stone was shot and killed out on patrol in the Helmand. He should have been home.

Mark Smith
Berkshire

Obsolete MPs

Sir: Andrew Roberts (‘#JustStopIt’, 2/9 June) might also have dwelt upon the irony of MPs’ fondness for self-indulgent tweeting. Given their desire to reform the House of Lords as being irrelevant in this day and age, perhaps members should consider their own position. Hitherto, Mps were called upon to represent the concerns of their constituents, but one might suggest that these are now more widely and powerfully disseminated by social media.

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