Letters: Labour’s crusade against private schools should be a warning to voters

Hatred on campus

SIR – My heart sank when I read the article by Camilla Tominey on how Leeds University is becoming a hostile environment for Jewish students (Comment, March 23).

Leeds is also my alma mater. Between 1957 and 1960, I studied economics and accountancy. We were a much smaller cohort of students than attends today, but even then we were a very international bunch.

As well as the British students, in my own small group we had male and female students from Ghana, China, Thailand, India, the West Indies and Egypt, and we welcomed a student from Hungary who had fled the Soviet repression of 1956. Two of our group were Jews. We were wealthy and poor and of various religions mixing equally and equably. We never suffered racism or any form of hate.

Fortunately we did not have social media to stir up unwanted passion, and I grieve for modern students who are faced with a barrage of unsolicited hate. 

Modern media should have higher standards and recognise that free speech does not include the right to hurt, to incite and promote violence, to distribute pornography or violate privacy.

John Jacklin
Darwen, Lancashire

SIR – Why does Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s First Minister, hate me? I’m a poor old Tory who never did him any harm, but he wants to cast me out. 

Once the legislation against hate crimes comes in (Comment, March 25), will he and Nicola Sturgeon – who admitted to hating Tories – be prosecuted? If not, why not?

Sue Hood
Ardersier, Inverness-shire

Women at the Carlton

SIR  – “Even places like the Carlton,” Ed Cumming notes, have admitted women as members (“One squeak from the Guardian and the MI6 boss caved in”, Features, March 22). 

The Carlton Club certainly took its time. From the 1920s until 1958, a separate Ladies’ Carlton Club existed, lavishly equipped with squash courts and a swimming pool. 

Agitation for a change in the Carlton’s rules began after Margaret Thatcher became Conservative leader in 1975. The Carlton got round the immediate problem by making her an honorary member, just like all her predecessors, since, curiously, women were not barred from that category of membership. 

Two years later, women started to be admitted as associate members, paying a lower subscription – much to the delight of the financially prudent among them. By the 1990s their admission as full members had gained wide support, creating bitter division within the club. A number of members resigned. Two votes in 1998 and another in 2000 produced a majority for change, but not the two-thirds majority that the club’s rules stipulated. That was finally obtained in 2007, the year of the club’s 175th anniversary.

Lord Lexden (Con)
London SW1
 

Car-park coffee

SIR – Waitrose coffee drinkers (Letters, March 20) are the bane of my life. 
While I and other customers are driving round the car park looking for a space, they’re sitting in their car drinking their free cup of coffee. 
They’ve done their shopping, they’ve got their drink; they should promptly take it home and stop blocking up the car park.
Cliff Mills
Ketton, Rutland

Zoos’ modern role

SIR – Some major tour operators are dropping visits to zoos (report, March 15). This is short-sighted, as many zoos are vital in helping the conservation of endangered species by breeding and releasing them in the wild. 

Small amphibians, rare marmosets and gorillas have all been successfully bred and released into safe habitats by zoos, including Chester, Jersey and Howletts Wildlife Park in Kent.

These conservation centres rely on visitors to help pay for the research required and the upkeep of animals, so tour operators should be proud to support this vital work and publicise that they are doing so. 

I suggest that the name be changed from “zoo” to something more appropriate to their modern role, such as “wildlife conservation centre”, to counter out-of-date perceptions.

Zoos also play a valuable role in educating people, especially youngsters, about the plight of much of the planet’s wildlife.

David Munden
Wye, Kent
 

Crime commissioners

SIR – I am interested to have received a ballot card in the post yesterday morning for the election of a police and crime commissioner for Suffolk.
 
Apart from considering that the money spent on this would be better used for crime prevention, I have no idea who the current local police and crime commissioner is, nor what they have achieved for my community. 
What should I do with my vote?

Terry Holloway
Great Wratting, Suffolk
 

Sugar-free Easter eggs

SIR – My wife is among the estimated seven per cent of British adults who have Type 2 diabetes. I have searched our local supermarkets for a sugar-free Easter egg to give her, without any success. Surely at least one chocolate maker should provide for this forgotten group.

Derrick G Smith
Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex

Pleasing pylons 

SIR – Very modern-looking pylons (Letters, March 25) were recently installed from Hinkley Point to Avonmouth. Everyone will have a personal opinion on the new style, but for me they look so much better than the old structures.

Rod Cook
Clapton-in-Gordano, Somerset
 

Time to doff the hat to a stylish British tradition

SIR – We have a fabulous tradition of hat wearing. Top hats, boaters, flat caps, fedoras, bowlers, trilbies and Panamas have all been sported and enjoyed by previous generations. Hats are stylish and protect us from the weather.

Now the default is that abominable American import, the baseball cap, which has the effect of making the wearer look less intelligent.

I understand that this Thursday is National Wear a Hat Day. Time to fight back. 

Nigel Dickinson
High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire
 

The schism between Church and congregation

SIR – Madeline Grant (Comment, March 6) writes of the growing disconnect between lay members of the Church of England and its leaders. 

The comments of the Ven Miranda Threlfall-Holmes, Archdeacon of Liverpool, that she wished to promote anti-whiteness and smash the patriarchy (report, March 25) are further evidence of that schism. 

While lay members volunteer to keep their churches going and to be a force for good in the community, senior clergy seem determined to reinvent the Church of England as Black Lives Matter at prayer.

Norman Mallabar
Durham

SIR – I awoke yesterday with slight doubts about my decision to become a Roman Catholic next year after more than seven decades as an Anglican. Reading the remarks of the Archdeacon of Liverpool rapidly resolved them.

John Cherry
Lancaster

SIR – Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, is right to be critical of the Diocese of Birmingham for advertising for a “deconstructing whiteness officer”, but wrong to characterise its approach as mere management babble. 

In fact it is the product of the creeping influence of critical race theory – an insidious body of ideas that seeks to stratify and divide our culture along the lines of racial identity. 

Mathew Patey
Oxford

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