Rural matters
Sir: Alexander Waugh’s reference to planning officers asking impertinent questions about sexuality (‘The countryside under attack’, 20 March) reveals but a glimpse of the crackpot behaviour considered normal by these people. Last autumn, I went to an event sponsored by CABE, the government architecture quango, in which someone was brought in to lecture the audience, mainly council planners or diversity officers, on the importance of ‘inclusive planning’. This apparently requires councils to analyse the supposed different needs of people according to their race, religion or sexual identity, and to ensure that plans for public spaces are designed accordingly. The speaker’s argument rested on a series of astonishing non-sequiturs and ended with her excited announcement that she was conducting what she called ‘research’ into the different ways that LGBT — lesbians, gays, bisexuals, the transgendered — experience their environment, so that this could be translated into planning bylaws.
I was particularly struck by the fact that any dissent from this attitude was treated by the assembled diversity officers as high treason. When I said that I didn’t want to have special planning arrangements made for me, they all started shouting angrily, the woman next to me actually shaking her fists.
Timothy Brittain-Catlin
Kent
Sir: Well done to the Spectator for highlighting the damage already done to the countryside by New Labour and what we have in store if they win the next election. It will be a catastrophe.
Alexander Stilwell
Godalming
Democracy for sale
Sir: In reference to your leading article on the propaganda war (20 March), I hope your conclusion that ‘our votes are not for sale’ proves correct. I have a nagging doubt, however, that the main reason for the polls being as close as they are is that roughly 35 per cent of the electorate actually want the Labour party to continue. This, coupled with a less than stellar performance by team Cameron, raises the distinct possibility of five more years of Gordon & co.
Bharat Jashanmal
Gloucestershire
Expensive MPs
Sir: Much as I agree with Rod Liddle about the prolonged furore over MPs’ expenses, I feel that he hasn’t thought through the consequences of his remuneration plan, i.e. paying long-serving MPs an extra £7,000 for each four years of service, to reward their ‘wisdom and experience and dedication’. Does he realise that by those calculations, the wise, experienced and dedicated Nicholas Winterton would be earning an extra £57,000 a year? I suppose he would have no trouble buying those first-class rail tickets then.
Maria Rushton
Macclesfield
A bunny’s for life
Sir: Melissa Kite (Real life, 20 March) is correct that there are so many rescue shelters full of unwanted rabbits. But if an animal has been unwanted in its short life, it is understandable that shelters want to ensure that the same thing does not happen again. They therefore have strict rules in place and are very careful with their home checks.
Sadly, many of the public cannot understand how you can become so attached to a rabbit. After all, the saying ‘it’s only a rabbit’ is used so often. It makes us rabbit owners quite sad when a rabbit is considered as worthless, or simply as an ideal and disposable living toy for a small child. In advance of Easter, I would ask readers to look at our ‘Make mine a chocolate!’ campaign to raise awareness of the sad plight of the thousands of pet rabbits bought as presents at Easter and then abandoned months if not weeks later.
Anne Mitchell
The Rabbit Welfare Association & Fund, West Sussex
Off the cuff
Sir: Andrew Brown (Luxury goods, 20 March) chases up all kinds of alleyways in trying to solve the mystery of the five-button cuff. The Welsh Guards, and only the Welsh Guards, have five buttons at the cuff of their uniforms, denoting their status as the Fifth Regiment of Foot Guards. They also have five buttons down the front of their uniforms. When Welsh Guards officers have their suits made, they traditionally ask to have five buttons at the cuff. Some years ago, Hackett began to produce suits both with five and two groups of two buttons (for the Coldstream Guards) at the cuff, no doubt because someone noticed some Guards officers walking down the King’s Road and thought it smart to copy them.
Alan Kasket
London W14
Get ree-al
Sir: Charles Moore (The Spectator’s Notes, 20 March) was surprised to hear Samantha Cameron say ‘really’ as ‘reelly’. I surely can’t be the only faithful subscriber to The Spectator who is not confident of the correct upper-middle-class pronunciation of the word. Is it ‘rahlly’, ‘rarely’, ‘rilly’ (in the manner of a graduate of the Rank charm school, circa 1947) or (as here in south Wales) in three syllables — ‘ree-allee’? This has perplexed me for decades.
David Watkins
Cardiff
Sir: I applaud the views expressed by Charles Moore in his notes, but may I register my disapproval of your reference on the front cover to the lovely Mrs Cameron as ‘Sam Cam’? Now that really is ‘getting prolier’.
Anthony J. Burnet
East Lothian
The gentlemen’s manifesto?
Sir: I take it, given the line-up of contributors, that The Spectator Manifesto (13 March) was the gentleman’s version. I look forward to the appearance of the ladies’ version sometime before the election.
Mary Dejevsky
London SW1
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