Letters

Tax breaks for families Sir: Hugo Rifkind is wrong to imply (6 July) that the current income tax system is indifferent to family structure, and thus the Conservative party’s attempt to give tax breaks to married couples is ‘a blatant attempt at social engineering’. Is it not social engineering when the current system demands more tax

Medical waste Sir: Susan Hill’s article (‘Patient, heal thyself’, 29 June) dealt only with the unnecessary visits to GPs for minor ailments. In Wales we have an extra incentive to waste GPs’ time — all prescriptions are free. There are many people who are prepared to make a GP appointment just to get routine medicines

We’ve only just begun Sir: In Ross Clark’s article ‘Cuts, what cuts?’ (22 June), he suggested that I was boasting about saving the taxpayer £5.5 billion. It’s true: I’m proud of my department’s Efficiency and Reform Group and the work of civil servants across Whitehall who have sliced out wasteful spending. But the figures he

Being good without God Sir: It is a rash person who tangles with the Chief Rabbi, but his piece on ‘Atheism and barbarism’ (15 June) shocked me. After championing until his last paragraph the old lie that religious belief is a necessary foundation for morality, he suddenly says he doesn’t believe ‘that you have to

Legal squabbles Sir: Harry Mount’s angry and unfocused polemic (‘Against the Law’, 8 June), demonstrates a fundamental ignorance of the British legal system. That is surprising from a former barrister, even if he never practised after pupillage. British justice is revered worldwide, and for good reason. Rather than deal with the disastrous effects the proposals

HS2 v broadband Sir: Rory Sutherland (The Wiki Man, 25 May) is rightly sceptical of HS2, but in limiting his remarks only to the transport of people, he is still too kind. Why spend 20 years building Victorian technology when the infrastructure of the future will be a broadband network of far greater capacity than exists

Stay Conservative Sir: Dr John Hyder-Wilson wrote (Letters, 11 May) of my calls to ‘shift Tory party policy rightward’ to meet a threat from Ukip, which he felt was inconsistent as he could not remember me advocating a leftward shift in response to a threat from the SDP/Alliance in the early 1980s. Of course he

The other side of fracking Sir: Peter Lilley’s article on fracking (‘The only way is shale’, 11 May) is right to outline the role that shale can play in addressing Britain’s energy crisis, creating jobs, and generating tax revenues. But he is guilty of several errors and omissions. First, he ignores the concerns of local

One-nation Toryism Sir: When my late father, John McKee, stood as Conservative candidate for South Shields in the 1970 general election he gained 19,960 votes, more even than David Miliband in the same constituency 40 years later. In last week’s by-election in the South Shields constituency, the Conservative candidate attracted only 2,857 votes. Many things

Goers and go-getters Sir: In her interesting article on the rising equality in the female world (‘Sex and success, 27 April), Alison Wolf states that A*/top-stream girls stay virgins until 20 ‘because they have more important things on their minds’. I am not sure about this. I certainly remember that this was not the case

Lady Thatcher’s club Sir: Charles Moore’s excellent paragraph (Notes, 20 April) on Baroness Thatcher’s life achievement in the context of much less social advantage than that of Sir Winston Churchill concludes on one mildly false assertion: ‘At the end, as at the beginning, she had no club.’ In fact, from 1978 until the end, she

What to do about PMQs Sir: Charles Moore (Notes, 6 April) is right to propose that Prime Minister’s Questions revert to the long-standing previous practice of two 15-minute sessions a week (on a Tuesday and Thursday) in place of the current 30-minute session. Tony Blair introduced the present arrangement at the beginning of his premiership

Health tourists must pay Sir: The extent of the use made by non-entitled patients from abroad (‘International Health Service’, 6 April) should come as no surprise. This increasing stream of information demonstrating the volume and variation will cause even louder gasps and shock. The NHS is the standard-bearer of the politics of equality and, like

Quantitative ease Sir: Unlike Louise Cooper (‘The great savings robbery’, 30 March), I don’t have a problem with inflation or quantitative easing. It’s the perfect tax: painless, easy to collect and fair. It’s painless because after having been collected you still have the proverbial pound in your pocket. OK, it’s worth less — but as

Right to say NO Sir: Three cheers for the Spectator NO! (‘Why we aren’t signing’, 23 March). I would rather be informed by the slimiest of Fleet Street’s journalists or the rudest blogger than any one of Westminster’s incompetents. Dr A.E. Hanwell York   Sir: Perhaps our newsagents should split the papers they sell into

Joining the club Sir: As Robert Hardman notes (Royal notebook, 16 March), not only is the C back in FCO but these days there is a waiting list of countries interested in joining, or being more closely associated with, the Commonwealth. I have a list of at least half a dozen, and even some strong

Sir David must stand down Sir: Reading the reports of Sir David Nicholson’s evidence before the House of Commons Health Committee on 5 March 2013 (Leading article, 9 March), it seems to me inconceivable that he could remain in his post. We are informed by the Prime Minister that in the current circumstances the NHS

Gove’s history lessons Sir: ‘The idea that there is a canonical body of knowledge that must be mastered,’ says Professor Jackie Eales, ‘but not questioned, is inconsistent with high standards of education in any age.’ This is not true. Primary education is, or should be, all about just such a body of knowledge. This gives

Healing the world Sir: We most warmly commend the courage of Professor Meirion Thomas (‘The next NHS scandal’, 23 February) in lifting the lid on the appalling abuse of the NHS by foreign visitors. It has been going on for years but has been covered up by the culture of fear that has pervaded that