Stop hounding us
From Simon Hart
Sir: Ever since he was sacked by Radio 4’s Today programme for his obsession with the Countryside Alliance, Rod Liddle has not been able to leave us alone (‘At least they understand democracy’, 5 January).
The problem is that it suits Liddle to pillory us as a single-issue pressure group when he knows full well that the truth is somewhat different. While no one would deny that we have played an active and key role in the hunting debate up to and beyond the introduction of the largely ridiculed Hunting Act 2004, we have been far from ‘utterly silent on the real problems which this government (and previous governments) have inflicted upon our rural areas’.
If he had taken a moment to have a quick glance at our website, he would have noticed our continuing campaign to save rural post offices; our ‘Best Rural Retailer’ competition and a host of other campaigns. But that would spoil his fun. A closer look at the Rural Jigsaw, the Alliance’s policy document, would have explained the ways in which the Alliance strives to highlight and alleviate the problems facing rural communities that he refers to, and more.
Nevertheless, I suppose we should be grateful for the weekly name checks, and for Liddle’s fascination with those who wish to ‘dress up as idiots and go about maiming foxes’. His strident tone has the effect of encouraging the undecided to support us far more than anything we could ever say.
Simon Hart
Chief Executive, Countryside Alliance
London SE11
The cost of class
From Andrew Nash
Sir: Matthew Lynn’s bafflement at the cost of school fees (‘Why we need no-frills, low-cost private schools’, 13 January) would soon be solved if he actually had to run an independent school.
Education is a people business: the vast majority of my school’s expenditure goes on my teachers’ salaries. Teachers earn a lot less than their fellow graduates who went into the City, but their salary scales have (quite rightly) been extended in recent years. Schools aren’t call centres — we can’t cut costs by outsourcing to cheaper labour markets. Parents want excellent teachers, small classes, good pastoral care, and a wide range of GCSE and A-level subjects to choose from, together with lots of sport, music, drama and other extra-curricular activities. You could indeed offer ‘no frills’ by reducing options, having huge classes, running a short school day and providing nothing outside the classroom. But parents already have that option — it’s called state education.
Andrew Nash
Headmaster, St Edward’s School,
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
Being Frank
From Rupert Hambro
Sir: I read Charles Moore’s charming tribute to Frank Johnson (‘The smart boy always thrilled by the story’, 30 December). I remember our once finding Frank in the garden of a hotel in Greve in Chianti, deep in a book. When questioned, he told us that he was determined to understand every word sung in Italian operas and he had decided to hide away to learn the language. He was, however, happy to join us with our two children for lunch in one of the best local eateries. Having told him there was no such thing as a free lunch, he gave us a remarkable description of the whole history of conflict in the Middle East which my children to this day remember as being of greater interest than most of what they learnt at school. We, along with everyone else who so enjoyed his writings, will miss his charm, his wit and his naughty humour.
Rupert Hambro
London SW1
Plaque birds
From Hugh Massingberd
Sir: In, alas, the last of his delightful ‘Food for thought’ columns (13 January), Simon Courtauld mentions that Goya painted a heap of dead woodcock. For the home side, it might be added that the sculptor Sir Francis Chantrey (originally a grocer’s boy in Sheffield) carved an exquisite plaque in the Marble Hall at Holkham depicting the brace of woodcock which he himself dispatched with a single shot while staying with the great agriculturalist ‘Coke of Norfolk’ in 1829.
Hugh Massingberd
London W2
Competing Greens
From Paul Callan
Sir: Charles Moore’s punning comment ‘How Green Is Your Valet?’ (The Spectator’s Notes, 13 January) on the race among Cameronite politicos for the poshest eco-friendly car reminds me of a contest among the young reporters when I edited the Evening Standard diary in the 1960s. Everyone searched for a story about the then director-general of the BBC, Sir Hugh Carleton Greene, resigning to enter domestic service. We could then run the headline ‘Hugh Greene Was My Valet’. Ah, halcyon days.
Paul Callan
London SW10
Dinar party
From William Shawcross
Sir: Richard Snailham (Letters, 13 January) is quite right that I typed the value of the Iraqi dinar incorrectly — my apologies. But, as I wrote, the dinar has continued to appreciate against the US dollar and, more significantly, against the Kuwaiti and Iranian currencies. This has happened despite the horrific violence and seems to show greater local and regional confidence in Iraq’s future than many Western commentators display.
William Shawcross
London W2
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