Spectator readers respond to recent articles
Selective indignation
Sir: People are — quite correctly — very offended by the phone-hacking antics of the News of the World journalists and editors. But did any of these (now) horrendously affronted guardians of the rights of individual privacy give the slightest damn when similarly disgusting reporters were so gleefully reporting the (hacked) private conversations of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles?
No sensible person condones the actions of the News of the World, or of its editors and journalists. But I, for one, do not find their actions nearly as sickening as the revoltingly selective indignation with which we are now being so continuously bombarded.
Colin Brown
Natal, South Africa
In praise of loyalty
Sir: When Jack Profumo resigned his seat in March 1963, having admitted lying to Parliament, Iain Macleod, then leader of the Commons, amid public and press hysteria quite as overblown as is
manifest today, said: ‘Jack Profumo was a friend of mine, is a friend of mine and will continue to be a friend of mine.’
I have always thought standing by friends no matter what is rare — especially in politics — and David Cameron rises in my estimation for standing by Andy Coulson.
Tom Benyon
Bladon, Oxon
End of the World
Sir: How right Charles Moore is in his remarks on the demise of the News of the World (The Spectator’s Notes, 16 July). Long ago my grandfather told me he believed it would only be possible to describe England as a civilised country when the readers of the Spectator out-numbered those of that scurrilous paper. Now that day has come.
Ronald Forrest
Lower Milton, Wells, Somerset
Sir: Was Charles Moore employing an irony too subtle for my poor intelligence to comprehend in his column this week? For three paragraphs he rightly excoriates the News of the World for being the
grubby, prurient, shameless rag it was and not the fearless campaigner for truth that some sentimental obituarists claim it to have been. Then, in paragraph four, he applauds Charlie Brooks,
husband of Rebekah Brooks (former editor of the News of the World and the Sun), for his tireless efforts in getting the latter tabloid to change its stance on the foxhunting ban, as well as
lobbying New Labour and Gordon Brown, and introducing Rebekah to the Chipping Norton set, where she, David Cameron and Murdoch executives mingled.
If someone with the finely honed moral instincts of Moore cannot detect the incongruity between his first and second set of observations, then one doubts whether any journalist, with the exception of Max Hastings (who wrote a superb piece in the same issue), has the necessary perspective to pass worthwhile opinion on the corrupting relationship between press, government and police uncovered by the News Corp scandal.
(Rabbi Dr) David J. Goldberg
London NW5
How to make a reader
Sir: Rod Liddle in his article about his daughter’s end-of-term report (9 July) correctly criticises the culture of politically correct school reports that tiptoe around discussing poor
performance. However his disdain for the phonetic method of teaching reading to five-year-olds is wrong. As a teacher of young children, I railed against the wisdom of trying to teach children
through a ‘look say’ method, where a five-year-old had to learn the ‘shape’ of each word to read a story. As Liddle points out, the English language is rich and has many
idiosyncrasies of spelling, but unless we give a child some basic building blocks, such as A for apple and C for cat, with which to tackle a word they will never (as was found in the reading dark
ages of the last quarter of the 20th century) have the skills with which to go on to discover the pleasure of reading. The ability to spell follows on.
Apologies for any spelling errors!
Christine Jones
Klosters
Death of a paper
Sir: Ian Kirby’s description (Diary, 16 July) of ‘banging out’ brought back memories of the early 1960s, when I experienced the genuine thing: a ceremony of banging on the stone
of the compositors when an young man had completed his apprenticeship. It was not a wimpish ruler-on-desk affair, but a loud and triumphant sound.
The last time I heard it was one of great sadness, when the Leicester Evening Mail sent its last edition to press on 11 November 1963 and the solemn noise which reverberated through the building tolled the death knell for the newspaper.
Sally A. Williams
Dinas Cross, Pembrokeshire
Fury on foot
Sir: Mark Mason (‘Rage on the pavement’, 16 July) might reasonably add to his list of irritating pedestrians those who, on busy thoroughfares, pursue a single-minded, single-track,
heads-down, headlong surge as they concentrate on their mobile phone conversations or texting, leaving the rest of us to practise our twinkle-toed side-steps.
John Heywood
London SW7
Classic error
Sir: If Dot Wordsworth thinks the genitive of nox is noctae, should she be advising us about much subtler points of usage?
Geoffrey Sampson
Skirwith, Uckfield, Sussex
Write to us The Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP letters@spectator.co.uk
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