Too much, too young
From Judith Hereford
Sir: I agree with Leo McKinstry (‘Hate, hypocrisy and hysteria’, 21 January). To read the newspapers, you’d think that Ruth Kelly was singlehandedly responsible for all the outbreaks of paedophilia in Britain, when in fact it’s the fault of our debased culture. But let’s not forget that as Education Secretary Kelly contributes to that culture, especially with regard to the government’s sex education policy. If school teachers talk to children as young as seven about sex, telling them anything goes, why should they worry when another adult, in another place, broaches the same subject? When every magazine they open tells them about sex, how are nine- and ten-year-olds going to know to be on their guard when a ‘family friend’ offers them lessons?
In my opinion, young people should not be taught about sex until they have the ability to distinguish between information and exploitation.
Judith Hereford
Mordiford, Hereford
From Michael O’Shea
Sir: In his excellent article on Ruth Kelly Leo McKinstry mentions her ‘religious’ opposition to abortion. Perhaps she opposes abortion not so much because her religion requires her to as because she thinks it is wrong. And I am sure that the ‘astonishing 5 per cent of all London girls aged between 15 and 17 [who] have been pregnant’ would have been very many fewer had abortion been less easily available to them.
Michael O’Shea
Richmond, Surrey
From Jonathan de Ferranti
Sir: Please congratulate Leo McKinstry for defending Ruth Kelly and exposing the double standards of the witch-hunting tabloid lynch mob. The buck should stop with Rupert Murdoch who, throughout his career, has put selling newspapers, with all their page-one sensations and page-three sleaze, above right and decency.
Jonathan de Ferranti
Newburgh, Fife
A countryside for all
From Andrew Wood
Sir: Mian Ridge (‘A question of ethnics’, 21 January) correctly outlines one of the aims of the Countryside Agency’s Diversity Review. However, the article misrepresents the Review by focusing solely on the ‘question of ethnics’. Our aim is to increase opportunities for those who do not now enjoy the benefits of the countryside, particularly those from inner cities, people with disabilities, young people, and those from ethnic minorities. Research conducted by the Countryside Agency found that countryside visitors are mostly white, are usually aged 35–54, have a relatively high income and travel by car.
The benefits of visiting the countryside — both physical and mental — are potentially huge and we will do what we can to help everyone share those benefits. Rural communities also stand to gain from the purchasing power that these groups command. An increase in visitors from beyond the white, middle-aged middle class would be of considerable benefit to many parts of the rural economy.Andrew Wood
Director, Landscape, Access and Recreation, The Countryside Agency, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
Exploiting Hyde Park
From Nicholas Goodison
Sir: It was refreshing to see Olivia Glazebrook’s beef about the misuse of Hyde Park (Diary, 21 January). It should be a park at all times and not a venue for events. The excellent review of the royal parks some years ago by Dame Jennifer Jenkins underlined their very special importance as ‘countryside in the city’. Large-scale events are the complete antithesis of this principle. The barriers put up to accommodate them exclude ordinary users of the park from a very large area of Hyde Park for most of the best weeks of every summer, thus denying Londoners and visitors the delights and tranquillity of the rare countryside that make London such an attractive city. When the events are dismantled they leave the grass severely scarred and damaged.
The problem, like so many of our problems, lies in the Treasury. The royal parks are underfunded despite the huge surplus that the Treasury reaps from the Crown Estates. So the Royal Parks Agency uses Hyde Park for fund-raising events to help pay for the upkeep of all the royal parks.
Nicholas Goodison
London W1
Paying for others’ education
From Andrew Currie
Sir: In his article on David Cameron’s approach to education (‘Why did he do it?’, 14 January) Ross Clark moans about having to pay twice for his children’s education — once privately and once through his taxes. I could understand this if parents with children of school age paid a special education tax, but they don’t. State education is funded through general taxation, which means that people like me, for example, who have no children pay just as much as those who do — probably rather more, considering the amount of help the state, understandably, gives to parents. Since a decent education system has social benefits far beyond the immediate users’, it seems reasonable that society should chip in to pay for it (and have the right to criticise it when it doesn’t deliver). I’m more than happy for Ross Clark to educate his children privately, but not at the expense of ducking his responsibilities to the rest of us.
Andrew Currie
London SW1
Capitalism and communism
From Michael Petek
Sir: The vestigially Christian culture of the West took on communism in Europe and won the Cold War (‘The danger of China’, 21 January). But now that the Western manufacturing industry finds itself unable to resist the temptation to relocate to China, what can any of us do? Communist totalitarianism has the potential to be the most effective servant of predatory capitalism the world has ever seen. It guarantees the public enforcement of atheism, undertakes the ruthless suppression of religion and faith-based charitable work for the relief of human misery, and crushes incipient trade unions and other self-help organisations of working people. It creates a culture in which Western capitalists can treat their Chinese employees with a shameless cruelty which would not be tolerated even in Latin America. What we thought was a final victory in the Cold War now turns out to have been just the first round of a longer contest that communism looks set to win.
Michael Petek
Brighton, Sussex
Isis, Osiris and Jesus
From Helen Style
Sir: Bruce Anderson says that the religion of the ancient Egyptians was ‘barbarous’ (Travel, 21 January). Its features include a god who created the world out of primaeval chaos, a miraculous birth to a mother goddess, moral dictates such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, protecting the widow and refraining from oppression, and a Day of Judgment at which the spirit would either be judged worthy to enter a new life or, if not, be gobbled up by a terrifying monster, with the results of the judgment meticulously entered in a divine record.
How barbarous is that, exactly?
Helen Style
Richmond, Surrey
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