Letters

Violent by nature Sir: Amongst the sociological why-oh-why-ery trying to explain the motivation of the rioters, the simplest explanation has been overlooked: human nature is utterly violent and wicked. Conservatism — the heir of Christianity in this respect — realises this. Recent work on violence in hunter-gatherer societies has demolished sociological explanations of violence: it

Press complaint Sir: Charles Moore’s comments on the PCC last week (The Spectator’s Notes, 6 August) contained several significant inaccuracies. Lord Wakeham didn’t leave the chairmanship of the commission as a result of criticisms from the Telegraph that he wasn’t handling complaints impartially. He stood down, as a matter of honour, after he was tangentially implicated in

Spectator readers respond to recent articles REASONS TO DISLIKE THE WEALTHY Sir: There is much good sense in what Tim Montgomerie writes (‘Afraid of being right’, 30 July), but if his views are to triumph, those who support them need to understand that the people of Great Britain do not hate the wealth-creators because they

The right path Sir: I have always had the greatest respect for Matthew Parris’s incisive comments. However, in his latest column (23 July), he misreads Tory supporters. The Conservative Home survey was statistically accurate. The views expressed were those of thousands of voters and reflect their opinions on ‘U-turn Cameron’. The most frequent comment about

Spectator readers respond to recent articles Selective indignation Sir: People are — quite correctly — very offended by the phone-hacking antics of the News of the World journalists and editors. But did any of these (now) horrendously affronted guardians of the rights of individual privacy give the slightest damn when similarly disgusting reporters were so gleefully reporting

No defending the tabloids Sir: Toby Young (Status anxiety, 9 July) suggests that we are only shocked by tabloid phone-hacking scandals because we are ignorant of the ways of tabloid journalism. He seems then to equate phone-hacking hacks with ‘these Fleet Street foot soldiers’ who are busy protecting us from becoming French (shudder) — i.e.

Back at Black Sir: With one exception, Conrad Black’s article (‘I’ll be back’, 2 July) is a succession of inaccuracies and outright lies. Among the most blatant is his assertion that he received a payment of $6 million in compensation for libel from Richard Breeden and the Special Committee which investigated and reported the frauds

Child benefit? No thanks! Sir: I was particularly struck by Melanie McDonagh (‘What women want’, 25 June) trotting out the same old complaint about the ‘cloth-eared’ decision to take child benefit off families in the higher tax bracket. How and why have we got ourselves into a situation where even middle-class journalists think that they

Gove’s moves Sir: If Michael Gove (‘On the edge of his seat’, 18 June) really wants to do something about exams, then he would bring back O-levels in place of GCSEs. But that would entail denouncing the Prime Minister who made the change, formerly the education secretary who closed more grammar schools than were left

Missions impossible Sir: I hesitate to challenge Sherard Cowper-Coles’s concerns about our military chiefs (‘Who’s in command?’, 11 June), but it seems to me that they have a good reason for overplaying their hand with the politicians. The reality is that our armed forces are at best a third of the size they need to

Folly in Libya Sir: Congratulations to Andrew Gilligan and Hugo Rifkind (‘Oh, what a silly war’, 4 June) . You’ve shown exactly what the allied effort in Libya is — an expensive exercise in futility and a farce. Almost nobody outside a narrow band within the political-media class can see the point of having singled

Clarity? New Labour? Sir: I read with growing disbelief your leader ‘Lost Labour’ (14 May), but I now realise that it must have been intended as joke. ‘The tragedy of the Labour years was that so many good ideas were mooted…’; ‘The New Labour years can now be regarded as… a moment of clarity…’ You

The full Scottish Sir: Iain Martin (‘How to save the Union’, 14 May) has an excellent appreciation of the issues, bar one: what Scotland seeks is a return to statehood such as other nations have. The lack is grievous. Scotland does not have representation in important international bodies. We lack a commissioner in the European

Parting could be sweet Sir: Your leader (‘Disunited Kingdom’, 7 May) omitted to mention that if Scotland becomes independent, tens of thousands of British government jobs will be moved to England, and as many again from the private sector will invigorate our northern cities, as the financial organisations now based in Edinburgh will have to move

The Queen and I Sir: I did not expect Andrew Roberts (‘The meaning of a marriage’, 23/30 April), to agree with my New York Review of Books article on the royal family but, since he quoted from it, I would have thought he might have read it all the way through. True, the piece begins

Rubio for President? Sir: Richard Littlejohn’s idea of a President Rubio (‘Who will fight Obama?’, 16 April) is little more than wishful thinking. The Florida senator is at most a lukewarm conservative, which will become increasingly obvious over his six-year term. (Obama is only the second man in 50 years to go directly from Senate

Short memories Sir: Matt Cavanagh’s razor-sharp analysis (‘Operation Amnesia’, 9 April) chimes with the anecdotal evidence borne by friends returning from Afghanistan. But it is not just the soldiers who have made mistakes. Their political masters bear primary responsibility for initiating, in the first place, the unfunded strategic overstretch which goes beyond Afghanistan. The result

Expensive manners Sir: Ivor Roberts says that Oxford University is ‘taking the very best, whatever their background’ — and is not to blame if state schools no longer produce the very best (‘Oxford under siege’, 2 April). And yet studies have found that state-school pupils perform better at Oxford than their privately educated peers, relative

Let Libya split Sir: Back in the days of Good King Idris, I did archaeological fieldwork in Cyrenaica in which I traced the main water supply of ancient Ptolemais from its source to the city’s cisterns. I came to know my patch pretty well and I feel that Peter Jones (‘The two Libyas’, 26 March)