Letters to the Editor | 4 March 2006

Genghis was a leftie

From Daniel Hannan, MEP
Sir: Paul Johnson demolishes the ludicrous expression ‘to the right of Genghis Khan’ and wonders what the Mongol leader’s true politics might have been (And another thing, 25 February). I’d have thought Genghis was a clear-cut leftie. His tactic, on conquering a tribe, was to liquidate the aristocracy and elevate the lower orders. He was a proto-Europhile, mingling his subject clans so as to prevent the development of a sense of national identity. Where modern socialists want to use the education system to cut high achievers down to size, the Khan was more literal, forcing his vassals to walk under a yoke and decapitating those who were too tall. He was even an early metricator, organising his soldiers according to a decimal system. Genghis can be considered right-wing only in the BBC sense, as a synonym for ‘baddie’.
Daniel Hannan
Brussels, Belgium

Make ‘localism’ a reality

From Henry Smith
Sir: Alasdair Palmer’s piece (‘Local villains’, 25 February) regarding the unresponsiveness and intransigence of local authorities is, I am sure, wearily familiar to just about any reader. Like many others, his frustration and irritation is accurate and justified, but I believe his criticism of the idea of ‘new localism’ is not.

As a council leader my reflex reaction should possibly be to defend the status quo, but in all honesty I cannot. As a local representative I share the annoyance often experienced by the local citizen. Rather than accepting this situation as inevitable, though, I think it needs to be challenged.

True localism is about direct democracy, whereby the link between taxation and representation is restored and those elected by local communities are empowered to get on with delivering what residents tell them is a priority for their area across all local services.
Henry