French drain

You report that the D-Day event was intended by the French to commemorate just themselves and the Americans (Sarkozy hijacks Longest Day, World News, last week); and the new sewer tunnel will run through London, ending out towards the Thames estuary (Business). Why stop there?

Alan Broad
Headington,
Oxford

Birth control

I read that a young woman who did not score highly enough in an IQ test is to have her daughter forcibly removed (Mother ‘too stupid’ to keep child, News, last week). What next? A court order requiring that she be sterilised to stop such a necessity arising again?

John Coles
Kingsbury Episcopi,
Somerset

Bright breeders

If you live in Nottingham and want children, remember you will need A-levels.

Michael Lea
Tamworth,
Staffordshire

The spoils of war

Robert Harris (Frail, cowardly Winston saved us, News Review, last week) tells us that George Orwell “got many things wrong”. Harris, too, is not above elementary errors. He claims that at the Tehran conference in 1943 “Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin divided up the world into ‘zones of influence’ ”. Had, indeed, they done so perhaps we could have averted the worst of the cold war. They did no such thing as Roosevelt would not have anything to do with it and Stalin was loath to reveal his hand. Churchill made a bid to divide the Balkans (October 1944); America again stood ostentatiously to one side. By the time of Yalta (February 1945) it was already too late.

Jonathan Haslam
Professor of the History of International Relations
Corpus Christi College
Cambridge

Bad to verse

AA Gill’s review (Poetry on the box takes a turn for the verse, Culture, last week) misinformed readers that I “readily said” on the Today programme that “poets should be solitary, distanced and possibly consumptive and sexually ambivalent”. Anyone checking the BBC website for May 26 will hear no such sentiments from my lips. And anyone who knows my now half-century-long mission promoting performance poetry will know that isolation is as far from it as is accuracy from AA’s copy in this instance. That poets such as Keats were consumptive, and that a number of poets (like many other humans) have sexual divergences, are matters my interview with Ed Stourton did not go into. Also, please note that my name is spelt:

Michael Horovitz
New Departures/Poetry Olympics,
London W11

Public trough

Of 48 job advertisements in last Sunday’s paper no fewer than 31 were for the public sector, with one offering salaries from £80,000-£120,000. Good to see someone out to help recovery.

Mike Harmer
Chelmsford,
Essex

Rosy outlook

It’s charming to read about Rosie Boycott (Me, me, me is past its sell-by date, News Review, last week) discovering, like a child in a sweet shop, the delights of a lifestyle that’s not motivated by materialism. Is she unaware that many of her readers were brought up with such values and are unimpressed by wealth? I’m only sorry it took a broken leg to bring her to this new way of life. Welcome to the real world.

Paul Binney
Norwich,
Norfolk

Gordon’s taxing times
Gordon Ramsay seems to think it worthy of comment that he used his own money to bail out his business (Oh *!!?**! I’m well and truly cooked, News, last week). He should become an MP, then he could use ours.
Oliver Staines
Morpeth,
Northumberland

Apology

In our article (July 6, 2008) headlined Met Marksman gets £5,000 payout over ‘serial killer’ quip, we quoted a senior police officer saying the Met marksman was known as ‘Killer’ and that “he revelled in his nickname”. We have been assured by the marksman that he does not have that nickname and consequently could not possibly have revelled in it. We accept this and that his claim against Commander Sue Akers was not therefore hypocritical and we apologise for any embarrassment or distress this may have caused.

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