Burchill’s flimsy faith
Sir: It is funny that it now falls to the Julie Burchills of this world, the old rebels of the cultural left, to speak up for Christianity in Britain (‘For God’s Sake’, 26 April). Good for her, I say, especially since she identifies Protestantism as the greatest force for liberty in this country — her argument is all the more convincing for being so unfashionable these days.
The trouble, however, is that to stand up for Christian values in a time of relativism and multi-faith confusion, it helps to at least have some faith in what you are saying. Burchill’s admission that she’s ‘too shallow’ to think about life and death is commendably honest, but it leaves us with a defence of the Church of England that amounts to little more than nostalgia for the old days and a fear that, if it weren’t for Christianity, all we would be left with is angry atheists and angrier Islamism. We can’t be a Christian country just because we don’t like the alternatives.
Arthur Gukhasian
London SW2
On losing my religion
Sir: I was very pleased to read Julie Burchill’s piece. I particularly liked her point about the link between Protestantism and political freedom. I have unfortunately lost my religious faith after 15 active years in the church. I find that these days the only honest position I can take is that of atheism. Reading her piece, I was reminded of a Jewish joke: Jewish atheists’ position is that they don’t believe in God, but they know He led Israel out of Egypt. Likewise, I am an atheist, but I am very much a Protestant atheist. I do not understand the joyless attitude of some militant atheists, who in eroding the respect for our shared Christian traditions leave the defences down to admit claptrap ‘spirituality’ and radical Islamism to fill the resultant emotional vacuum.
William Hagerup
Colchester, Essex
The rise and rise of crime
Sir: It is telling that, in boasting about the Thames Valley’s ‘historically low’ crime rates, Mr Stansfeld (Letters, 26 April) limits his scope to only 40 years. For a picture of England before 1974, I would recommend he have a read of Gertrude Himmelfarb’s The Demoralisation of Society, which details how rapidly crime rates have risen since Victorian times. She writes: ‘In England between 1857 and 1901, the rate of indictable offences (serious offences, not including simple assault, drunkenness, or vagrancy) declined by almost 50 per cent. The absolute numbers are even more graphic: while the population grew from 19 million to 33 million, the number of serious crimes fell from 92,000 to 81,000.
‘By 1991 the rate was ten times that of 1955 and 40 times that of 1901. In 1955, the anthropologist Geoffrey Gorer remarked upon the extraordinary degree of civility exhibited in England, where “football crowds are as orderly as church meetings”.’
Will Orr-Ewing
Hong Kong
Cyberchondria is rife
Sir: Mary Wakefield’s article about how we trawl the internet looking for answers to our minor medical problems rang true (‘When did life become a medical problem?’, 26 April). More worrying is the fact that visits to the GP surgery these days result in doctors appearing to do the very same. Let’s hope that they have a better idea of what they are looking for!
Thomas Jones
Brighton
Tyranny at Badminton
Sir: Richard Ryder (Books, 26 April) confines Queen Mary’s wartime tyranny at Badminton to the house, but it also extended to the estate. ‘Now, Aunt Mary,’ her niece the Duchess of Beaufort told her, ‘remember that those shrubs outside the stable wall are not to be touched.’ The next day Queen Mary took her out and every shrub was gone, revealing a naked wall which then had to be cemented and painted. ‘I’m so glad to see you like my yesterday’s work,’ she said.
Surely her spirit should be powerful enough to quell the outbreak of gay orgies with which the estate is currently afflicted.
Alistair Lexden
House of Lords, London SW1
Basements of Belgravia
Sir: I always enjoy reading Joan Collins’s Spectator diaries. Last week, Miss Collins wrote that Belgravia ‘is nothing but a long building site’. In the spirit that all politics is local, I hope the editor will indulge me to say that we are consulting on policies to stop the worst excesses of basement development in Belgravia, and that we have a full-time enforcement officer who is there to police builders who ignore good neighbourly conduct. Plus, we can also boast the lowest council tax in England.
Tony Devenish
Councillor, Westminster City Council
London SW1
A rail bargain
Sir: Charles Moore is right to be shocked ‘that it costs £43,000 to go to London five times a week for five years’ (Notes, 19 April). It doesn’t. The Stonegate fare-dodger, who eventually paid that amount, added a £20,000 sweetener to increase his chances of avoiding a criminal conviction. (It worked.)
A quick calculation would suggest that whereas a pound will convey you 5.5 miles to and from London by train, it would cost the same to drive a car that distance if one were able to extract 34 miles per gallon. If you did travel by car, then parking, congestion charge, additional travel time and chauffeur’s fees (if a strict comparison with the train is to be made) would suggest that the train is something of a comparative bargain.
Mark Shepherd
Godalming, Surrey
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