Shot in the dark
Sir: Just a thought. Has anyone ever considered the possibility that, if all citizens were armed, the Columbine and Virginia Tech perpetrators would have been shot long before they killed so many (Leading article, 21 April)? Moreover, the 9/11 perpetrators would also have been shot before taking control of the aircraft — 130 armed passengers must trump four armed terrorists. Are proposed gun laws not just a vain attempt at treating an effect rather than stopping the cause? If a murderer knows he will be shot if he steps out of line, he will think twice.
Ray Hattingh
Cape Town, South Africa
Sir: There is something else besides the ownership of weapons which separates America from Europe: we don’t do holocausts, we don’t do world wars and we don’t do unelected totalitarian regimes like the European Union.
Katherine Barlow
Austria
Where’s the evidence?
Sir: Melanie Phillips makes virtually no credible claim in her article on the ‘missing’ WMDs (‘I found Saddam’s WMD bunkers’, 21 April). Most of the ‘explanations’ offered are so illogical and irrational as to be laughable. The idea that a cabal of Iraqis, Russians and Syrians could dismantle and transport the massive WMD infrastructure she describes — evading notice by not only satellite and air reconnaissance but also hundreds of thousands of US and British troops and numerous search teams crisscrossing Iraq — is the stuff of a bad Tom Clancy knockoff. Then, after a page and a half of undocumented allegations, lost records, evidence she admits is circumstantial, and wholly improbable speculation, she lets drop the weasel words: ‘Of course, we don’t know whether any of this is true.’
That doesn’t stop her, however, from treating it as true, or from raising the spectre of ‘the Islamic bomb’, although she presents not a shred of hard, corroborated evidence for a single claim made by her source. I wish I could say that such journalism surprised me. Unfortunately, it seems to have become the standard for the modern news media.
John Haley
Dallas, Texas, USA
Fine one to talk
Sir: Can Anne Applebaum really complain that the Russian government went ahead and printed posters of ‘fat British capitalists in bowler hats squashing Russian workers with their shiny boots’ (‘Putin will stop at nothing’, 21 April) when the cover of the issue she was writing in depicts Mr Putin taking shots at a map of the British Isles?
Julian Thomas
Beckenham, Kent
Square dance
Sir: Mark Palmer’s description of the proposals for Sloane Square (‘Sloane Rangers! Unite’, 7 April) has little to do with the actual design by the architects Stanton and Williams. And contrary to what he says, many of the aspects of the scheme that he criticises represent considerable improvements over what exists today. Most importantly, Mr Palmer bemoans the loss of precious open space, but what use is open space if it is not accessible? The brief for the improvement of the square was to once more make it a place for people to meet and use, rather than just an inaccessible roundabout encircled by a constant flow of traffic. By dividing the current square into two squares, together larger than the existing square, with a road separating the two to allow the traffic to flow freely, it would be possible to create one of the most beautiful and most frequented squares in London.
Richard Rogers
London W6
United, we fall
Sir: The Conservative party’s problem in Scotland cannot be solved by simply juggling with the identity of their Scottish party (‘The Tories’ plan to separate’, 7 April). David Cameron points out elsewhere that the Union now elicits at worst ‘a prevailing animosity’. This is surely due in the main to the evident antipathy in Scotland not only towards the Union but also towards England.
But there’s a wider and more transparent political truth. For the first time in many years, the Conservative party will go into the next election with a real chance of winning. For the first time ever, it will also be virtually invisible in three of the four constituent parts of the United Kingdom. Recent events in Ulster suggest in the long term a slow but peaceful slide towards a united Ireland. The Conservative party in Wales is of little consequence. The Conservative party in Scotland has for some time been in a mess, and for all David Cameron’s hopes it seems likely to remain so. A situation in which a British government in Westminster has virtually no representation except in England is unsustainable. There is, of course, one obvious solution.
Michael Sissons
London WC2
Name and shame
Sir: Charles Moore is not the only one to object to the unsolicited use of his first name by total strangers, frequently in a business context (The Spectator’s Notes, 21 April). My husband, who feels strongly on the subject, has recently tried to avoid it by signing a letter ‘M. Harrison (Mr)’. The reply was addressed to ‘Dear M.’
Gillian Harrison
By email
Sir: Charles Moore says that the question to be asked about telephone boxes is: ‘What are they for?’ But they are still useful, namely for sheltering in from the rain while making a call on one’s mobile.
Henry S. Harris
Hove, Sussex
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