Let Libya split
Sir: Back in the days of Good King Idris, I did archaeological fieldwork in Cyrenaica in which I traced the main water supply of ancient Ptolemais from its source to the city’s cisterns. I came to know my patch pretty well and I feel that Peter Jones (‘The two Libyas’, 26 March) has got it right.
The most sensible course would be to return to the original frontier between Cyrenaica and the rest of the country, as the present state of Libya was a botched affair thrown together in the wake of the Italian defeat in the second world war.
The immediate problem as we all know is to stop the Barbary pirate of Tripoli from exacting his revenge on the people of Cyrenaica, and that is very much a European problem — unlike Iraq. How on earth would we cope with the flood of refugees that would descend upon the southern shores of our continent as the result of such an event?
Christopher Arthur
Durham
Well done
Sir: Congratulations to the Spectator (‘The Gorbachev files’, 26 March) for publishing a bit of the truth about Gorbachev. Using Putin’s words, the criminals should sit in jail.
Oleg Gordievsky
London WC1
Outward-looking Ukip
Sir: Rod Liddle is quite right to point out that Nick Griffin’s Question Time performance has done the BNP great harm (‘Has David Dimbleby killed the BNP?’, 19 March). In Barnsley some BNP votes did switch to Ukip, though they were fewer in number than the votes from Labour, the Lib Dems and the Conservatives. The reason that Ukip came second in the by-election is that our support is from across the board. As the BNP slowly leaves its knuckledusters behind it is raiding our policy chest, as is for that matter the government with its proposals on merging National Insurance and income tax and Mr Duncan Smith’s pensions policy.
Ukip is a libertarian, outward-looking party that wants nothing to do with extremism of any kind. I am sure that our candidate for the Leicester South by-election, Abhijit Pandya, would agree.
Nigel Farage MEP
Leader, UK Independence Party, Devon
Sir: I always enjoy Rod Liddle’s articles and I particularly enjoyed ‘Has David Dimbleby killed the BNP?’ except for one half sentence, ‘To tell the truth there is not a lot of difference between the BNP and Ukip policy-wise…’. There is in fact one crucial difference. The BNP is thoroughly racist. Ukip is not in the least racist.
Stuart Wheeler
Treasurer, UK Independence Party, London W1
The duty to excise
Sir: I write with reference to Mark Mason’s review of the Blue Guide Literary Companion: London (Bookends, 26 March). Let me declare an interest: I am the series editor. Mr Mason laments the lack of contemporary extracts. Pity poor anthologists! We all begin with evenly balanced lists, but permissions do not come cheap. Hundreds, even thousands of pounds can be quoted for world rights, especially from the larger houses. Slowly but surely those balanced lists begin to tip towards the 19th century. Martin Amis: OUT, Peter Wildeblood: OUT, Michael Holroyd: OUT. And that is not to mention copyright holders who never reply. We all live in fear and trembling of litigation.
After two months with no response, despite repeated attempts, do I dare to publish? Or do I excise? The printer has ordered the paper. The distributor has alerted his reps and will sack me if I am late with delivery again… I excise.
One other point, though. You accuse us of being stuck in the past. But we, the living, are, by virtue of our incarnate state, necessarily stuck in the present. We can buy the works of contemporary authors from any branch of Waterstone’s. It takes a Blue Guide to track down Mrs Mitton.
Annabel Barber
Editor-in-Chief, Blue Guides
Human institutions
Sir: I was intrigued to read Paul Johnson claiming in the Spectator of 26 March that the ‘papacy is the most enduring of all human institutions’.
By this (Freudian?) slip, I presume he is conceding what most of the rest of the world already knows — that the papacy is not a divine institution. Whatever a divinity may or may not be.
Sinclair C. Dunnett
Inverness
Sir: Paul Johnson might well have been present when the late Pope Pius XII farted, but surely he was not present in those mists of time when the most enduring of all human institutions, the family (not the papacy, as he claims) was created.
Edward Windham-Bellord
Somerset
Temper temper
Sir: In his column of 26 March, Toby Young describes his six-year-old son Ludo losing his rag when he conceded a goal to his wee brother Freddie at miniature air-hockey. With a temper like that, I see a future suspension at a strictly disciplined free school on the cards.
Currer Ball
By email
In praise of Ursula
Sir: We shall be bereft without the erudition, elegance and encouragement of Ursula Buchan’s column (Gardens, 26 March). ‘Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made/ By singing: — “Oh, how beautiful!” and sitting in the shade.’
Julia Mount
London N1
Write to us The Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP; letters@spectator.co.uk
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