It takes a special sort of rudeness to decide that the customer is not only wrong, but a twerp who can take his complaint and “stick it”.

In Britain, we pride ourselves equally on our politeness and our ability to give offence. We are also uniquely good at insulting the very people we are supposed to be most polite to: the customer, the client, the reader, the guest and the voter.

Anyone who provides a service may feel a sneaking sympathy for David Clelland. You have spent all day working hard – whether filling the supermarket shelves, serving the hotel guests or listening to your constituents – and then someone you have never met sends a letter or e-mail tearing a strip off you. The red mist descends. Mr Clelland’s mistake was to put his red mist into words.

But he is not alone. Anthony Cobley, managing director of the Atlantic Hotel in Newquay, recently hit the headlines after sending a spectacularly rude letter to a woman who had been refused a glass of tap water in his restaurant and then dared to complain.

“I buy the water from the South West Water Company. I buy the glasses the water is served in. I buy the ice that goes in the water and I buy the labour to serve the water . . .

and you think I should provide all this free of charge,” ranted this reincarnation of Basil Fawlty. “Customers who only drink water and complain about paying for it I can certainly do without.”

Fawlty Towers is squirmingly funny because it so thoroughly subverts the notion that the customer is always right: “You ponce in here expecting to be waited on hand and foot, while I’m trying to run a hotel,” Basil screams. “Have you any idea of how much there is to do? Do you ever think of that? Of course not, you’re all too busy sticking your noses into every corner, poking around for things to complain about . . .”

In 222 years, The Times has very occasionally received a rude letter of complaint, but has never responded in kind, so far. Kelvin MacKenzie, however, former Editor of The Sun, was once heard shouting down the telephone at a woman reader who had called to complain: “Right! You are now banned from reading The Sun.” Her husband later called to inquire whether he was banned too. He was.

Anyone tempted to send a rude letter, or to send an offensive reply to a rude letter, might well follow the example of the late, great Colonel Alfred Wintle, an eccentric and irascible figure who was imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1939 for trying to steal an aircraft with which he intended to invade France, single-handedly. In 1946, Colonel Wintle wrote to The Times from the Cavalry Club: “Sir, I have just written you a long letter. On reading it over, I have thrown it in the wastepaper basket. Hoping this will meet with your approval, I am Sir . . .”

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