Nothing left
Sir: Rod Liddle is right to ascribe the establishment’s desire to suppress the truth in relation to grooming gangs to its fundamentally anti-working class mindset (‘We demand a right to truth’, 11 January). But he’s characteristically wrong to attribute this to ‘liberalism’. The contemporary left’s identity-politics agenda is born from the opposite: the postmodernist-derived idea that reality can be radically reconstructed through control of what is, and is not, communicated. Its various fantasies – and the public-sector interests that depend upon them – necessarily involve suppressing our powers of rational cognition.
Culture-control leftism has been able quite brilliantly to simultaneously pass itself off as a manifestation of ‘progressive liberalism’ while pursuing an inherently authoritarian agenda.
Marc Glendening
Royston, Hertfordshire
Century note
Sir: The abusers involved in the ‘grooming gang’ scandal have a ‘7th-century’ attitude to women, according to Douglas Murray (‘Hollow talk’, 11 January).
The glories of 7th-century Britain include Hilda of Whitby, abbess of two monasteries in succession and founder of a third at the age of 66. She was known, according to her younger contemporary Bede, for her ‘industry and virtue’ and her ‘outstanding devotion and grace’. Even kings and princes sought her advice.
Douglas rightly castigates the use of coy euphemisms such as ‘Asians’ when ‘Muslim men of Pakistani origin’ would be more truthful. Isn’t ‘7th-century’ just another coy euphemism?
David J. Critchley
Winslow, Buckinghamshire
Bundles of energy
Sir: Lionel Shriver’s excellent piece deserves the widest circulation (‘The case against a “climate emergency”’, 11 January). Her point about the ignorance of politicians is well brought by the passing of the Climate Change Act in 2008 with only six MPs voting against – these were the only MPs with science or engineering qualifications. The act itself was written for Ed Miliband by a certain Bryony Worthington (now Baroness) of Friends of the Earth, who has a degree in English.
On an optimistic note, fossil fuels are unlikely to run out for many millennia, as human ingenuity is rapidly finding ways of exploiting deeper deposits. Fracking was considered too expensive 50 years ago; now it is incredibly cheap. We have only scratched the surface of the available resources.
Philip Foster
Kirk Ella, East Riding of Yorkshire
Attention seeking
Sir: Three cheers for Max Pemberton and his thought-provoking article (‘Mind games’, 4 January). I was a practising social worker for more than 35 years, with specialisms in disabilities and latterly fostering. Like Mr Pemberton, I too witnessed a massive rise in children being diagnosed and medically treated for ADHD.
It must be understood that the vast majority of children in care come from chaotic households, with little or no supportive parenting, and chronic alcohol-drug use often present. Issues of neglect and abuse obviously damage children both physically and emotionally. In my experience, the majority of children subjected to ADHD medication presented with little or no improvements. Where colleagues and I did witness a moderation, or indeed an eradication, of ‘challenging behaviours’ was when carers were able to establish set routines, improve nutrition and significantly reduce time spent on electronic devices. Sadly many parents and carers actively pursued the labelling of their child as having ADHD, as they had a perception that this could get them improved support and services for a child with ‘special needs’.
As Mr Pemberton details, we have witnessed a veritable ADHD ‘industry’ emerge that effectively harms rather than helps children and young people with complex needs and behaviours.
L.F. Keight
Newton, Wirral
Great Scots
Sir: Is it any wonder that Scots get huffy with the English? Bryan Appleyard (Books, 4 January) calls Samuel Johnson ‘the wisest Englishman who ever drew breath’, but David Hume, whom he acknowledges as a great philosopher, is scooped up as ‘British’. It was ever thus. When Andy Murray was at the beginning of his Wimbledon career he was ‘Scottish’, with a hint of grumpiness implied, but when he won the gentlemen’s singles he became ‘British’. Just saying.
Joan Olivier (a huffy Scot)
London SW19
Dogged pursuit
Sir: In his article on the connection between Christianity and hunting, Sebastian Morello refers to an occasion when Saint Hubert of Liège was out hunting with hounds (‘Hounds of heaven’, 4 January). There is a somewhat later saint who can also be mentioned in this connection. Saint Dominic was born Domingo de Guzmán in Castile in the 12th century. The story goes that after she had returned from a pilgrimage to the nearby Abbey of Santo Domingo de Silos, his hitherto barren mother had a prophetic dream in which she saw a hound leaping from her womb with a flaming torch in its mouth and proceeding to set the world on fire with the torch. Her son, who was ordained as a Catholic priest, founded the Order of Preachers, called the Dominicans. The name stems from the Latin Domini canes, the ‘hounds of the Lord’. The mission of the Dominicans was, metaphorically speaking, to set the world on fire with a love of God.
Richard Symington
London SW17
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