Sir, Not for the first time, I find myself out of step with the politically correct mainstream.

Fast-tracking a visa application or letting someone have a free rail ticket are reprehensible but in my view are minor perks of the Home Secretary’s job (letters, December 4, etc). Allegedly stealing another man’s wife and forcing oneself into his family as a second father figure with untold consequences seem to me of vastly greater significance for the moral character of the man.

To say that this kind of private behaviour in an exalted public servant should be of no concern to the rest of us is to say that it no longer matters to us; or that it no longer matters to us to have immoral men in positions of power, privilege and prestige. Either way, we deserve the resulting moral climate.

As we have an Established Church, the proper person to be conducting the review of the affair is the Archbishop of Canterbury, not an economist.

Yours faithfully,
MICHAEL BRIGHT,
33 Lakeside,
Oxford OX2 8JF.
mhbright@btinternet.com
December 6.

From the Reverend D. C. Johnson

Sir, Steal a man’s car and be labelled a thief. Steal his wife and be called by the Prime Minister a man of “great integrity” and by the leader of the House of Commons “one of the straightest people” he has known.

No wonder Jesus said to Pilate: “My Kingdom is not of this world” (John xviii, 36).

Yours faithfully,
DAVID JOHNSON,
13 High Kingsdown,
Bristol BS2 8EN.
December 6.

From Mr W. Dixon Smith

Sir, Tony Blair’s assessment of Sir Alan Budd as a man of “unimpeachable integrity” is indisputable. However, Sir Alan is inquiring into the Blunkett affair and, as the matter of the misused rail pass has once more demonstrated, in politics integrity simply means owning up once you’ve been found out.

Yours sincerely,
WILLIAM DIXON SMITH,
6 Welland Rise,
Acomb,
York YO26 5HH.
December 6.

From Mr P. B. Soul

Sir, Would it be possible for a consortium of newspapers to arrange for the production of The Daily Blunkett for a while, thus continuing to satisfy what is apparently a national need but releasing their own space for other news?

Yours faithfully,
PETER SOUL,
51 Lakeside,
Earley, Reading,
Berkshire RG6 7PG.
December 5.

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