Spectator letters: Bernard Jenkin and the cabbies fight back, rising school fees, Nigel Lawson on aid

Private pain

Sir: A line in Alec Marsh’s article (‘Britain’s one-child policy’, 1 February) caught my eye; that school fees have ‘almost doubled in the past decade’. I recently found an 1823 bill for an ancestor’s attendance at dame school (broadly equivalent to a prep school) that was approximately £3 a term for full boarding. In the 1970s, seven generations later, my own prep school fees were just over £300 a term. Whilst this represents, in nominal terms, a little more than a doubling every generation; in real terms the growth in school fees over the 150 years averages less than 10 per cent a generation. However, one generation on and the bills I currently receive from my son’s prep school exceed £6,000; representing in real terms a 400 per cent increase over a single generation. At the bottom of every bill they helpfully offer various means of payment, although all feel as though they are through the nose.
Stephen Marsh
London WC2

Time to renegotiate

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Sir: The Spectator (Leading article, 1 February) accuses well over half of Conservative backbenchers of being ‘pointlessly destructive’. Our letter simply endorsed a unanimous recommendation of a respected all-party select committee of the House of Commons. For David Cameron to win the election, his party must address two problems. The first is that the EU is a failing and unaccountable institution that is encroaching upon UK freedoms and competitiveness. The second is that by capitalising upon the increasing opposition to the EU, Ukip threatens to deliver dozens of seats to Labour at the next election. You recognise our letter ‘has its merits’. Most Conservatives hope that these merits will be recognised in the next Conservative manifesto. Such an approach would deliver a more united party, also able to demonstrate that a majority Conservative government would have a credible and popular EU negotiating strategy.