The case for Ken
In last week’s issue you conducted a poll on how the public would view the Tory leadership candidates if they were better known, and concluded that ‘without the advantage of recognition, Ken Clarke would no longer be the front-runner’ (‘Clarke’s advantage fades away’). But surely what your poll actually shows is that Ken Clarke is, in fact, the only man for the job. It demonstrates both that Clarke is (leaving aside hypothetical situations) the only candidate people have heard of and how important this recognition factor is.
How is it that Labour is in its third consecutive term? The fact is that the lies, broken promises and control freakery are all ignored when the time comes to vote. What counts is Blair’s charisma and the fact that we feel we know him. No Conservative leader in recent years has made much of a dent in the average Briton’s political awareness. They are either forgotten instantly or seen as the ruthless inheritors of Thatcher’s regime. Hence the Lib Dem revival. The Tory leadership will only be of interest to the general public if Ken Clarke is the winner. And he is certainly the only candidate who can set the party on the path to victory in the next general election.
Janet Irven
Shaftesbury, Dorset
Pope John and gay clergy
Damian Thompson is mistaken if he thinks that alleged proposals to bar those with homosexual predilections from the priesthood are new (‘Is the Pope a homophobe?’, 1 October). Pope John XXIII approved a binding instruction to religious which stated, ‘Advancement to religious vows and ordination should be barred to those who are afflicted with evil tendencies to homosexuality or pederasty, since for them the common life and the priestly ministry would constitute serious dangers.’ The document was promulgated by the Vatican’s Sacred Congregation for Religious on 2 February 1961.
Jeremy Wilkinson
Woodford Green, Essex
Matthew Pangloss
Your very own Pangloss, Matthew Parris, misreads Voltaire’s Candide (Another voice, 1 October). Mr Parris asserts that ‘the argument Voltaire parodies never did include the claim he mocked’. As any French baccalaureate student knows, in Candide Voltaire was attacking quite specifically the theory of optimism of Leibniz and Wolff as well as superstition and dogma generally. For Mr Parris to claim that Voltaire was attacking a dogma that did not exist is therefore quite wrong. Could it be Mr Parris who is cheating in debate?
Jonathan MillervAlfold, Surrey
Pauline epistles
Paul Johnson may not be aware that animal sacrifice continues in the practice of one ancient, albeit heterodox, Christian denomination, namely the Armenian Apostolic Church (And another thing, 1 October). I was among a party of British tourists who encountered the sacrifice and subsequent butchery of a sheep in the curtilage of a church in rural Armenia last year.
Donald Roy
London SW15
Pleasingly nostalgic as they are, Paul Johnson’s meanderings in Oxford redivivus (And another thing, 24 September) might have disclosed that the don expelled from a fellowship at Magdalene College, Cambridge in 1929 for keeping condoms in his drawers (described then as ‘engines of love’) was the poet and critic William Empson.
Anthony Ozturk
Bulle, Switzerland
Sea change
I am delighted to discover that Peter Oborne has the power to move, if not mountains, at least towns and have the rain driving into Blackpool from the North Sea (‘One speech can make or break the next Tory leader’, 1 October). Blackpool is, of course, on the Irish Sea coast.
Edward Andrews
Haddington, East Lothian
Teenage kicks
Mark Palmer misses the point about the dreaded skiing boots. I was an older member of the skiing party (Travel, 24 September). From the top bunks of the six-berth couchette my cousin and I maintained order by a quick kick to any of the younger children who were annoying us (which sometimes included Mark and his brother).
Jenny Nicholson
London SW4
New Labour-speak
Is Mr Blair supplementing his meagre salary by acting as a freelance writer? Mr David Cameron’s article (‘Time for a completely new party’, 1 October) was a triumph of New Labour-speak.
D. Gatehouse
London SW3
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